Teva Pharmaceutical Company Found Liable in Landmark Opioid Trial
It is really good to see this! The more of these cases that are prosecuted the better the chance that the Sackler family will finally be cornered like the vicious pack of vipers they are.
The thing is, that when groups of smart people get together and work in tandem for an evil purpose, those collective minds all conspiring to keep their vicious deeds hidden in the shadows, may get away with it for a long time. Think Volkswagen, Wells Fargo and other combinations of people united around a duplicitous purpose!
The same applies to solo abusers who have a gift for charming their way out of tight spots so they can continue weaving their evil web. Think Larry Nassar, Bernie Madoff. The light eventually gets them all, but in human terms it can seem like the bad people never get caught.
Not true! Ask Teva Pharma.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/30/nyregion/teva-opioid-trial-verdict.html?smid=em-share
Pharmaceutical Company Is Found Liable in Landmark Opioid Trial
The case was the first of its kind, targeting every point of the prescription opioid supply chain, from manufacturers to pharmacy chains that filled prescriptions.
A jury on Thursday found that an opioid manufacturer and distributor contributed to the deadly opioid crisis in New York, inundating the state with prescription painkillers that led to thousands of deaths.
The American division of Teva Pharmaceuticals, an Israeli-based company that produces generic and branded opioids, and a handful of subsidiary companies were found liable in a sprawling, six-month trial that sought to reckon with the role that the pharmaceutical industry played in the opioid epidemic in two hard-hit New York counties and across the state.
The case is only the second opioid-related lawsuit to reach a jury verdict, among thousands of similar claims around the country filed by municipalities, tribes and states, who are closely watching these outcomes for hints about how to proceed in their own cases.
Last month, a federal jury in Ohio found three retail pharmacy chains liable for their role in the epidemic. But the New York trial is the first to include different types of companies in the opioid supply chain.
Jurors also said that New York State, which is supposed to enforce controlled substances laws, bore a modest portion of responsibility.
Lawyers for the state and the two counties, both on Long Island, had argued that the companies helped perpetuate a “public nuisance,” a legal claim that refers to a substantial, ongoing interference with a public right.
They accused Teva and its subsidiaries of downplaying the drugs’ addiction risk, marketing opioids for unapproved uses and failing to adhere to internal safeguards that are intended to prevent the drugs from flooding the market.
In recent years, public nuisance claims have been more typically applied in environmental pollution cases. But the expanded use in the public health domain, notably in the opioid cases and in accruing cases against makers of e-cigarettes, will almost certainly be taken up by appellate courts.
The trial was held on Long Island, where between 2010 and 2018, the rate of overdose deaths involving any opioid more than doubled, according to state data. In 2019, opioid overdose deaths climbed above 1,600 in Nassau County and rose above 3,000 in Suffolk County, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The amount that Teva and its companies will have to pay will be assessed at the so-called abatement phase of the trial, sometime in 2022.
“While no amount of money will ever compensate for the human suffering, the addiction, or the lives lost due to opioid abuse, we will immediately push to move forward with a trial to determine how much Teva and others will pay,” Letitia James, the state attorney general, said in a statement.
Jayne Conroy, a lawyer in private practice who represents Suffolk County and who has pursued opioid litigation for more than two decades, said the verdict was a just end to a complex case.
“After months of testimony and evidence, we have proven to a jury that both Teva and Anda have significantly contributed to this tragic epidemic,” Ms. Conroy said. “Hopefully we can begin to heal.”
The trial began at the end of June with more than two dozen defendants, including pharmaceutical companies that manufactured pain pills, distributors of the drugs and the pharmacy chains that filled the prescriptions.
The case was so vast initially that the trial was to be held in an auditorium at a Long Island law school. There was not a courtroom in Central Islip large enough to fit all the defendants and their legal teams.
Noting that the case was filed years ago, New York State Supreme Court Justice Jerry Garguilo added, “The trial itself has touched four seasons. We started in the spring. We went to the summer, we went to the fall and of course now we’re into the winter.” In total, he said, “It was an ultramarathon.”
As the months passed, defendants began to settle.
Defendants are always weighing whether to settle a case or take their chances with a jury, or even an appellate court. Days before the New York trial began, Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay $230 million, and as the months wore on, almost all defendants in the sweeping case agreed to multimillion-dollar settlements.
They included three major drug distributors, who settled in July for more than $1 billion combined. That settlement was part of a larger $26 billion agreement to which companies facing lawsuits for their role in the opioid crisis agreed to settle the raft of more than 3,000 lawsuits filed against them.
As the trial was coming to a finish, there were more settlements: Earlier this month, Allergan, a pharmaceutical company whose best-known product is Botox, was excised after it agreed to a $200 million settlement.
The money from the settlements will be spread to communities hit by the epidemic of opioids to use for addiction treatment and prevention programs. If certain conditions are met, the combined amount could reach $1.5 billion.
By the time closing arguments began, only a handful of defendants remained, all affiliated with Teva, which chose to take its chances with jurors.
