Ex-McKinsey partner pleads guilty to destroying records on opioids
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Martin Elling pleads guilty to destroying records on advice provided to Purdue Pharma on how to ‘turbocharge’ sales. A former partner at McKinsey & Co pleaded guilty on Friday to obstructing justice by destroying records related to advice he and the consulting firm provided to Purdue Pharma on how to “turbocharge” sales of its potent opioid prescription painkiller, OxyContin.
Martin Elling, 60, entered his plea in federal court in Abingdon, Virginia, a month after the US Department of Justice announced that his former employer had agreed to pay $650m to resolve related charges over its work for Purdue, the Connecticut-based pharmaceutical company.
Under his plea agreement, Elling faces up to a year in prison when he is sentenced on 4 April. His lawyers, including Marjorie Peerce, in a joint statement said he “sincerely regrets his conduct for which he has fully accepted responsibility”. The case followed years of investigations and litigation concerning the extent to which Purdue, as a leading manufacturer that specialized chiefly in its highly profitable, potent narcotic OxyContin, kickstarted the deadly opioid addiction epidemic in the US.
Other drugmakers also contributed and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says nearly 727,000 opioid overdose deaths occurred from 1999 to 2022. “Today’s guilty plea moves us forward in holding accountable not only those corporations responsible for the opioid crisis in America, but also the executives” who contributed to the tragedy, acting US attorney Zachary Lee of the western district of Virginia said in a statement.
