For opioid victims, payouts fall short while governments reap millions
Christopher Julian's opioid journey is familiar to many Americans.
He was prescribed painkillers as a teenager for a series of sports injuries. He said the doctor never warned him they could be addictive. Julian didn't learn that fact until years later, when he was cut off and began suffering withdrawal symptoms. At that point, he started siphoning pills from family members and buying them from others in his southern Maine community.
After his brother died of brain cancer in 2011, Julian used opioids to cope with more than physical pain.
He stole to support his addiction, cycled in and out of jail and treatment, and overdosed 10 times, he said. His mother once gave him CPR on their bathroom floor.
Life was 'hell on Earth,' said Julian, now 43 and in long-term recovery.
Like tens of thousands of others who have suffered similarly, Julian filed claims for compensation from pharmaceutical companies accused of fueling the opioid crisis.
Earlier this year, he received his first payout: $324.58.
That's enough to fill his car with gas about eight times or pay about a tenth of the rent for an apartment he shares with his fiancee and two children.
Meanwhile, Maine's Cumberland County, where Julian lives, has received more than $700,000 in opioid settlement money and expects nearly $1.6 million more in the coming years, according to a newly updated database from KFF Health News. Jurisdictions throughout his state have received more than $68 million to date, and governments nationwide have raked in upward of $10 billion, the database shows.
That discrepancy between individuals' and governments' compensations highlights a sense of injustice felt by people directly affected by the crisis who say their suffering is the reason that governments secured these settlements.
Opioid settlements with companies like Purdue Pharma, Walmart, and Johnson & Johnson have led to headline-grabbing multibillion-dollar payouts, but most of the windfall is flowing to state and local governments, not directly to victims of the crisis.
Only a handful of companies — those that filed for bankruptcy, including Purdue Pharma, Mallinckrodt, Endo, and Rite Aid — have set aside payouts for individuals. To qualify, people must have filed claims within a certain window and provided documents proving they were prescribed painkillers from that company. Even then, many victims will receive just a few thousand dollars, lawyers and advocates estimate. Most of these companies have not started paying yet, so victims might have to wait months or years more before seeing the cash.
In contrast, state and local governments have already received settlement money. To understand the size of those payouts, KFF Health News in January downloaded data from BrownGreer, the court-appointed firm administering many national opioid settlements, and used it to update a searchable database that allows users to determine how much their city, county, or state has received or expects to receive each year.
Governments are receiving that money because attorneys general argued that their states' public safety, health, and social service systems were harmed by the opioid crisis. Jurisdictions are supposed to spend settlement money on addiction treatment, recovery, and prevention programs. But many affected individuals and families say governments have failed to adhere to that mission.
'At the very minimum, they could spend these dollars right to prevent the future loss of life,' said Ryan Hampton, a national recovery advocate and previous co-chair of a committee in the Purdue Pharma bankruptcy case, where he represented victims. 'That is the opposite of what we've seen to date.'
In Pennsylvania, a group of bereaved family members raised similar concerns to Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who finalized opioid settlements when he was attorney general.
'Instead of directing funds toward evidence-based solutions, you and your administration have allowed counties to divert these resources into law enforcement, ineffective programs, and initiatives that already have other funding streams available — disrespecting both our families and the lives lost,' they wrote in a letter dated Feb. 14. 'Meanwhile, bereaved families — many of whom have lost everything — have no financial relief.'
'Governments were way more powerful'
To be sure, many governments have spent millions of settlement dollars on treatment programs, recovery supports, distribution of overdose reversal medications, and other efforts. Some officials in charge of the money say those services, which reach many residents, can have a greater impact than individual payouts.
Will Simons, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania governor, said in a statement that the Shapiro administration has invested nearly $90 million of settlement funds into treatment, recovery, harm reduction, and prevention initiatives, including prevention programs for youths, a drug and alcohol call center, and loan repayment programs aimed at retaining workers in the addiction treatment and recovery field.
