A verdict came down yesterday for execs at Insys Therapeutics for their roles in a scheme that–the prosecution argued–poured gasoline on the opioid crisis fire:
I believe we wildly overincarcerate. I don’t thing the US prison system is effective at pretty much anything but serving as a kind of low-rent industrial policy for deindustrialized rural and exurban zones. I don’t generally argue that anyone should be left to rot simply to satisfy my sense of balancing the cosmic scales of justice.
John Kapoor, 76, the former chairman of Insys Therapeutics, was sentenced in Boston’s federal court after a jury found him guilty of racketeering conspiracy last May. The 10-week trial revealed sensational details about the company’s marketing tactics, including testimony that a sales executive once gave a lap dance to a doctor the company was wooing. Kapoor was also ordered to pay a $250,000 fine.
But we inhabit in the America that actually exists, not the one we’re trying to build, and in these United States, prison is exemplary…and lots of folks who didn’t eat in the executive dining room end up serving much more for crimes–even violent ones–that on the face of them would seem much less heinous than this:
Kapoor and others were accused of paying millions of dollars in bribes to doctors across the United States to prescribe the company’s highly addictive oral fentanyl spray, known as Subsys. The bribes were paid in the form of fees for sham speaking engagements that were billed as educational opportunities for other doctors…
During his trial, jurors heard from former employees who testified that Insys made a habit of hiring attractive women as representatives to boost sales of the drug. One former sales representative testified that a regional sales manager once gave a lap dance at a Chicago nightclub to a doctor Insys was pushing to write more prescriptions.
Jurors also were shown a rap video in which Insys employees danced and rapped around a person dressed as a giant bottle of the fentanyl spray. Prosecutors said the video was shown at a national sales meeting in 2015 and was intended to motivate representatives to push Subsys to doctors.
Lots of misery flows from such “hijinks.”
So. What do you think: is a year or five in the slammer appropriate for a drug pushing scheme that was national in scope and almost certain led to the suffering and death of a lot of people whose names we will likely never know?
Or…
Hell. I know where I come down.
If nothing else, given that corporations — they’re people, remember! — can’t go to jail in toto, and that I suspect executives are among the groups most likely to be deterred by the credible threat of hard time, this is a missed opportunity to put some muscle behind the notion of the rule of law.
Your views?
Open thread!
Kraux Pas
Hard time is for the little people.
pat
So if this was some guy selling drugs on the street corner, how long would he be in jail?
I suggest the same for these a-holes.
sdhays
@pat: How much did that Mexican cartel kingpin recently extradited and convicted in the US for drug-related crimes? That’s the standard for the CEO and executives, IMHO.
chris
@pat: Seconded!
Roger Moore
They will argue the drug they were pushing is legal, so it’s just fine for them to sell it however they can, but that’s bullshit. They were engaged in all kinds of illegality pushing these drugs, and the drugs most certainly did wind up in all kinds of places they shouldn’t. They should be prosecuted the same way we’d prosecute any other drug cartel. Break out RICO. Throw the whole upper management and all the corrupt salespeople in the slammer, and seize the company as a racketeering organization. Burn the place down and salt the fields.
patroclus
Schiff is just starting his final closing argument. I am definitely recording this for posterity because this is history. One of the nation’s finest lawyers ever making the final points in what could be an epic moment in the long American journey.
Keith P.
It used to be common knowledge that pharmaceutical companies hired hot women to market to doctors. They were one of the Holy Grails of dating when I was in my 20s. No joke
Nora
Why not create some kind of incarceration for the corporation itself? That is, it’s sequestered from public life; it’s not allowed to sell anything (including stock), hire anyone, do business of any kind — and the executives would be banned personally from working in this industry in any capacity — for a period of time, based on the severity of the offense.
You can execute a corporation, too, if need be. They may be artificial people, but they are created by the state and the state can cause them to dissolve as well.
Just thinking.
Emma from FL
We should start by deep-sixing the concept of a corporation as a person.
