Ex-McKinsey partner who advised opioid maker Purdue Pharma sentenced to prison
By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) - A former McKinsey & Co partner was sentenced on Thursday to six months in prison for obstructing justice by destroying records related to advice the consulting firm gave Purdue Pharma on how to "turbocharge" sales of the opioid painkiller OxyContin.
Martin Elling, 60, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Robert Ballou in Abingdon, Virginia, after his former employer agreed in December to pay $650 million to resolve related charges by the U.S. Department of Justice over its work for Purdue.
Prosecutors argued Elling deserved a year in prison after he pleaded guilty in January. His lawyers countered that any prison sentence would be "devastating" as it would bar him from ever entering his new home of Thailand.
The sentence was confirmed by a representative for Elling's legal team, which said he is "extremely sorry" for his conduct.
Purdue in 2020 pleaded guilty to charges concerning misconduct related to its marketing and sale of prescription painkillers.
Prosecutors said Elling was involved in helping McKinsey land work for Purdue in 2013 that resulted in the New York-based firm crafting a strategy to boost OxyContin sales.
The strategy involved targeting "high-value" prescribers in the medical field, including ones who prescribed opioids for illegitimate uses, prosecutors said.
According to charging papers, Elling was among a few McKinsey partners who participated in a 2013 meeting with members of the Sackler family who owned Purdue Pharma and ultimately adopted McKinsey's proposal.
In July 2018, after reading about a lawsuit Massachusetts' attorney general filed against Purdue, Elling emailed a McKinsey partner about whether "we should be doing anything other that [sic] eliminating all our documents and emails."
A month later, Elling emailed himself to "delete old pur (Purdue Pharma) documents from laptop," prosecutors said. They said a forensic analysis confirmed he did just that.
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