Administration official told OxyContin prosecutor to slow down, put him on hit list when he didn't

A senior U.S. Department of Justice official tried to delay or derail a pending plea agreement with Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of the painkiller that became a scourge in Central Appalachia, according to the U.S. attorney handling the case -- and eight days later, the prosecutor's name showed up on a list of nine U.S. attorneys that the now-resigned aide recommended for dismissal.

John L. Brownlee, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday. Brownlee said Michael Elston, then chief of staff to the deputy attorney general, called him on his cell phone at home Oct. 24. The Roanoke Times reports: "Elston said he had been talking to attorneys for Purdue about concerns that prosecutors were moving too quickly, Brownlee testified." Brownlee said he asked if Elston was calling on behalf of the deputy attorney general, and when Elston told him no, he told Elston that "he needed to back out of the case." The next day, Brownlee obtained a plea agreement from the company and three executives to pay $634.5 million in fines for over-promoting OxyContin.

Amy Goldstein and Carrie Johnson of The Washington Post report, "Justice Department officials said it was not unusual for senior members to weigh in on major criminal cases. . . . Brownlee and other former prosecutors said nighttime calls such as Elston's, coming just hours before the end of a long, complex case, are unorthodox, particularly when the department's criminal division already has signed off on a case. Brownlee said the head of the division had authorized him that afternoon to execute the plea agreement. . . . Brownlee ultimately kept his job. But as Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales confronts withering criticism over the dismissals, the episode in the OxyContin case provides fresh evidence of efforts by senior officials in the department's headquarters to sway the work of U.S. attorneys' offices." (Read more)

The committee's main focus yesterday was Brownlee's handling of the case. He has been criticized for not pushing for jail time for the three executives, and by "others who say the prosecution is a setback in the effort to provide relief to millions of Americans who suffer from chronic pain," Laurance Hammack of the Times reports, with help from The Associated Press. "Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., didn't buy Brownlee's explanation that the government had no evidence that top Purdue officials knew of a marketing campaign in which its sales representatives downplayed OxyContin's potential for abuse and addiction." (Read more)