| A | B | C | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | ||||
2 | ||||
3 | Purdue Pharma + Beshear & Co. | |||
4 | 2007 | |||
5 | October | Kentucky AG, Greg Stumbo (D), sues Purdue Pharma in State court, valuing the case at $1 billion dollars. | ||
6 | October | Purdue Pharma retains Stites & Harbison to defend it. Steve Beshear (D) is a partner at the firm and his son, Andy (D), is an associate attorney starting in 2005. | ||
7 | December | On December 11th, Steve Beshear successfully becomes Kentucky's next Governor. He will remain in office for two-terms, the legal limit in KY. | ||
8 | 2008 | |||
9 | January | On January 9, 2008, AG Stumbo is replaced by Jack Conway (D) who will remain Kentucky's AG for two-terms until the end of 2015. | ||
10 | 2010 | |||
11 | Jan | Andy Besher becomes Partner at Stites & Harbison while his father, Steve, is Governor. | ||
12 | 2014 | |||
13 | ?? | AG Conway sends a letter advising Stites & Harbison, who had failed to timely respond to Requests for Admissions, to notify their malpractice carrier for potential liability. Kentucky's Supreme Court upheld Purdue's default in Pike County Circuit Court. (This letter is in Dropbox. Start at numeric paragraph 11 on pg. 4 and go to numeric paragraph 115 on pg. 26) | ||
14 | ?? | The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) engaged in a competitive bidding process to hire outside counsel to assist in the Commonwealth’s litigation against Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of the drug OxyContin. Under then-Attorney General Jack Conway, the OAG selected the firm Dolt,Thompson, Shepherd & Kinney, P.S.C. (Dolt Thompson). The law firm would be paid for its legal services on a contingency-fee basis (highly-unusual for this type of case). | ||
15 | 2015 | |||
16 | June | The OAG's contract with Dolt Thompson expires, but the OAG continues paying the firm throughout the year without explicit approval (page 3) and assigning fees to them in the 2016 budget. | ||
17 | November | Andy Beshear runs for Kentucky AG and wins by a margin of 1,000 votes. Andy had raised nearly $2.7 million, a record-breaking sum for a Kentucky attorney general's race. By comparison, the Republican nominee, state Sen. Whitney Westerfield, had raised $151,032. Steve Beshear's top donors said they were happy to pass down their loyalty to Andy. | ||
18 | December | On December 8th, Steve Beshear's tenure as Governor of Kentucky ends. Matt Bevin (D) assumes office. After Matt Bevin was elected governor, he removed Beshear’s mother, Jane Beshear, from an unpaid position on the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and removed her name from a visitor center at the State Capitol. “Bevin ran explicitly against Gov. Beshear’s legacy, so it’s no surprise he has tensions with his family,” says Stephen Voss, a University of Kentucky political scientist. | ||
19 | December | Steve Beshear returns to Stites & Harbison as Partner. | ||
20 | December | On December 21, 2015 the Purdue Pharma case with Kentucky was settled for $24MM compared to the original valuation of $1B. The Christmas and New Year holidays occur and come January 1, Administrations change. | ||
21 | This settlement follows a 2007 settlement where Purdue Pharma and three company executives pleaded guilty in Virginia federal court to making misleading claims about the potential for people to become addicted to OxyContin. The judge in that case ordered the company to pay over $630 million. Forty-nine other states settled their own claims against the company that same year; Kentucky was the lone holdout. | |||
22 | 2016 | |||
23 | January | On January 4th, Andy Beshear assumes office as AG for Kentucky. | ||
24 | January | Newly unemployed outbound AG Jack Conway is immediately hired by local firm, Dolt Thompson. When Purdue Pharma agreed to settle with Kentucky for $24MM, they hired Dolt Thompson to negotiate for Kentucky, | ||
25 | January | Dolt Thompson was able to retain $4.2MM for their services, leaving the State of Kentucky with access to $19.8MM of the original $24MM settlement. Fifty times (50x) less than what it was valued at. | ||
26 | April | Dolt Thompson becomes Dolt, Thompson, Shepherd & Conway, PSC with Jack Conway as a Partner. 4 months after his low-value settlement and negotitations with Purdue Pharma. | ||
27 | 2017 | |||
28 | October | Kentucky's Finance Cabinet sent a letter to then-General Andy Beshear asserting the Cabinet believed the OAG [under AG Conway's discretion] “may have unlawfully authorized or facilitated payment” to Dolt Thompson. The Kentucky Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Legislature acted within its authority in stating that the attorney's fees should be paid prior to any other disbursement of the Purdue Pharma funds (summary at top). | ||
