EXCLUSIVE: Sackler family secrets are coming out. A new book, called “Empire of Pain” by Patrick Radden Keefe, contains emails that show the heirs complaining about how hard their lives were as they tried to downplay and shift blame for the opioid crisis. trib.al/cCEGNlW
It's the latest revelation concerning the family of secretive billionaires who kept America in steady supply of OxyContin, precipitating an epidemic that killed almost half a million people and triggered over 2,500 lawsuits against Purdue Pharma trib.al/cCEGNlW
In 2017, emails indicate that Mortimer Sackler requested a $10 million loan from the family trust to fund his lavish lifestyle, with instructions to keep it secret from his relatives: “I am LOSING money by working in the pharma business" trib.al/cCEGNlW
Another family member named David griped that as his father’s assistant, he had worked hard to "manage the family fortune" and "make the family richer," calling it "quite literally the hardest job in the world" trib.al/cCEGNlW
Another billionaire heir named Jonathan compared his family’s plight––legal consequences for peddling faulty science to convince physicians to prescribe their dangerous medication in monumental quantities for long-term use––to “mass incarceration” trib.al/cCEGNlW
The book paints the picture of a family wrought by contradictions––a dynasty that carefully distanced themselves from their company, while internally micro-managing its operations and siphoning billions into their personal coffers trib.al/cCEGNlW
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