Many of the awarded organizations 'support families who have lost loved ones to this crisis, providing counseling and other family supports,' Simons said.
A few jurisdictions have created fairly modest funds directed at individuals, such as one in Boston to aid families who have lost loved ones to addiction, and a fund in Alabama for grandparents having to raise children because of parental substance use.
But nationwide, there's little that resembles the widespread cash payments that many advocates, like Hampton, originally envisioned.
In the mid-2010s, Hampton said, he and other advocates considered filing class action lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies but realized they didn't have the resources.
A few years later, when state attorneys general began pursuing cases against those companies, victims were thrilled, thinking they would finally get compensation alongside their governments. Hampton and other advocates held rallies, shared their stories publicly, and galvanized support for the states' lawsuits.
In 2019, when Hampton became co-chair of the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors in Purdue Pharma's bankruptcy and arrived at the negotiating table with state attorneys general and other entities, he thought 'everybody was there to take on the big bad pharmaceutical company and to put victims' interests first,' he said. But as the negotiation proceeded among various creditors vying for the company's assets, he said, 'governments were way more powerful than victims and believed that they were more harmed than victims in terms of cost.'
Details of the Purdue settlement are still being finalized, and payments are unlikely to start until next year, but estimates suggest state and local governments will receive the lion's share, while more than 100,000 victims will split a fraction of the bankruptcy payout.
Mallinckrodt, a manufacturer of generic opioids, is the only company that had begun paying victims as of early 2025, said Frank Younes, a partner at the Nebraska-based law firm High & Younes, which is representing personal injury claimants in several opioid bankruptcies.
After paying roughly 25% in administrative fees to the national trust overseeing the bankruptcy and an additional 40% in attorney fees, some of his clients have received between $400 and $700, Younes said.
He expects payouts from two other companies — Endo and Rite Aid — 'will be even lower.'
But many victims won't receive anything. Some didn't know they could file claims until it was too late. Others struggled to obtain medical records from shuttered doctors' offices or pharmacies that didn't retain older documents.
Out of nearly 20,000 people who contacted Younes' firm to participate in the various opioid bankruptcies, he said, only about 3,500 were able to file.
'Do something for these families'
John McNerney was told his Purdue Pharma claim didn't qualify, because he hadn't been prescribed enough OxyContin to meet the threshold. He submitted claims for Mallinckrodt and Endo instead.
McNerney, 60, who lives in Boca Raton, Florida, said he suffered a spinal injury decades ago from a fall during a plumbing repair. For years afterward, he was prescribed various painkillers. Once his doctors cut him off, he began using pills a friend bought off the street. McNerney spent about $30,000 on rehabs before he entered long-term recovery.
Now when he sees governments spending settlement money on police cars or library books about addiction 'instead of putting 100% of it into rehab,' he said, 'it really bothers the heck out of me.'
'I haven't received a nickel,' he said.
In Ohio, a group of affected families were similarly frustrated that money wasn't reaching them or the places where they thought it was needed most.
The families teamed up with local nonprofits to submit grant applications to the OneOhio Recovery Foundation, which controls most of the state's opioid settlement funds. They asked for several million dollars to put toward family support groups, training for family members who take in children whose parents have substance use disorders, and emergency cash aid for families to buy cribs or school supplies and cover funeral costs.
Jackie Lewis, a member of the group, said that when her 34-year-old son, Shaun, died of an overdose, she had to pay his funeral costs by credit card. She has filed a claim in the opioid bankruptcies but hasn't received any money yet.
'Too many families didn't have a credit card to do that with,' Lewis said. 'There are families I've talked to that couldn't do flowers. Some had to do a cremation instead of a traditional funeral.'
Her group did not receive funding in the first round of grants from the OneOhio Recovery Foundation.
Connie Luck, a spokesperson for the foundation, said the legal documents that established the foundation do not allow direct payments to individuals affected by the crisis. The foundation has awarded over $45 million to 245 projects throughout the state, including dozens that provide family support services like child care and rental assistance.
