What role did the Sackler family play in running Purdue?

analysisThe family is divided into two sides. In its 16 December 2021 decision on appeal from the plan confirmation, the District Court for the Southern District of New York (Judge McMahon) called Mortimer Sackler's side "Side A" and Raymond Sackler's side "Side B". Side A consists of Mortimer D. Sackler, who was co-chief executive officer of Purdue with his brother Raymond until his death in 2010, his wife Theresa Sackler, and three of his seven children, Ilene Sackler Lefcourt, Kathe Sackler and Mortimer David Alfons ("Mortimer D.A.") Sackler; Theresa and the three children all served on Purdue's board, the children for nearly 30 years. The debtors' Disclosure Statement of 1 July 2025 names the same four and Samantha Hunt as the A-Side members who took part in the governance of Purdue Pharma, and says that other family members had no direct role in managing the debtors. An online reference biography, which is not an official record and is the only source here for her parentage, lists Samantha Sophia Sackler Hunt among Mortimer D. Sackler's children and says that Theresa became Dame Theresa Sackler in 2011. Relatives with no role in the record are not named. ^{1 2 3}

analysisSide B, as the same decision describes it, is Raymond Sackler, who died in 2017 and had been co-chief executive officer with his brother Mortimer, his wife Beverly Sackler and his two sons, Jonathan and Richard Sackler, all three of them Purdue board members, together with Richard Sackler's son David Sackler, also a board member, and his daughter Marianna Sackler. An online reference biography, an aggregator source, gives the same parentage for Richard Sackler and adds nothing to the court record. ^{4 1}

analysisSeveral family members were officers as well as directors. The District Court's decision records that Mortimer D.A. Sackler and Ilene Sackler Lefcourt held the title of vice president and Kathe Sackler that of senior vice president, without giving dates. Connecticut's amended complaint of 6 May 2019 instead calls Jonathan Sackler a senior vice president and Mortimer D.A. Sackler, Kathe Sackler and Ilene Sackler Lefcourt vice presidents during the development, launch, promotion and marketing of OxyContin, each leaving that office in or after 2003 while staying on the board, so the two records differ on Kathe Sackler's title. Richard Sackler held the most senior posts. The same complaint says he rose from assistant to the president in the 1970s to Vice President of Marketing and Sales, Senior Vice President in the early 1990s and President and CEO from 1999 to 2003, and names him as an inventor on dozens of patents relating to oxycodone and other pain medications, most of them assigned to Purdue; the New York Attorney General's complaint has him head of research and development from at least 1990 through 1999 and president from 1999 through 2003; and an online reference biography says he joined in 1971 as assistant to his father, then the company's president. These are complaint allegations and an aggregator account. The District Court dates his presidency 2000 to 2003, followed by co-chair of the board from 2003 to 2007 and chair from about 2008 until 2010 or 2011; his own page sets out his other roles. ^{1 2 3 4}

analysisFamily members also worked outside the boardroom. The District Court records that Marianna (also spelled Mariana) Sackler, Richard Sackler's daughter, worked as a consultant in Purdue's research and development department on OxyContin projects and held a "PR" role at Mundipharma Italy, an independent associated company (IAC), working on information about pain in Italy and on "marketing and selling OxyContin" there; the decision gives no dates and notes that she was never an officer or director of Purdue. The same decision describes MNP, later MNC, as an advisory board for the family's IACs worldwide whose recommendations the IACs typically followed: Ilene Sackler Lefcourt, Kathe Sackler, Theresa Sackler and Mortimer D.A. Sackler were its directors for many years, Richard Sackler until 2018 (he was also a director of at least one IAC), and David Sackler also served. The decision gives no start dates or legal form, and MNP/MNC is not shown to be the same entity as MNP Consulting Limited (Delaware), which the debtors list as an IAC. ¹

