Prosecutor on Firing List After Clash
A federal prosecutor testified yesterday that a senior Justice Department official called him at home and told him to slow down nearly completed efforts to obtain a guilty plea from the maker of the painkiller OxyContin.
U.S. Attorney John Brownlee told the Senate Judiciary Committee he received the call from Michael Elston, who was then the chief of staff to the deputy attorney general, the Washington Post reports.
Brownlee asked if Elston was calling for his superior, Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, and Elston said he was not. Elston’s attorney refutes that claim, saying McNulty authorized the call.
Brownlee, of Roanoke, Va., ignored the advice and settled the case the next day. About a week later, his name appeared on a list of potential prosecutors to be fired, although ultimately he kept its job.
The maker of OxyContin, Purdue Pharma, and three of its executives agreed to pay $634.5 million to settle charges they misled physicians about the addictive nature of the drug, ABAJournal.com noted in a prior post.
A Justice Department spokesman said healthy internal debate on the handling of complex cases is encouraged.