'We deeply empathize with those who have lost loved ones to the opioid epidemic — their pain is real, and it fuels the Foundation's mission to end this crisis and prevent it from happening again,' Luck said in a statement.
In Maine, Julian has made peace with his $325 payout, deciding to consider it a surprise bonus rather than compensation for his years of suffering.
But he hopes governments will use their more substantial sums to provide real help — food and rental assistance for people in recovery and more treatment beds so no one has to wait six months to enter rehab as he once did.
'They're getting millions of dollars,' said Julian, who has lost numerous close friends to overdose. 'They could do something for these families that have suffered great losses.'
KFF Health News data editor Holly K. Hacker contributed to this article.
For more than two years, KFF Health News has been tracking how state and local governments use — and misuse — billions of dollars in opioid settlement funds. This database marks our third update of data showing how much money state and local governments have received through national settlements with companies that made or distributed prescription painkillers.
BrownGreer, the court-appointed firm administering many national opioid settlements, tracks how much money it has delivered to various state and local governments, as well as how much is allocated to those jurisdictions for future years. It initially kept this information private.
In 2023, KFF Health News negotiated to obtain that information and made it public for the first time. Five months later, BrownGreer began posting updated versions of the information on a public website.
Last year, KFF Health News downloaded BrownGreer's data on payouts from pharmaceutical distributors AmerisourceBergen (now called Cencora), Cardinal Health, and McKesson, as well as opioid manufacturer Janssen (now known as Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine), and used the state-by-state spreadsheets with separate entries for each settling company to create a searchable database.
This year, KFF Health News has updated that database with new data from BrownGreer, including payouts from opioid manufacturers Allergan and Teva, as well as CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart pharmacies.
KFF Health News downloaded data from BrownGreer's website between Jan. 20 and 24, 2025, concerning payouts from all companies. Users can use the database to determine the total dollar amount their city, county, or state has received or expects to receive each year.
Although this is the most comprehensive data available at a national scale, it provides just a snapshot of all opioid settlement payouts. Other settlements, including with OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma, are still pending. This data does not reflect additional settlements that some state and local governments have entered into beyond the national deals, such as the agreement between Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio and regional supermarket chain Meijer. As such, this database undercounts the amount of opioid settlement money most places have received and will receive.
Payment details for some states are not available, because those states were not part of national settlement agreements, had unique settlement terms, or opted not to have their payments distributed via BrownGreer. A few examples:
· West Virginia declined to join several national settlements and instead reached individual settlements with many of these companies.
· Texas and Nevada were paid in full by Janssen outside the national settlement, so their payout data reflects payments only from other companies with which they entered national settlements.
· Florida, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania, among others, opted to receive a lump-sum payment via BrownGreer then distribute the money to localities themselves.
BrownGreer shows that several states received some of their anticipated 2027 payment from the distributors (AmerisourceBergen — now called Cencora — Cardinal Health, and McKesson) early in 2024. However, for three states — Colorado, Michigan, and Washington — BrownGreer does not provide data on how much of this prepayment went to each locality. As such, locality payments in these states may be undercounted for 2024 and overcounted for 2027.
For Oregon, BrownGreer shows 2024 payments from Walmart as fully paid in its statewide data but lists some August 2024 payments for localities as 'projected.' Since the data was downloaded well past that August 2024 date, we have included those 'projected' amounts in the 2024 paid total for Oregon localities. No other states had this discrepancy.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.
