Jonathan Sackler Dies - An Owner of OxyContin-Maker Purdue Pharma and Multiple RI Ties
Monday, July 06, 2020
Jonathan Sackler, one of the owners of OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, has died at 65 from cancer, the company confirmed.
Sackler and his family became one of the richest families in America through their sales of opioids and then became the focus of hundreds of lawsuits.
In 2019, Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy to try to limit exposure to the massive number of legal actions.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTMultiple Rhode Island Ties
Sackler had multiple ties to Rhode Island, including donations to Governor Gina Raimondo, ownership in a major Rhode Island manufacturer, and ties to one of the state's leading charter schools.
Raimondo had accepted $12,500 in campaign contributions from Sackler and his wife Mary Corson — Sackler had been named in lawsuits personally for his direct involvement in the opioid crisis in America.
After GoLocal wrote more than twenty stories related to the link between Raimondo and the Sackler family, Raimondo relented and donated the $12,500 to victim organizations.
According to the lawsuit filed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the Sackers were directly involved in the Purdue Pharma marketing strategy — a strategy that more than 1,600 lawsuits across the country allege was fraudulent and led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.
New York Attorney General Letitia James dropped a bombshell when she filed the nation’s most extensive lawsuit against Purdue Pharma opioid manufacturers, the Sackler Family, for their role “in the opioid epidemic that has taken hundreds of thousands of lives and devastated families and communities.”
The billionaire Sackler family allegedly transferred funds from Purdue Pharma and the affiliated Rhode Island-based generic manufacturing company drugmaker Rhodes Pharmaceuticals LP into various entities that family members control through trusts, according to the amended lawsuit.
Sackler was also a long-time board member and donor to Achievement First who operates the Mayoral Academies in the state.
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