Baud
We should also, maybe, seriously question the medical profession for prescribing lap-danced induced pharmaceuticals.
Baud
@patroclus:
I don’t have a recording device, but I’ve come to expect everything will be on youtube.
Mnemosyne
FWIW, a 5-year prison sentence for a 76-year-old man is most likely a death sentence, so his lawyers will probably do anything they can to get it reduced even further.
smintheus
The executives should get 10 years in jail for every person who died from addiction who was prescribed their drug. 7 years for any lives ruined. No attractive women should be hired however to persuade their fellow prisoners to take any action regarding them.
Mnemosyne
And to address the actual point, I think it would make more sense to do a mass clemency of people whose sentences are too long rather than lengthen other people’s sentences, even if they are massively criminal assholes.
NotMax
If the plea deals entered into stipulated a shorter incarceration, that’s the way it is. Address complaints to the prosecution which crafted the deal, not to the sentence it provided. All in all I don’t see anything particularly egregiously out of whack with the sentences.
Granted have not read the full piece, but if fines for the corporation PLUS denial of entering into ANY federal contracts or sales for ANY of their products for a period at least equal to the maximum sentence was not included, that I’d have a problem with. Would also like to see any golden parachute agreements between those sentenced (and presumably no longer employed) and the corporation ordered inoperative, but legally I don’t know if such a covenant to the sentencing is feasible.
smintheus
@patroclus: Schiff made a great point about what it means when Trump insists that all those who expose his wrongdoing are traitors and spies.
karensky
@Emma from FL: Yes. 100%
NotMax
@patroclus
“He’s full of sh*t, you must convict.”
:)
(Of course know that in this venue Schiff wouldn’t stoop to such crass and meretricious theatrics.)
WaterGirl
@smintheus: I don’t think I’ve gotten to that part yet.
I think the 8 hous a day decision was total bullshit. No one can focus and truly take information in for that long at a time. I know, that was the point. Bastards!
Off to watch some more. Thank goodness for Tivo.
Mary G
@patroclus: Schiff is laying a big ole can of whoop ass on Twitler and the Republicans. Righteous indignation on steroids. He is rebutting all their arguments by name. Ken Starr, Dersh. The loathing and disdain are right there. I am kvelling.
grumbles
“The best way to repeal an unjust law is to apply it strictly.”
Procopius
@Roger Moore: When I remember that Obama pointed out, “… a lot of what [the banksters] did wasn’t illegal,” I think we need to restore a lot of it to being illegal. It isn’t illegal now because the legislatures and the courts have adopted the policy that we must move more money to the top. Remove the requirement of “res mensa,” the demand that the prosecution prove evil intent. Fraud can be determined by what was done, not by what was thought. Reenact Glass-Steagall. Hire some people at the SEC who want to make the stock market a market instead of a rigged casino. These things are hard because the crooks have the power, but we have to strive for them.
smintheus
@Mary G: The smack down of Ken Starr was delicious: ‘Starr is really saying that Bill Clinton’s mistake was in respecting a subpoena rather than declaring himself above the law like Trump.’
Hungry Joe
I believe that, except for 1) the most violent and 2) multi-repeat offenders, our prison sentences are way too long; locking someone up for even a few years seems a harsh punishment. I’ve heard that In Iceland the maximum sentence for everything but murder is seven years. (It’s 14 for murder, though I believe they only have one murderer locked up right now.) So seven years for this guy would sound fair to me.
The Pale Scot
I have long thought that white collar criminals should be flogged. To those prone to violence it would just be a badge of honor. But to some suburban bred accountant, the prospect would put focus on the consequences most vivid. And then a few years on the oars, “Row well and live”
Chip Daniels
Fines are laughable to these types. No matter the size, they always find a way to make the company pay, or others pay and even when they do pay, they are free to indulge in it again.
Prison time, no matter how short, terrifies the fuck out of white collar folks.