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Egypt Independent
18 hours ago
- Egypt Independent
Trump's tariff threat exposes China's tight grip on the global pharmaceuticals industry
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Last year, 96 percent of US imports of hydrocortisone (the active ingredient in the anti-itch cream), 90 percent of imports of ibuprofen (found in common over-the-counter pain relievers), and 73 percent of imports of acetaminophen (in other kinds of pain relievers) all came from China, according to CNN calculations based on trade data from the Census Bureau. With the US already facing shortages of many essential medications, experts warn that Beijing could potentially exploit this reliance as leverage in an escalating trade war. Tensions between the two sides have soared since Trump unleashed his trade assault on the world's second-largest economy. While the two countries have announced a temporary truce that rolled back the three-digit tariffs for 90 days, relations remain tense with ongoing feuding over chip restrictions imposed by the US. Leland Miller, a commissioner at the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, said the 'chokepoints' that China holds over the US pharmaceutical supply are 'detrimental to American security.' 'Simply by having this leverage … whether or not they ever pull the trigger, causes us to change our policy positions on a lot of things, and that's not good,' he said. So far, China has made no official public threat about weaponizing its dominant position in this segment of the pharmaceutical industry. But Trump's tariffs on the sector, if imposed, could worsen existing drug shortages and drive up prices for Americans, undermining his promise to lower health care costs. Generic drugs, which are designed to provide the same therapeutic effects as brand-name ones and are released after their patents expire, account for 90 percent of all prescriptions in the US. India produces many of those generics, often from ingredients imported from China. Even though industry insiders and experts widely acknowledge America's heavy reliance on Chinese pharmaceuticals, there is little comprehensive data on the full extent of this dependence across the sector, as major pharmaceutical firms have little incentive to disclose such information. That's part of the reason why last month, the Trump administration launched a probe into pharmaceuticals imports as part of efforts to impose tariffs on the sector on national security grounds. A 'catastrophic' interruption With China making 80 percent of the world's raw materials for amoxicillin, according to Jackson, it's a clear example of just how vulnerable the world could be to 'Chinese political or economic whims.' 'Any interruption by China along the lengthy amoxicillin supply chain could be catastrophic, particularly in the face of a potential bacterial epidemic,' he said. In 2021, Jackson purchased a bankrupt manufacturing site located in Bristol, Tennessee, and renamed it USAntibiotics. The facility, built in the 1970s, used to produce enough amoxicillin for the whole country at the time. After the amoxicillin patent expired in 2002, the Tennessee facility began to make generic equivalents. At that point, it began facing lower-cost competition from overseas and eventually went bankrupt. Concerns about America's dependence on Chinese pharmaceuticals aren't new. As early as 2019, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission recommended that Congress assess America's pharmaceutical vulnerabilities. Two years later, when Jackson bought the amoxicillin factory, he cited national security and the need to ensure a steady supply of antibiotics as a major reason for the purchase. China controls 80 percent of the raw materials required for amoxicillin's production. Fred Tanneau/AFP/Getty Images Still, progress in growing America's pharma supply chain has been slow. In late April, Trump said pharmaceutical companies were 'going to have to' produce drugs in the US or face a 'tariff wall.' A key goal behind Trump's threats of pharmaceutical tariffs is to 'onshore' drug production. An American study in 2021 found that the US imports 72 percent of its essential medicines. But experts said tariffs are unlikely to achieve that goal for generics, which have become commodities, with price being the main differentiator. So-called brand-name drugs, by contrast, are protected by patents and therefore command higher prices and bigger profit margins. Instead, tariffs would not only drive up medical costs for patients, but they could also exacerbate ongoing drug shortages by pushing generic drug makers out of the American market. Even if they are willing to build drug-making facilities in the US, the process could take years. Reliance on China China's dominance in the global drug supply chain is part and parcel of its position as the world's factory. Over decades, the pursuit of lower production costs has prompted drug makers to shift production from Western countries to places like China and India. China plays an outsize role in the drug supply chain for its significant production of the critical chemical compounds, called key starting materials or