Eli Lilly Paid $20 Million in Hush Money Over Prozac Mass Shooting Lawsuit

The Louisville Courier Journal reports that thirty years after Joseph Wesbecker went on a deadly shooting rampage in Louisville Kentucky, on September 14, 1989, the families and survivors of his actions have finally come forward to tell the truth. They were plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Eli Lilly because they had reason to believe that Prozac, manufactured by Lilly, had been the trigger that propelled Wesbecker on his violent rampage. Eli Lilly had paid these plaintiffs $20 million in hush money to conceal damaging evidence about Lilly’s culpability in marketing defective, deadly drugs from the jury in the Wesbecker- Eli Lilly trial. "On the eve of the jury’s verdict, which absolved Lilly of liability, the company made the secret payment without telling the judge overseeing the case. In exchange for the payment, the plaintiffs – eight estates and 11 survivors – agreed to withhold damaging evidence about the arthritis drug Oraflex that Lilly withdrew from the market. Lilly pleaded guilty to 25 criminal misdemeanor counts for failing to report adverse reactions that patients suffered from the drug, and the drug company feared that the Prozac jury would be more inclined to rule against the drugmaker if it learned of it." Circuit Judge John Potter, the judge in the case, suspected that Lilly bribed plaintiffs and their lawyers before the jury verdict. He uncovered evidence of bribery, and fought Eli Lilly for years but failed to obtain the terms of the deal. Lilly succeeded in keeping its criminal action from a judicial proceeding. As is Eli Lilly’s norm and practice; it trashed the judge for his pursuit of the truth.