In the end, the company had agreed to make a guilty plea to a criminal charge of felony misbranding. Friedman, Goldenheim, and Udell would each plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of misbranding as well and be barred for a period of twenty years from doing business with any taxpayer-financed health-care program, like Medicare. (That exclusion period was subsequently reduced to twelve years.) The men would accept a sentence of three years of probation and four hundred hours of community service. And Purdue would pay a $600 million fine.
