Oregon’s attorney general filed a new lawsuit against Purdue Pharma on Thursday, but the latest complaint also targets the company’s owners.
Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum alleged that Purdue Pharma and eight members of the Sackler family took billions of dollars out of the company, transferred the money to their own accounts and continued to illegally market OxyContin, alleging that they have known for 20 years that OxyContin was addictive and deadly.
Rosenblum filed a lawsuit against the company in 2018, alleging that Purdue had put Oregon’s senior citizens in danger by misleading them about the risks and benefits of OxyContin.
Oregon had originally filed a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma, which was settled in 2007. At that time, Rosenblum alleged, the company was afraid lawsuits and civil investigations would bring it down, and it began taking funds out of the company and putting them into personal accounts.
Rosenblum alleges that the Sackler family set up “a massive network of shell companies and subsidiaries" to which they transferred money from the company. She alleges that they starved the company of funds and stunted its growth.
According to a news release from the attorney general’s office, Oregon is the first state to sue the Sackler family.
“Over the past decade, the destruction that OxyContin has caused has skyrocketed — and it is clear we must go even further to ensure this company is held to account for its egregious misconduct, including violating their 2007 negotiated agreement,” Rosenblum said in the release.