analysisBoard service also defined who was sued. The New York Attorney General's complaint, as filed with a September 2019 letter rogatory in Suffolk County, named as individual defendants the eight family members it described as the remaining living Sacklers who had served on the board of Purdue Pharma Inc.: Richard, Jonathan, Mortimer D.A., Kathe, David, Beverly and Theresa Sackler and Ilene Sackler Lefcourt. It dates Richard Sackler's board service from 1990, with the co-chair role from 2003 until he left in 2018, Mortimer D.A. Sackler's since 1993, Beverly Sackler's from 1993 through 2017 and Theresa Sackler's from 1993 through 2018, and has Jonathan, Kathe and Ilene joining in 1990 and David in 2012, broadly as the United States' 2020 settlement lists their tenures. These statements were not adjudicated in the retained record. A status report in the New York coordinated litigation records that Ilene Sackler Lefcourt, Kathe A. Sackler, Mortimer D.A. Sackler and Theresa Sackler appeared at the 12 August 2019 conference without conceding that they were proper parties and reserved all defenses, including lack of personal jurisdiction as to Kathe and Theresa Sackler; counsel for the Raymond Sackler branch said in 2021, as reported in the press, that the family members on the board acted "ethically and lawfully". ^{4 5}

analysisThe same complaint lists the defendants' offices in New York not-for-profit corporations. It describes Richard and Jonathan Sackler as trustees of the Sackler School of Medicine and officers of the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation and the Richard and Beth Sackler Foundation Inc., and Beverly Sackler as a director, secretary and treasurer of the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation; Mortimer D.A. Sackler as an officer of the Mortimer and Jacqueline Sackler Foundation and the Mortimer D. Sackler Foundation, Inc.; Kathe Sackler as an officer of the Shack Sackler Foundation and the Mortimer D. Sackler Foundation Inc. and a governor of the New York Academy of Sciences; and Ilene Sackler Lefcourt as a director of Columbia University and president of the Sackler Lefcourt Center for Child Development Inc. These are the offices the complaint states at its filing; they were not checked against the corporations' own filings, and this New York Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation is a different legal entity from the UK company of the same name. ⁴

analysisCourts have described the family's part in running Purdue while deciding other questions. The District Court's December 2021 decision states that evidence from the opioid multidistrict litigation showed family members heavily involved in decisions on how to market and sell opioids: certain of them, notably Richard Sackler, Mortimer D.A. Sackler and Theresa Sackler, "aggressively set and pushed sales targets for OxyContin that were higher than those recommended by Purdue executives", went on "ride along" visits with sales representatives, approved "countless settlements related to Purdue's culpable conduct" and oversaw sales and marketing budgets; it adds that many family members held a role comparable to senior management before 2018. In its decision of 30 May 2023 the Second Circuit, citing the Bankruptcy Court, said the record tended to show that the Sacklers took a role in corporate decision-making "more akin to the role of senior management", as part of the identity of interests between the debtors and the family members sued chiefly as directors and officers. Both courts were deciding whether third-party releases could be approved, not claims against the family: the District Court records that the Sacklers do not concede the truth of Purdue's admissions in its 2020 plea and that the Bankruptcy Court made no findings on the merit of the estates' claims against any family member. On 27 June 2024 the Supreme Court reversed the Second Circuit's judgment, holding by five votes to four that the bankruptcy code does not authorise such releases of claims against non-debtors without the affected claimants' consent, and the dissent in that decision states that neither the U.S. Government nor any State has brought criminal charges against any of the Sacklers individually. Counsel for the Raymond Sackler branch had said in 2021, as reported in the press, that documents released in the bankruptcy show the family members on the board acted "ethically and lawfully". ^{1 2 3 4 5 6}