KSM, which are necessary to produce active ingredients, called active pharmaceuticals ingredients or API. China and India dominate the global manufacturing capacity for API. Together, they account for 82 percent of all API manufacturer filings to the US Food and Drug Administration, according to United States Pharmacopeia (USP), a nonprofit that sets official quality standards for medicines. The filings contain detailed information about the facilities and manufacturing processes submitted by API manufacturers. In the two years after 2021, according to the most recent data, India's share of the filings dropped to 50 percent, while China's surged to 32 percent. Chinese manufacturers have also benefited from Beijing's policy incentives and subsidies for the pharmaceutical sector since the early 2000s, which led to industry clusters springing up in the country, said Qingpeng Zhang, an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong's LKS Faculty of Medicine. 'These industry clusters, which help drive down overall costs while maintaining quality … ultimately made China an ideal location for the production of generics and APIs within a free trade environment,' he said. Besides lower costs, the environmental impact of drug production also contributed to China's rise in this sector, as the US and European Union often have stricter environmental regulation, according to Ronald Piervincenzi, CEO of USP. Even India, the world's top supplier of generics, relies on China for APIs and other key ingredients. In fact, 70 percent of India's API imports come from China, according to a 2023 report commissioned by the Indian government. Dinesh Thakur, a public health expert and author of 'The Truth Pill,' a book on Indian drug regulations, said that India's reliance on China for drug materials reflected the 'natural evolution' of the industry. At the time when Indian drug companies moved up the value chain toward higher-margin products like formulations and injectables, China's nascent pharmaceutical sector made inroads with API production at a lower price point, he said. The Indian companies then 'bought the API for a lesser cost from China and focused their money and their capacity in India on building competence for developing more complex finished formulations,' Thakur said. He added that China's well-established chemicals industry, built independently of pharmaceuticals, also gave its manufacturers a head start in producing drug-related chemicals. Major policy push Besides its cost advantage, China's pharmaceutical industry also got a boost from the government. In 2015, Chinese leader Xi Jinping unveiled his signature 'Made in China 2025' industrial strategy, which identified biopharma and advanced medical products as key sectors for development in its broader push to reduce the country's reliance on foreign technology. The Covid-19 pandemic further exposed global dependence on China for pharmaceutical supplies – and served as a reminder to Beijing of the strategic advantage that that dominance provides. In a state-run magazine in 2020, Xi said China must consolidate its leadership in its advantageous industries, and 'tighten global industrial chains' dependence on China to build strong countermeasures and deterrent capabilities against deliberate external supply cutoffs.' In 2015, Chinese leader Xi Jinping unveiled his signature 'Made in China 2025' industrial strategy, which identified biopharma and advanced medical products as key sectors for development in its broader push to reduce the country's reliance on foreign technology. Tingshu Wang/Pool/Getty Images In 2021, during the height of the epidemic, China's National Development and Reform Commission, the state planner, highlighted APIs as a 'key strength in China's pharmaceutical industry's participation in global competition.' Li Daokui, a professor of finance at Tsinghua University in Beijing and a Beijing adviser, even suggested that China, given its strategic position in the production of raw materials for vitamins and antibiotics, could limit drug supplies to the US as 'countermeasures' against American sanctions. 'Not effective' While Trump is not the first US president to push for onshoring drug production, he is the first to attempt it through the threat of sweeping tariffs. Some companies have fallen in line. British firm AstraZeneca, for instance, is shifting production of certain medicines from Europe to the US, following a $3.5 billion investment plan announced late last year. Similarly, companies including Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly have pledged to expand their US operations. But these companies primarily focus on patented drugs. Stephen Farrelly, global head of pharma and healthcare at Dutch bank group ING, noted that the US accounted for 44 percent of global pharmaceutical sales in 2023, making it imperative for makers of patented drugs to maintain a presence in the country. The story is different for generics because their margins are often half those of branded ones. 'Given their margin profiles, they can't afford to make long-term investment decisions with so much uncertainty around,' he said. 'If even possible, it would take in excess of five years to begin reshoring.' Tariffs on pharmaceuticals would eventually fall on patients, experts say, widening health disparities in an already strained health care system. 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Egypt Independent
