‘Scum of the earth’: Drug victims grill Purdue Pharma owners

By GEOFF MULVIHILL and JENNIFER PELTZ, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Angry, defiant and sometimes tearful, more than two dozen Americans whose lives were upended by the opioid crisis finally had their long-awaited chance Thursday to confront in court some members of the family they blame for fueling it.

Some tried to be forgiving — and some definitely didn’t — as for nearly three hours they addressed three members of the Sackler family who own Purdue Pharma, the company that makes OxyContin.

“I hope that every single victim’s face haunts your every waking moment and your sleeping ones, too,” said Ryan Hampton, of Las Vegas, who has been in recovery for seven years after an addiction that began with an OxyContin prescription to treat knee pain led to overdoses and periods of homelessness.

“You poisoned our lives and had the audacity to blame us for dying,” he said. “I hope you hear our names in your dreams. I hope you hear the screams of the families who find their loved ones dead on the bathroom floor. I hope you hear the sirens. I hope you hear the heart monitor as it beats along with a failing pulse.”

<p>Kathleen Scarpone, left, of Kingston, N.H., and Cheryl Juaire, second from left, of Marlborough, Mass., protest in front of the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard University, April 12, 2019, in Cambridge, Mass. Scarpone, who lost her son to OxyContin addiction, and Juarie addressed three Sackler family members during a virtual U.S. Bankruptcy Court hearing Thursday.</p>

AP Photo/Josh Reynolds

Kathleen Scarpone, left, of Kingston, N.H., and Cheryl Juaire, second from left, of Marlborough, Mass., protest in front of the Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard University, April 12, 2019, in Cambridge, Mass. Scarpone, who lost her son to OxyContin addiction, and Juarie addressed three Sackler family members during a virtual U.S. Bankruptcy Court hearing Thursday.

The unusual hearing was conducted virtually in U.S. Bankruptcy Court at the suggestion of a mediator who helped broker a deal that could settle thousands of lawsuits against Purdue over the toll of opioids, generating billions for the fight against the addiction and overdose crisis and giving Sackler family members protection from lawsuits.

Appearing via audio was Richard Sackler, the former Purdue president and board chair who has said the company and family bear no responsibility for the opioid crisis; he is a son of Raymond Sackler, one of the three brothers who in the 1950s bought the company that became Purdue Pharma. Attending on video were Theresa Sackler, a British dame and wife of the late Mortimer D. Sackler, another of the brothers; and David Sackler, Richard Sackler’s son.

Theresa’s and David’s expressions remained largely neutral as people spoke on video about the pain of losing children after years of trying to get them adequate treatment, about their own journeys through addiction, and about caring for babies born into withdrawal and screaming in pain.

Under court rules, the Sacklers were not allowed to respond to the victims, who were selected by lawyers for creditors in the case. Some victims addressed the Sacklers from a law office in New York; others were at their homes around the country.

Jannette Adams told of her late husband, Dr. Thomas Adams, who was a physician and church deacon in Mississippi and a missionary in Africa and Haiti. He became addicted to opioids after pharmaceutical representatives pitched them, she said. After a terrible decline, he died in 2015.

“I’m angry, I’m pissed, but I move on,” Adams said. “Because our society lost a person who could have made so many more contributions. … You took so much from us, but we plan to, through our faith in God, move forward.”

Kristy Nelson played for the Sacklers a tense recording of a 911 call in which she summoned police to her home the day her son Bryan died of an opioid overdose. The dispatcher asked whether his skin had gone blue; she said it was white. She said she replays the call in her mind daily.

Thursday was Richard Sackler’s 77th birthday, according to public records. Later this month, Nelson said, she and her husband will visit the cemetery on what would have been Bryan’s 34th birthday.

“I understand today’s your birthday, Richard, how will you be celebrating?” she said. “I guarantee it won’t be in the cemetery. … You have truly benefitted from the death of children. You are scum of the earth.”

Her husband, Bill, a judge in Indianapolis, added: “I seriously doubt that anything any of us say today to these people will have any effect whatsoever. When we are done, David and Theresa will do whatever billionaires and dames do. Richard will hang up his phone and go do whatever greedy billionaire cowards do on their birthdays.”

Jenny Scully, a nurse in New York, gave birth in 2014 while on OxyContin and other opioids prescribed years earlier when she was dealing with both breast cancer and injuries from an accident. She was told her baby would be healthy, Scully said, but the little girl has had a lifetime of physical, developmental and emotional difficulties.

“You have destroyed so many lives,’ she said, pulling her daughter into view. “Take a good look at this beautiful little girl your robbed of the person she could have been.”

The forum was unconventional for the White Plains, New York, courtroom of Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain, who on Wednesday gave tentative approval to key elements of a plan to settle thousands of lawsuits against the company.

“The nature of today’s proceedings are unique and important,” Drain said to open the hearing. “The past and ongoing impact of OxyContin on individual people has always been of critical importance in this case.”

The settlement agreement is estimated to be worth at least $10 billion over time. It calls for members of the Sackler family to contribute $5.5 billion to $6 billion over 17 years to fight the opioid crisis. That’s an increase of more than $1 billion over a previous version that was rejected by another judge on appeal. Most of the money would be used for efforts to combat the crisis, but $750 million would go directly to victims or their survivors.

The overall settlement, which still requires actions by multiple courts to take effect, provides more than $150 million for Native American tribes and over $100 million for medical monitoring and payments for children born in withdrawal from opioids.

The plan also calls for family members to give up ownership of the company so it could become a new entity with its profits dedicated to stemming the epidemic. In exchange, Sackler family members would get protection from lawsuits over opioids.

The family also agreed not to oppose any efforts to remove the Sackler name from cultural and educational institutions they have supported and to make public a larger cache of company documents.

Thursday’s hearing may be the closest thing to a trial for Sackler family members, who victims say helped spark and prolong the epidemic.

Purdue Pharma starting selling OxyContin, a pioneering extended-release prescription painkiller, in 1996. At the same time, Purdue and other drug companies funded efforts to get doctors and other prescribers to think differently about opioids — suggesting they be used for some pain conditions for which the potent drugs were previously considered off limits.

Over the decades, there were waves of fatal overdoses, first associated with prescription drugs and then, as prescriptions became harder to obtain and some drugs became harder to manipulate for a quick high, from heroin. More recently, fentanyl and similar drugs have become the biggest killer.

Purdue has twice pleaded guilty to criminal charges, but no members of the Sackler family have been charged with crimes. There are no indications that any such charges are forthcoming, although seven U.S. senators last month asked the Department of Justice to consider charges.

Sackler family members have expressed regret for the crisis but have never unequivocally apologized.

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