analysisThe United States made specific allegations about four family members and the estate of a fifth. In Addendum A to its 2020 civil settlement agreement with Dr. Richard Sackler, David Sackler, Mortimer D.A. Sackler, Kathe Sackler and the Estate of Jonathan Sackler (the "Named Sacklers") it stated that they were not passive board members: Richard, Jonathan and Kathe Sackler at times kept offices at Purdue's headquarters; those three and Mortimer D.A. Sackler communicated directly with executives, including sales and marketing executives, on forecasts and strategies; and Richard, Mortimer D.A. and Kathe Sackler took part in employment decisions for the CEO and the sales and marketing leadership. It quoted a February 2011 memorandum calling the roles of board and management "blurred" and a 2017 remark by a senior Purdue executive that the board was serving as the "de-facto" CEO. These allegations were not tried; the agreement states that it is not an admission of liability and that the Named Sacklers expressly deny the allegations of the covered conduct. They agreed to pay the United States $225,000,000 plus interest, which the debtors' 2025 Disclosure Statement describes as already paid directly to the Justice Department outside the plan. ^{7 8}

analysisState complaints made similar allegations. A March 2019 press report describes the complaint of Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, one of the suits naming family members, as alleging that "they directed deceptive sales and marketing practices deep within Purdue" and as portraying the Sacklers as forceful board members intent on pushing the sales force to get doctors to prescribe more OxyContin at higher doses; it quotes an email in the complaint in which Richard Sackler wrote: "We have to hammer on the abusers in every way possible. They are the culprits and the problem. They are reckless criminals." The complaint itself is not in the retained record and was not adjudicated there. According to the same report, Purdue Pharma denied the claims and moved to dismiss the suit, calling it "replete with sensational and inflammatory allegations". The suit was later stayed: in September 2019 the debtors sought a preliminary injunction in their adversary proceeding against the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and others (Adv. Pro. No. 19-08289), and the injunction the Bankruptcy Court issued and repeatedly extended stayed litigation against the debtors and against their current and former owners, officers and directors. ^{9 8 10}

analysisA press report of April 2021 on a book by an investigative journalist adds two characterisations. It reports that Kathe Sackler, questioned in a sworn deposition by a class-action plaintiffs' lawyer, said the family had nothing to be ashamed of or apologise for and that she deserved credit for "the idea" of OxyContin, "a very good medicine"; the deposition and its date are not in the retained record, and the same report says that she and David Sackler, testifying remotely before Congress in December 2020, spoke words of sympathy but denied family culpability. The report also says that the Sacklers on Purdue's board "escaped unscathed" from the 2007 federal prosecution and that the book names Raymond Sackler and his sons Richard and Jonathan as the family members who drove OxyContin's aggressive marketing, and it notes that after Purdue's second federal guilty plea the relevant family members paid $225 million under the civil settlement without charges or admission. That is a characterisation, not a finding: in 2007 the corporate defendant that pleaded guilty was The Purdue Frederick Company, three of its executives pleaded individually, and, as the Supreme Court dissent of June 2024 records, no family member had been criminally charged individually. ^{3 2}

analysisBoth branches answered the book in public. According to the same report, counsel for the Raymond Sackler branch told a US public radio network that the bankruptcy documents show the board members acted "ethically and lawfully", the statement quoted above, and criticised the author for refusing to meet family representatives, while a spokesperson for the Mortimer Sackler branch said its focus was "on concluding a resolution that will provide help to people and communities in need, rather than on this book". These are general answers to the book and the allegations, not responses to any specific claim. ³

analysisCourt decisions also trace how family members anticipated being sued. The District Court's December 2021 decision states that in May 2007, shortly after the guilty plea and settlements of that year, David Sackler emailed Jonathan Sackler, Richard Sackler and their financial adviser about the family's personal liability ("Until suits get through to the family?"), that he later agreed in deposition that his email of 17 May 2007 reflected concern that the family would be sued over Purdue's sale of OxyContin, and that less than a week later Richard and Jonathan Sackler met a bankruptcy attorney although Purdue was not in debt or at risk of bankruptcy. On 26 July 2007, the decision continues, a family financial adviser whom it does not name sent Jonathan Sackler a confidential memorandum warning of "[u]ncapped liabilities" that posed "a huge valuation question" and presuming that "the family has taken most of the appropriate defensive measures"; a separate memorandum proposed distributing more free cash flow so that the owners could buy diversifying assets. The Second Circuit's decision of 30 May 2023 quotes an undated email from David Sackler to Jonathan and Richard Sackler, "We will be sued ... [A]sk yourself how long it will take these lawyers to figure out that we might settle with them if they can freeze our assets and threaten us", without saying whether it is the May 2007 email. These passages recount the confirmation record and are not findings of liability. ^{1 2}