29 | 2018 | |||
30 | August | Andy assigns Andrew Jacobs, a Partner at Stites & Harbison, as the Vice-Chair of the Kentucky Horse Park Foundation. | ||
31 | 2019 | |||
32 | November | Andy runs for Governor against Bevins and wins. He remains Governor until present day, serving his second term. | ||
33 | December | The 2015 settlement between Kentucky and Purdue Pharma for $24MM becomes the interest of STAT, a media company focused on health and medicine. They note that per the terms of the settlement, the Kentucky Attorney General agreed to destroy copies of, or return to Purdue, the 17 million documents produced by Purdue in litigation. Some of the same documents remained under seal at the Pike County Court in Pikeville, Kentucky. STAT filed a legal motion in 2016 to unseal them due to public interest. Purdue’s appeals were unsuccessful, and the documents were unsealed in 2019. The 281 documents in this collection were acquired through STAT’s efforts, as well as an open records request by Professor Antoine Lentacker of the University of California, Riverside. Documents include court motions, filings and depositions of employees as well as internal company documents that have been publicly filed in the court’s docket as exhibits: emails, memos, reports, sales and marketing materials, and articles. Major issues, people, and companies represented: marketing plans; sales data; Purdue Pharma; Abbott Laboratories; US Department of Health and Human Services; Richard Sackler; Michael Friedman. All documents can be seen here. | ||
34 | 2020 | |||
35 | February | Andy assignes Demetrius Holloway, a Partner at Stites & Harbison, to the to Kentucky Personnel Board. | ||
36 | October | Andy assigns Tom Halbleib, a Partner at Stites & Harbison, to the board of the Kentucky Local Government Public-Private Partnership Board. | ||
37 | December | Andy assigns Whitney Frazier, a Partner at Stites & Harbison, to the Governor's Scholars Program Board of Directors. | ||
38 | 2021 | |||
39 | July | Andy assigns Elizabeth Lee Thompson, a Partner at Stites & Harbison, to the NKU Board of Regents. | ||
40 | July | Andy assigns Bob Beck Jr., a Partner at Stites & Harbison, to the Kentucky Authority for Educational Television. | ||
41 | August | Andy assigns Michael Kleinert, a Partner at Stites & Harbison, to the Kentucky Board of Physical Therapy. | ||
42 | September | Andy assigns Larry Droege, a Partner at Stites & Harbison, to the Advisory Council for Recovery Ready Communities. | ||
43 | 2022 | |||
44 | January | Andy assignes Morgan Ward, a Partner at Stites & Harbison, to the to Kentucky Personnel Board. | ||
45 | June | Andy assignes Jenny Cave, a Partner at Stites & Harbison, to the Kentucky Medical Cannabis Advisory Committee. | ||
46 | November | Andy assignes Ian Ramsey, a Partner at Stites & Harbison, to the Kentucky Bicycle and Bikeway Commission. | ||
47 | 2023 | |||
48 | May | Andy appointed Chadwick A. McTighe, a Partner at Stites & Harbison, as Special Justice to the Supreme Court of Kentucky. | ||
49 | October | Andy assignes Jenny Cave, a Partner at Stites & Harbison, as head of the Kentucky Horse Park Commission. | ||
50 | 2024 | |||
51 | February | Publicis Health agreed to pay U.S. states $350 million rather than face the possibility of trials over its role in the opioid crisis. It is the first advertising company to reach a major settlement over the toll of opioids in the U.S. It faced a lawsuit in at least Massachusetts but settled with most states before they made court claims against it. Publicis worked with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma from 2010-2019, helping campaigns for OxyContin and other prescription opioids, Butrans and Hysingla. | ||
52 | Additional Topics, Press Releases, and Articles of Interest | |||
53 | ||||
54 | Profile: Meet Andy Beshear, the Democratic nominee for attorney general | |||
55 | Beshear: Challenges Remain for Horse Industry | |||
56 | Gov. Beshear: Kentucky Derby Celebrates Spirit of the Bluegrass – Horse Racing, Bourbon and Hospitality | |||
57 | The Political Blood Feud in the Bluegrass | |||
58 | Two Stites & Harbison, PLLC Alumni Take Leadership Positions in Kentucky State Government | |||
59 | Jailed ex-chief of Indivior Shaun Thaxter still handed £900,000 share bonus | |||
60 | Gov. Beshear: Kentuckians Can Start Betting on Sports in Less Than 60 Days | |||
61 | Tentative $12 billion Purdue Pharma settlement puts spotlight back on Andy Beshear | |||
62 | More than $14 million awarded to Kentucky breeders through Thoroughbred Breeders’ Incentive Fund | |||
63 | /// All information collected open-source (current as of 2/4/2024) and is the sole assessment of ©Reveille Advisors Ltd /// | |||
64 | ||||