| With
Opioids Verdict in Oklahoma SDNY Cases
Continue With Murky Pleas and Sentencings
By Matthew
Russell Lee,
Exclusive, Patreon
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
August 26 – Amid
the opioids and
corporate drug-dealing
crisis,
on August 26
Oklahoma judge
Thad
Balkman found
Johnson &
Johnson and
its
subsidiaries
helped fuel
the state’s
drug crisis and
ordered the
J&J
to pay $572
million to contributed
to
address the
problem. In the
SDNY it
was announced
on August 2:
"10:30 a.m. –
Proceeding of
interest in
U.S. v.
Dialecti
Voudouris –
the defendant
is charged
with
participating
in a scheme to
receive bribes
and kickbacks
in the form of
fees for sham
educational
programs from
a
pharmaceutical
company in
exchange for
prescribing
millions of
dollars’ worth
of a potent
fentanyl-based
spray
manufactured
by the pharma
company –
before Judge
Wood
(courtroom
26A, 500 Pearl
Street)."
Inner City
Press went
to the 26th
floor but the
courtroom was
locked. Checking
down in the
Magistrates
Court on the
fifth floor,
Ms. Voudouris
and her
lawyers were
quickly
pleading
guilty before
Magistrate
Judge Ona T.
Wang, to
taking money
from Insys to
push Subsys
to her
patients in exchange
for speaker
fees, that is,
kick-backs.
But
there was a
problem. Ms.
Voudouris
couldn't not
say that she
knew it was
illegal, in
2016, and a
Manhattan
speaker fee in
October 2014,
$3000, check
number 27558.
All
she could say
is it was
wrong. Or
wrongful. But
did she know
it was
illegal? She did
not say she
did.
Still the plea
was taken. The
Assistant US
Attorney said
they would -
would, not could -
show at trial
that she had
been trained
about the anti
kickback
statute. Is
that enough?
The sentencing
will not be,
by the
government's
request, until
after
Christmas.
Inner City
Press will
stay on this
case, working
for now
perched
over the PACER
terminal in
the 500 Pearl
Street Press
Room. Watch
this site.
While
many even most
cases in the
Magistrates
Court of the U.S.
District Court
for the
Southern
District of
New York are
sealed or have
case numbers
given only
later, on August
1 before
Magistrate
Judge Ona T.
Wang, at
least one
case had no
number at all.
A defendant
named Edwin
Gonzalez
was presented
as just in
from Rikers Island, remanded
on the
consent of his
CJA lawyer and
in need of methodone.
Later on
August 1, also
remanded but
with a case
number because
indicted and
extradited
from Estonia
which got
consular
notice was
Nikolai
Niftalijev,
charged with
narcotics
inportation
conspiracy.
He's set to
resurface on
August 6
before SDNY
Judge Oetken.
Inner City
Press aims to
be there.
Remands were
to the
Metropolitan
Correctional
Center - where
as Inner City
Press has exclusively
exclusively
reported
fellow
non-reporting
sex offender
Jeffrey
Epstein is
hogging the
legal meeting
room with paid
lawyers
working in
shifts so he
can be out of
his cell,
using the
Internet.
Inner
City Press
will continue
to try to find
the missing
cases on the
Press Room
PACER terminal
it has worked
perched over
for months.
Watch this
site.
O
***
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