The Pale Scot
@NotMax: Loss of patents should good to me.
SiubhanDuinne
@patroclus: Schiff is preëmptively eviscerating the defense team. He’s delivering a fucking clinic. A thing of real beauty.
zhena gogolia
@patroclus:
This is remarkable.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
We have good people.
danielx
I read once, and came to accept after some thought, the following: Marxism as an economic/political policy pretty much fails. Marxism as an analytical tool, on the other hand, is pretty much on the money.
Fair Economist
@Nora: Death sentences for corporations sounds like a great option to me.
I agree this guy should be getting a sentence comparable to a street drug dealer, and five years is, if anything, short.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Nora: Sort of like the NCAA “Death Penalty” for schools with egregious rule violations.
debbie
Are my reading skills so bad I missed the artist credit for the painting?
Mary G
Schiff just talked about his 92-year-old father trying to enlist during WWII and I want to cry.
Mary G
You could hear a pin drop in the Senate right now.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
Absolutely. I go to an annual scientific conference. After the day’s scientific sessions are over, the scientific instrument vendors have suites where they try to sell their equipment. Naturally, they have snacks, booze, and fun little prizes to bring people in to hear the sales pitch. The ones who also sell medical devices have signs saying they are not allowed to give anything at all to people who are buying medical devices. We should hold drug companies to that kind of standard. Wining, dining, and lap dancing should be right out.
SiubhanDuinne
That was extraordinary. I haven’t felt this proud to be an American in … I can’t even remember how long.
I’m literally crying.
Roger Moore
@Procopius:
I agree with the rest of what you were saying, but I think Glass-Steagall is best dead and buried. It was enacted to deal with specific errors that led to the Great Depression, but those things aren’t the big danger today. We definitely need more regulation, but it needs to be regulation that targets the wrongdoings that are causing problems with the markets today, not what caused problems 80+ years ago.
WaterGirl
@Mary G: That’s good, because Adam Schiff is starting to lose his voice. I was hoping his voice wouldn’t give out on him, and it hasn’t.
But he will need to take some care of it this weekend, if he can.
Roger Moore
@Chip Daniels:
And they should be explicitly banned from continuing in the same industry. The only way anyone in this criminal conspiracy should interact with the drug business for the rest of their life is getting their prescriptions filled at the local pharmacy.
Inspectrix
To echo others, attractive drug reps, paid dinners with a thin veneer of educational content, and cute marketing was commonplace for all classes of profitable medication. Drug companies prey upon ego and pay physicians as “consultants” or give speaking fees. The drug reps appear to befriend their prey. Many of my colleagues enjoyed regular nights out at drug company expense. They start when doctors are in training and can’t afford an upscale meal.
I rotated through clinics where the doctors would coyly abstain from the drug-rep sponsored office lunches because they wanted to distance themselves; they felt badly saying no and taking the free food away from the office staff. I don’t think they considered how much influence the nurses and medical assistant have with patients and the power of the free pens and post-its left behind. They were deluding themselves.
Now I work for an employer with a full ban on any marketing and it’s wonderful.
Roger Moore
@Inspectrix:
There’s more going on than attractive drug reps and swag. I work on the research side of a Comprehensive Cancer Center. When I’m at work, I connect my personal phone through the guest WiFi, and I use it to check Twitter sometimes. After I’ve used my phone at work, I get sponsored tweets advertising cancer drugs; it’s clear the drug companies are doing some kind of microtargeting.
Brachiator
I might be persuaded to give even harsher sentences.
I am also dismayed at how some doctors let themselves be led by the nose by drug company reps. And all of this reminds me again how many people who think that they are smart and sophisticated, and frankly superior to other people, are such easily manipulated dopes.
Ruckus
We have a relatively new employee at work, spent 27 YEARS in jail for petty theft. Got caught in CA’s 3 strikes law BS. That’s half his life for 3 counts of petty theft. And just so you know, yes this gentleman is a minority. And this corporate shithead only gets 5 1/2 yrs for being a drug pusher with thousands of victims who made a lot of money off of his crime? Yeah I’m not all that impressed.