The six-member jury was asked to determine whether the companies had played a role in perpetuating the opioid crisis in New York. Statistics suggest that the crisis has only worsened during the pandemic. Nationally, more than 100,000 people — a record number — died last year from overdosing on opioids, particularly black-market fentanyl, according to the C.D.C.’s provisional 2020 data.
The verdict was the third decided against a pharmaceutical company in the nationwide opioid litigation.
In the first, a 2019 bench trial brought by Oklahoma against Johnson & Johnson, a judge found in favor of the state. In the second, brought by two Ohio counties against national retail pharmacy chains, a federal jury found three companies liable.
But the litigation has had inconsistent outcomes, even for the same defendants. Elizabeth Burch, a University of Georgia law professor, called Thursday’s verdict “a pretty significant win,” especially in light of some recent setbacks for plaintiffs.
Last month, Oklahoma’s top court threw out a ruling that required Johnson & Johnson to pay the state for its role in the opioid epidemic. And in California, a state judge rejected the argument that opioid manufacturers, including Teva, contributed substantially to the opioid crisis in several counties.
The pharmacy chains in the Ohio case have already begun their appeals. And Teva, noting that the California judge ruled in its favor, has also said that it would appeal the ruling in New York.
A spokeswoman for the company said that the plaintiffs had “presented no evidence of medically unnecessary prescriptions, suspicious or diverted orders, no evidence of oversupply by the defendants — or any indication of what volumes were appropriate — and no causal relationship between Teva’s conduct including its marketing and any harm to the public in the state.”
Teva also announced that it would continue to seek a mistrial, in part because it said that plaintiffs’ lawyers had mischaracterized internal company videos as training instruction.
In the videos, sales executives parodied movie villains. In one, an executive, in the voice of the “Austin Powers” villain Dr. Evil, discusses pressing doctors to prescribe the company’s drugs over a competitor’s product. In a takeoff of “A Few Good Men,” a sales vice president said that representatives had quotas: “You can’t handle the truth,” he says. “Quotas have to be exceeded.”
Teva’s lawyers said the videos were intended as humorous spoofs, to enliven internal meetings.
Jurors deliberated for 9 days, wrestling with a series of complicated questions. They were asked to apportion responsibility among all defendants — even those that had already settled. And they had to determine blame among defendants separately for each of the two counties as well as the state.
In the end, the jury did not hold liable any of the defendants who had reached settlements. It placed almost all of the blame on the companies that had insisted on seeing the trial through to verdict.
Although the jury did not find that Nassau and Suffolk counties bore any responsibility for the epidemic, it did assign New York State 10 percent of the responsibility. The state is supposed to maintain its own rigorous safeguards for monitoring excessive pill orders.
Hunter Shkolnik, a lawyer for Nassau County, said the evidence presented at trial needed to be revealed so that the public could understand the company’s role in the crisis.
“Videos of sales meetings where they laughed, and they joked about the use of drugs like fentanyl that kill people, and how they owned the market and they made the markets,” Mr. Shkolnik said. “This is what the public needs to see.”
Sarah Maslin Nir covers breaking news for the Metro section. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her series “Unvarnished,” an investigation into New York City’s nail salon industry that documented the exploitative labor practices and health issues manicurists face. @SarahMaslinNir
Jan Hoffman writes about behavioral health and health law. Her wide-ranging subjects include opioids, tribes, reproductive rights, adolescent mental health and vaccine hesitancy. @JanHoffmanNYT
Lola Fadulu is a general assignment reporter on the Metro desk. @lfadulu
Kirkus Reviews, the gold-standard for independent & accurate reviews, has this to say about
What Goes Around Comes Around:
A stable, positive, non preachy, objective voice makes the book stand apart from others in the genre. A successful guide that uses anecdotes to reveal powerful truths about life.
~ Kirkus Reviews
“I’ve read a number of books that focus on sharing a similar message, including “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne, “The Answer” by John Assaraf & Murray Smith, “The Celestine Prophecy” by James Redfield, “Think and Grow Rich,” by Napoleon Hill, and I must say that I find Rob’s to be my favorite.” – Sheryl Woodhouse, founder of Livelihood Matters LLC
Teva Pharmaceutical Company Found Liable in Landmark Opioid Trial
Teva Pharmaceutical Company Found Liable in Landmark Opioid Trial
So, Chapter Two of the Jeffrey Epstein saga comes almost to a close. Almost, because we won’t know the final ending until we hear the sentencing, which is likely to be a doozie!
Sure, there will be an appeal and there have been shockers in the past, think R. Kelly in 2008. But this is not likely to be one of those.
So Ghislaine, was it worth it? The ride you had with your buddy Jeff, that is? Did the two of you simply mock the concept of Karma, Cause & Effect, What Goes Around Comes Around, different ways to say the same thing? Did you just buy his line that you were “Teflon Twins” and they’d never get you. What?
Please tell us, explain so there’s some way to think something good and worthwhile about at least you, cause its sure hard to find in this wreckage!
Colombo Family Crime Boss and 12 Others Are Arrested, Prosecutors Say
An indictment unsealed on Tuesday accuses the organization of orchestrating a two-decade scheme to extort a labor union.
