Cut in tobacco penalty defended
WASHINGTON – Federal prosecutors Thursday defended their decision to downsize dramatically a proposed penalty against Big Tobacco, saying they tried to put the focus on future smokers who might become hooked if cigarette makers continue their alleged racketeering.
As closing arguments ended in the nearly nine-month trial, lawyers for the tobacco companies dismissed the Justice Department’s position as a last-minute attempt to put a better face on a losing proposition.
“The plaintiff’s case is disappearing, and this is a desperate effort to stop the fall,” said Brown and Williamson lawyer David Bernick.
Still incensed a day after asking the Justice Department’s internal investigator to look into whether political interference affected the downsizing decision, Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Martin Meehan, D-Mass., asked for an expansion of that investigation.
The congressmen questioned whether political appointees at the agency have connections with the tobacco industry and whether prosecutors asked one of their witnesses – Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids – to tone down his testimony.
Federal prosecutors this week told U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler that they were seeking a $10 billion, five-year nationwide smoking cessation program as a penalty against the industry for a decades-long conspiracy to deceive the public about the health risks of smoking. That proposal was a fraction of the $130 billion, 25-year program suggested by government witness Michael C. Fiore, a University of Wisconsin medical professor.
On Thursday, Philip Morris lawyer Dan Webb called that decision the “Dr. Fiore flip-flop.”
Unlike Fiore’s proposal, the $10 billion program would be limited to a certain number of people – decided by estimating how many smokers may become hooked as a result of any misbehavior by the companies within a year after the trial.
However, Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum told reporters outside the courtroom that the program’s services would be open to any of the 45 million smokers in the United States, not just future smokers.
The program could be extended or expanded should cigarette makers continue to misbehave, government lawyer Sharon Eubanks argued.
In February, an appeals court barred the Justice Department from seeking $280 billion in allegedly ill-gotten tobacco profits, saying the law required “forward-looking” remedies. Fiore’s proposal was the next-most expensive proposal mentioned in the trial, which started in September.
McCallum resisted the idea that political appointees at the Justice Department had sought to reduce Fiore’s proposal, saying they had worked with career employees “to devise the most appropriate strategy.”