analysisTwo later emails are quoted in the litigation. Connecticut's amended complaint of 6 May 2019 quotes a February 2008 email in which Mortimer D.A. Sackler told Jonathan and Richard Sackler that the industry had become "far too volatile and risky for a family to hold 95% of its wealth in", that it was not prudent "for us to stay in the business", and that when a sale was last discussed in 2000 the family had chosen to keep Purdue Pharma L.P. and Purdue Pharma Inc. private "as an investment platform in the pharma industry"; the District Court describes a February 2008 email in which "Mortimer Sackler" wished to leave the business, without the middle initials, and a 2019 press report describes the email as written to his cousins. The same press report quotes Richard Sackler's 2014 email to his sons, filed as a court exhibit, that "the shareholders departed from the practice of our industry peers and took the money out of the business", and notes the New York Attorney General's allegation that the money went offshore to "unknown trusts, partnerships, companies"; the email itself is not in the retained record. The District Court records that the Sacklers vehemently deny that any of the transfers would qualify as fraudulent conveyances. It also records that family members' assets are held principally in purportedly spendthrift trusts in the United States and offshore, many in the Bailiwick of Jersey; the Second Circuit cites the Bankruptcy Court's finding that the assets are "widely scattered and primarily held" in such trusts, and the debtors' 2025 Disclosure Statement puts most of the wealth in dozens of U.S. and foreign-based spendthrift trusts. The distributions are set out on the payments page. ^{3 1 4 2 5}

analysisThe family's fortune came largely from the company. The District Court noted that, in large part because of their pharmaceutical business, the Sacklers had long ranked on a business magazine's list of America's richest families and in 2015 were among the twenty wealthiest, with a reported net worth of $14 billion, a figure for the whole family rather than an asset value of Purdue Pharma L.P. or of any member. Jonathan Sackler, one of the owners and a former executive and board member, died on 30 June 2020 according to a court filing cited in a press report of 7 July 2020; Companies House records his resignation from the UK Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation on the same date, Colorado had named him personally as a defendant, and his estate signed the United States' civil settlement dated 21 October 2020 as one of the Named Sacklers. ^{1 2 3 4}

analysisThe records state each member's position in the cases separately. According to the District Court's December 2021 decision, once discovery in the multidistrict litigation brought out family members' part in marketing OxyContin after 2007, complaints in many state cases were amended to name nine of them as defendants: Richard, Jonathan, Mortimer D.A., Kathe, Beverly, Theresa, Marianna and David Sackler and Ilene Sackler Lefcourt. Being named is not a finding of liability, and none of those cases reached judgment: on 11 October 2019 the Bankruptcy Court halted them, and on 6 November 2019 it enjoined actions against Purdue and related parties, including family members, an injunction the District Court affirmed. The five parties to the United States' 2020 civil settlement are named above. Under the 2025 plan, Exhibit X to the Master Shareholder Settlement Agreement, filed on 1 May 2026, the plan's effective date, lists as A-Side release parties Theresa Sackler, Ilene Sackler Lefcourt, Kathe Sackler, Mortimer D.A. Sackler and Samantha Hunt, and among the B-Side released parties Raymond and Beverly Sackler and Jonathan Sackler, each with his or her estate, and Richard and David Sackler, describing each B-Side member as a family member, trust beneficiary and current or former director, manager or officer of an entity in Purdue Pharma L.P.'s ownership chain, without naming the entities or giving periods. The plan releases the estates' own claims against them, while their release from creditors' direct claims binds only creditors who opted in; being listed as a release party is not a finding about anyone's conduct. ^{1 2}