Wag
@Kraux Pas:
For too long you’re correct. I believe that it is high time that we begin to equitably dish out prison time to the white collar criminals. Maybe if the upper class population was at risk for the same degree of jail time as the lower class and minority population we’d rethink our incarceration time for everyone convicted of a crime.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I used to know a doc, from a foreign country, who took a job as a drug company rep, $150 thou a year, car/insurance, gas and all he had to do was fly to places like Cancun and give a lecture. The docs would go down for 3 days all paid. One 30 minute lecture the rest of the time golf or whatever. He worked less than half time, $150 thou. That drug company spent a lot of money to sell that product. And it was a new formulation for a product that isn’t even that expensive. So they spent a lot because if they got approved they could sell the “new” stuff at an inflated price and clean up. They didn’t get approval. Sales doc lost his job, the same day the rejection came in. They gave him the car, it was easier than selling it. He didn’t know how to purchase insurance or register the car, he’d never done that, had no idea where to even look. Docs are all smart my ass.
LongHairedWeirdo
Honestly, I think the punishment is too light, precisely because it involves invisible harm to human beings.
It’s like, if the world were just, George W. would never have gotten his Iraq war, because no one, no one, no one, would tell the tiniest fib to justify it. “Starting an unjust war is one of the few capital crimes, specifically because the victims are invisible to the perpetrators” – you see what I’m saying?
It’d be like, “you’re far, far, worse than the guy who clouts someone over the head with a blackjack (which, remember, is intended to be less lethal than a club), because you didn’t even have to *think* you were being violent, and were never exposed to the risk of a victim who might fight back.”
It’s weird. Since 9/11/2001, cowardice is now a celebrated virtue – “we must do things we know are wrong because we’re afraid of this dangerous world”.
And these kinds of laws, these kinds of sentences, also show that we don’t really consider responsibility, or duty, all that important.
And lawlessness is now a partisan issue – that it would be, once torture became partisan, seems expected, but it still seems like a sickening surprise.
How sick *is* this society? How the *hell* do you even contemplate a cure?
PIGL
@The Pale Scot: couldn’t Agree with you more.
Duane
One thing the prison system, and the justice system in general, is good at is taking money from people. Try showing up at court without an attorney. ( No don’t. ) Look at Florida grubbing every last dime before voting rights are restored. For-profit prisons. From top to bottom everyone involved is out to get paid.
OzarkHillbilly
Incarcerate them all, let God sort them out.
r€nato
Insys donated $500,000 in 2016 to the organization working to defeat Arizona’s citizen initiative ballot measure for full cannabis legalization. It did indeed fail at the ballot box, 51.3% to 48.7%.
Chief Oshkosh
I’ve seen two lives ruined by this. Both victims were mid-career and doing well. Both ended up losing their jobs and had to pretty much sell everything on their way down. One basically lost his family. After an enormous amount of pain and effort, the other of them was able to get off the pain meds and, after another long period of trying, landed a job at a phone customer service center – basically at the bottom rung of her field, where she’s been for the last five years. The other never made it back and is living off scraps, odd jobs, and government “largesse.” He is, at least for now, off of the pain meds, though still in constant pain. He can’t afford further real treatment.
So, what do I think evil people like the convicted CEO should “get” with regards to justice?
Total ruin. Prison time, of course, but also, complete forfeiture of ALL assets, which should ALL go to programs aimed at helping victims of this unnecessary tragedy. And too bad for the vampire’s family. Fuck them, too, just like every life he ruined was surrounded by lives that were horrifically impacted. They can pull themselves up by their bootstraps – all they’re out is the vampire’s ill-gotten gains. They can go out and get honest jobs. And finally, public service announcements interviewing the defanged vampire after he’s been made destitute. You know, as a true warning to the other sociopaths that might want to try similar shit.