26-05-2025
- Egypt Independent
‘Only sane thing to do:' Writings, interviews tied to suspect in Israeli embassy staffer killings show political activism
CNN — The suspect accused of killing two Israeli embassy staffers has a history of political activism, including denouncing corporate power, US military actions and police abuses, according to a CNN review of interviews and writings linked to him. In a 2017 GoFundMe page that included his photo, a testimonial attributed to Elias Rodriguez described how, when he was 11, his father's deployment to Iraq sparked his political awakening and mobilized him to prevent 'another generation of Americans coming home from genocidal imperialist wars.' Authorities are investigating what led to the shooting late Wednesday outside the Capital Jewish Museum, where they say Rodriguez, a 31-year-old from Chicago, pulled a gun and killed a young couple, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim. Rodriguez yelled, 'Free, free Palestine,' as police detained him. In a complaint filed in federal court on Thursday charging Rodriguez with murder and other counts, prosecutors said he told police he was inspired by a US airman who died last year after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, to draw attention to the war in Gaza, calling him a 'martyr.' Police are also investigating a letter posted to X shortly after the shootings and apparently signed by Rodriguez that advocates for violent retaliation over the war in Gaza – a message shared repeatedly on that account. A CNN review of the account, @kyotoleather, found that it is linked to other accounts with the name and photo of Rodriguez, and includes replies where other users address him by name. The letter posted on Wednesday expressed fury over the 'atrocities committed by the Israelis against Palestine' and referenced 'armed action' as a valid form of protest – one that is 'the only sane thing to do.' An embassy official cleans blood off the sidewalk at the shooting location outside of the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum on May 22, 2025 in Washington, DC.'What more at this point can one say about the proportion of mangled and burned and exploded human beings whom were children,' said the letter. 'We who let this happen will never deserve the Palestinians' forgiveness.' The letter was posted to X around 10 p.m. on Wednesday. It is not clear who posted it or if it was a pre-scheduled post set before the incident. In the years before his arrest in DC this week, Rodriguez allied publicly with several leftist groups in the Chicago area. The GoFundMe page created in August 2017 sought donations so Rodriguez could attend the People's Congress of Resistance in DC, an anti-Trump protest event. In a testimonial attributed to Rodriguez, he wrote he 'was 11 years old when my dad, an Army National Guardsman, sat our family down to tell us that he was being sent to Iraq.' He described being disturbed when his father returned from the deployment with 'souvenirs,' including a patch ripped off an Iraqi soldier's uniform. He wrote that he was alienated by American politics over the war. 'The Democrats will promise to protect the marginalized both here and abroad in 2018, like they did in 2006. And just like in 2006, they'll be lying. It's up to the people to protect themselves,' the GoFundMe testimonial said. Rodriguez's mother, reached by CNN, declined to comment for this story. The Army National Guard confirmed to CNN that a man identified in public records as Rodriguez's father was a member of the Army National Guard from 2005 to 2012, and deployed to Iraq from October 2006 to September 2007. In October 2017, Rodriguez attended a demonstration outside then-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's house to protest a police shooting and a bid to bring Amazon's second headquarters to the city. 'The wealth that Amazon has brought to Seattle has not been shared with its Black residents,' Rodriguez told Liberation, a publication by the Party for Socialism and Liberation, which identified him as a member at the time. He added that '[Amazon's] whitening of Seattle is structurally racist and a direct danger to all workers who live in that city.' The PSL on Thursday said in a statement on X that Rodriguez is no longer a member and had only 'a brief association with one branch of the PSL that ended in 2017.' The group added that 'we have nothing to do with this shooting and do not support it.' In January 2018, Rodriguez marched in another protest against Amazon in downtown Chicago organized by ANSWER Chicago, an anti-war group. Rodriguez told Newsy in an on-camera interview that 'if we can keep Amazon out, that is a huge victory and demonstrates sort of the power of people coming together, being able to say no to things like gentrification.' In a statement to CNN, ANSWER Coalition said the organization does not have individual members and that they are not connected to Rodriguez in any way. 