Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

by Patrick Radden Keefe

When Judge Drain halted all litigation against Purdue, it seemed to Maura Healey that she and Letitia James and other state prosecutors should be able to proceed with their cases against the Sacklers. After all, the family wasn’t filing for bankruptcy. The Sacklers had “extracted nearly all the money out of Purdue and pushed the carcass of the company into bankruptcy,” Josh Stein, the North Carolina AG, said. “Multi-billionaires are the opposite of bankrupt.” But on September 18, Purdue made a special appeal to Judge Drain. Having maintained the ruse, for decades, that the Sacklers and Purdue were separate, their lawyers now argued that the Sacklers were “inextricably twined” in any lawsuits against their company.