For two decades, the leadership of the Colombo crime family extorted a Queens labor union, federal prosecutors said — an effort that continued unabated even as members of the mob clan cycled through prison, the family’s notorious longtime boss died, and as federal law enforcement closed in.
Over time, what began as a Colombo captain’s shakedown of a union leader, complete with expletive-laced threats of violence, expanded into a cottage industry, prosecutors said, as the Colombo organization assumed control of contracting and union business, with side operations in phony construction certificates, marijuana trafficking and loan-sharking.
On Tuesday, 11 reputed members and associates of the Colombo crime family, including the mob clan’s entire leadership, were charged in a labor racketeering case brought by the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn.
All but two of the men were arrested Tuesday morning across New York and New Jersey, prosecutors said. Another was surrendered to the authorities on Tuesday; another defendant, identified as the family consigliere, remained at large, prosecutors said.
The indictment accuses the Colombo family of orchestrating a two-decade scheme to extort an unnamed labor union that represented construction workers, using threats of violence to secure payments and arrange contracts that would benefit the crime family.
The charges are an ambitious effort by the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to take down one of the city’s five Mafia families. In addition to the union extortion scheme, which is the heart of the racketeering charge, the indictment charges several misdeeds often associated with the mob, including drug trafficking, money laundering, loan-sharking and falsifying federal labor safety paperwork.
Detention hearings for the defendants in Brooklyn federal court continued into the evening Tuesday, as they entered not-guilty pleas to the charges; prosecutors had asked the court to keep 10 of the defendants in custody.
“Everything we allege in this investigation proves history does indeed repeat itself,” Michael J. Driscoll, F.B.I. assistant director-in-charge, said in a statement. “The underbelly of the crime families in New York City is alive and well.”
Around 2001, prosecutors said, Vincent Ricciardo — a reported captain in the family, also known as “Vinny Unions” — began to demand a portion of a senior labor union official’s salary. When Mr. Ricciardo was convicted and imprisoned on federal racketeering charges in the mid-2000s, prosecutors said, his cousin continued to collect those payments.
Starting in late 2019, prosecutors said, the senior leadership of the Colombo family became directly involved in the shakedown, which extended to broader efforts to siphon money from the union: for example, manipulating the selection of union health fund vendors to contract with entities connected to the family, and diverting more than $10,000 each month from the fund to the family.
Andrew Russo, 87, who prosecutors describe as the family boss, is accused of taking part in those efforts, as well as a money-laundering scheme to send the proceeds of the union extortion through intermediaries to Colombo associates. He was among nine defendants charged with racketeering.
Mr. Russo appeared in court virtually from the hospital Tuesday; he is set to be detained upon his release, pending a future bail hearing.
The family’s infamous longtime boss, Carmine J. Persico, died in federal custody in North Carolina in March 2019.
Federal law enforcement learned of the extortion scheme about a year ago, prosecutors wrote in a court filing Tuesday; investigators gathered thousands of hours of wiretapped calls and conversations recorded by a confidential witness, wrote the prosecutors, who also described law-enforcement surveillance of meetings among the accused conspirators.
The authorities said they repeatedly captured Mr. Ricciardo and his associates threatening to kill the union official. “I’ll put him in the ground right in front of his wife and kids,” Mr. Ricciardo was recorded saying in June.
On another occasion cited by prosecutors in the memo seeking his detention, Mr. Ricciardo directed the union official to hire a consultant selected by the Colombo family, saying: “It’s my union and that’s it.” Prosecutors said his activities were overseen by a Colombo soldier and the consigliere who remains at large.
Much of the activity outlined in the indictment took place while the defendants were either in prison or on supervised release for prior federal mob-related convictions. Theodore Persico Jr., described as a family captain and soldier, was released from federal prison in 2020 and, despite a directive not to associate with members of organized crime, “directed much of the labor racketeering scheme,” prosecutors said.
Mr. Persico, 58, is set to inherit the role of boss after Mr. Russo, prosecutors wrote.
Several of the defendants were named in what prosecutors described as a fraudulent safety training scheme, in which they falsified state and federal paperwork that is required for construction workers to show they have completed safety training courses.
One of the defendants, John Ragano — whom prosecutors say is a soldier in the Bonanno crime family — is accused of setting up phony occupational safety training schools in New York, which prosecutors said were “mills” that provided fraudulent safety training certificates to hundreds of people.
In October 2020, prosecutors said, an undercover law enforcement officer visited one of the schools in Ozone Park, Queens, and received, from Mr. Ricciardo’s cousin, a blank test form and an answer sheet; weeks later, the agent returned to pick up his federal safety card and paid $500.
The purported schools were also used for meetings with members of La Cosa Nostra — the group of crime families commonly known as the Mafia — and to store illegal drugs and fireworks, according to the indictment.
Mr. Ragano wasn’t charged on the racketeering count, although prosecutors also sought his detention pending trial. In addition to the racketeering count, several defendants, including Mr. Ricciardo and his cousin, were charged with extortion, conspiracy, fraud and conspiracy to make false statements.
William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.
Correction:
An earlier version of this article misstated the number of people identified in an indictment as members of the Colombo crime family. It is 11, not more than a dozen.