'It appears he attended ANSWER protests 7 years ago and we are not aware of any contact since then. We obviously have nothing to do with this shooting and do not support it,' ANSWER Coalition said. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said in a post on X, that 'the FBI is aware of certain writings allegedly authored by the suspect, and we hope to have updates as to the authenticity very soon.' The letter bearing Rodriguez's name describes the author's outrage over a perceived lack of action from Western and Arab governments to stop Israel's war in Gaza and advocates for armed action, which it compares to forms of nonviolent protest. 'An armed action is not necessarily a military action… Usually it is theater and spectacle, a quality it shares with many unarmed actions,' the letter said. The letter said that years ago, Americans would likely have not understood a violent attack on behalf of Palestine – 'such an action would have been illegible, would seem insane.' But amid increasing public pressure to end the war in Gaza, the author wrote, 'there are many Americans for which the action will be highly legible and, in some funny way, the only sane thing to do.' The letter ended with a note to the author's parents and sibling, and is signed 'Elias Rodriguez.' The same X account where the letter was posted has previously defended violent tactics, and expressed views calling for the destruction of the state of Israel. In response to another user's post supporting the shooting of others and calling violence an 'acceptable part of reality,' the account replied: 'Agreed – violence does not have to happen, but if it does, then it should.' Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, both Israeli Embassy staffers about to be engaged, were gunned down on a street in Washington, DC. Embassy of Israel to the USA 'What more evidence is needed that the colony and its recalcitrants will have to be totally extirpated by the end of all this,' the account wrote about Israel in another post responding to a video compilation of Israeli government officials calling for a total siege and bombardment of the Gaza Strip. The social media posts show videos taken in the crowd from protests in Chicago against Israel's war in Gaza. In Chicago, Rodriguez most recently worked as an administrative specialist with the American Osteopathic Information Association, according to a LinkedIn account with his name and photo. 'We were shocked and saddened to learn that an AOIA employee has been arrested as a suspect in this horrific crime,' the group's president, Teresa Hubka, said in a joint statement with its CEO, Kathleen Creason. Rodriguez lived in the Albany Park neighborhood, where a next-door neighbor told CNN he was stunned by Rodriguez's alleged tie to the DC shooting. 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Egypt Independent
26-05-2025
- Egypt Independent
American charged with plot to throw Molotov cocktails at US embassy office in Israel
CNN — An American man was arrested Sunday after allegedly plotting to throw Molotov cocktails at a branch office of the US embassy in Israel, according to the US Justice Department. Officials arrested the man, 28 year-old Joseph Neumayer, at John F. Kennedy airport in New York after being deported from Israel to the US, according to a Justice Department news release. The DOJ says Neumayer, who is also a German citizen, had allegedly arrived at the US embassy office in Tel Aviv on May 19 and spat on an embassy guard without provocation. Neumeyer managed to break free as the guard attempted to detain him, leaving behind his backpack, the DOJ said, citing a complaint. Guards found three Molotov cocktails in the backpack, the department said. Law enforcement tracked down Neumeyer to his hotel in Israel, where he was arrested. Authorities searched Neumayer's social media, which allegedly included a post from earlier that day that said 'join me as I burn down the embassy in Tel Aviv.' His page also allegedly included the phrases, 'Death to America, death to Americans' and threats to assassinate US President Donald Trump. 'This defendant is charged with planning a devastating attack targeting our embassy in Israel, threatening death to Americans, and President Trump's life,' said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. FBI Director Kash Patel said: 'This despicable and violent behavior will not be tolerated at home or abroad, and the FBI, working with our partners, will bring him to face justice for his dangerous actions.' Neumeyer had allegedly arrived in Israel last month. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 20 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000, according to the Justice Department. The revelation of Neumayer's charges comes shortly after the fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, DC. The killings are being investigated as an act of terrorism after the man suspected of carrying out the shooting yelled 'Free Palestine' and told law enforcement he 'did it for Gaza,' according to police. US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is in Israel today meeting with senior government officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in the wake of the shooting.
