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A judge is expected to sentence OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma to forfeit $225 million to the Justice Department on Tuesday, clearing the way for the company to finalize a settlement of thousands of lawsuits it faces over its role in the opioid crisis.<\/p>\n
The penalty was agreed to in a 2020 pact to resolve federal civil and criminal probes it was facing. If the judge signs off, other penalties will not be collected in return for Purdue settling the other lawsuits.<\/p>\n
After years of\u00a0legal twists and turns, the settlement was\u00a0approved by another judge\u00a0last year and could take effect May 1. It requires members of the Sackler family who own the company to pay up to $7 billion to state, local and Native American tribal governments, some individual victims and others.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a look at the situation.<\/p>\n
The sentence was years in the making<\/h2>\n Purdue\u00a0pleaded guilty to three federal criminal charges\u00a0in November 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t\t
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\t\t\t\tSTAT Plus: <\/span>Judge approves opioid settlement for Purdue Pharma and Sackler family members who own the companyThe Stamford, Connecticut-based company admitted that it did not have an effective program to keep its powerful prescription painkillers from being diverted to the black market, even though it told the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that it did.<\/p>\n
It also admitted that it paid doctors through a speakers program to prescribe the drugs and paid an electronic medical records company to send doctors information on patients that encouraged more opioid prescriptions.<\/p>\n
While Purdue produced only a fraction of the opioid pills that flooded the market in the 2000s, advocates have long seen aggressive sales of OxyContin as one of the touchstones of the crisis. At a 1996 event to rally Purdue\u2019s sales force, Richard Sackler, then a top Purdue executive and later president of the company, called for a \u201cblizzard of prescriptions.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Purdue is expected to pay $225 million, the government agreed in the plea deal not to collect $5.3 billion in criminal forfeitures and fines and $2.8 billion in civil liabilities. Instead, portions of that money are considered part of the broader settlement \u2014 and the federal government will receive a small slice of that.<\/p>\n
Up to $7 billion from Sackler family members<\/h2>\n The broader settlement calls for members of the Sackler family who own the company to contribute up to $7 billion over 15 years. Most of the money is to go to government entities to use to fight the opioid crisis.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s among the largest in a series of settlements by drugmakers, wholesalers and pharmacies in recent years \u2014 and the only major one that includes payments for some individual victims or their survivors.<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\tFDA to stress opioids\u2019 risk of overdose, death in new medication safety labels Together, the settlements are worth more than $50 billion, and most of the money is to be used to\u00a0address the overdose epidemic.<\/p>\n
Under the Purdue deal, members of the Sackler family would be shielded from lawsuits over opioids from those who agree to the payments.<\/p>\n
Purdue itself would cease to exist and be replaced by a new company, Knoa Pharma, which would operate for the public benefit and have a board appointed by the states.<\/p>\n
The reorganization is considered one of the most complicated ever. By the end of last year, Purdue had paid law firms and other professionals working on all sides of the case more than $1 billion, according to a court filing.<\/p>\n
The sentencing doesn\u2019t include the company\u2019s owners<\/h2>\n Members of the Sackler family have long been cast as villains in the opioid crisis, seeking to increase profits even as it became clear people were becoming addicted to OxyContin and overdosing.<\/p>\n
But no members of the family were charged.<\/p>\n
Family members received $10.7 billion in payments from Purdue from 2008 to 2018 \u2014 with nearly half of it used to pay taxes on behalf of Purdue. They have not been paid by the company since 2018 \u2014 and the last of them left Purdue\u2019s board in 2019.<\/p>\n
Under the settlement, they would not object if their\u00a0names are removed from museums and other institutions\u00a0they\u2019ve supported \u2014 something that\u2019s already been happening.<\/p>\n
Some victims are pushing for prosecutions<\/h2>\n More than 54,000 people with personal injury claims against Purdue voted to accept the settlement, and 218 voted against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t\t
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\t\t\t\tSTAT Plus: <\/span>\u2018Scum of the earth\u2019: Opioid crisis victims face Purdue Pharma ownersStill, some victims and their family members have been pushing back for years, asserting that the settlement and the guilty plea stop short of justice for victims of a crisis that has been linked to 900,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999.<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s sentencing is one more chance for them to make that case to a judge.<\/p>\n
Susan Ousterman\u2019s son, Tyler Cordiero, died at age 24 in 2020 after overdosing on a mixture that included fentanyl after years of using heroin and other opioids. She organized others who lost loved ones to deliver victim impact statements to the court ahead of the sentencing.<\/p>\n
She said the aim was to persuade the judge to reject the plea deal and for the U.S. Justice Department to pursue criminal charges against individuals, including Sackler family members.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be going to states and municipalities,\u201d said Ousterman, noting some governments have not yet used the funds they\u2019re received and others have used it in ways\u00a0not closely linked\u00a0to fighting the drug crisis. \u201cThey\u2019re not using that money effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 Geoff Mulvihill<\/p>\n
Associated Press reporter Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this article.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
A judge is expected to sentence OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma to forfeit $225 million to the Justice Department on Tuesday, clearing the way for the company to finalize a settlement of thousands of lawsuits it faces over its role in the opioid crisis. The penalty was agreed to in a 2020 pact to resolve federal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":81417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_daextam_enable_autolinks":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/AP26110560288105-1024x576.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}