AMERICAN FRAUD and The Tylenol Murders

THE TYLENOL MURDERS     Crime Scene     The Cover-up     The Players     Interesting Persons     Chicago Outfit     Posse Comitatus     Marketing Tylenol     Tylenol Lawsuits     J&J Liability     News      
Where Are They Now
Tylenol Task Force
Tylenol Power-brokers
Milt Ahlerich
Robert Andrews
Richard Brzeczek
Jon Burge
James Burke
Burke Interview
Jane Byrne
H. Stuart Campbell
Joseph Chiesa
Edward Cisowski
David Clare
Tyrone Fahner
Larry Foster
George Frazza
William Grigg
Arthur Hayes
Robert Kniffen
Jeremy Margolis
Joseph McQuaid
Terry Mee
James Murray
Wayne Nelson
Mark Novitch
Donald Perkins
Thomas Royce
George Ryan
Michael Schaffer
Thomas Schumpp
Richard Schweiker
Robert Stein
James Thompson
Carl Vergari
Dan Webb
William Webster
William Weldon
Frank Young
FBI
FDA
Owen McClain
Joe Birkett
Jim Ryan
Colleen Goggins
Proprietary Association
H. STUART CAMPBELL
 
 
 
 
 

H. Stuart Campbell: Company Group Chairman, Johnson & Johnson (1977-1982); Served as CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors of eight major J&J corporate subsidiaries. From 1960 through September 1982, Campbell served in various capacities for Johnson & Johnson and subsidiary, Ethicon, Inc.

Campbell owned and served as an officer of Highland Packaging Labs, Inc., Somerville, New Jersey (contract packaging business) until its sale in 2002.

 

Director of Atrix Laboratories, Inc. (pharmaceutical and contract research and development company) until its sale in 2004

 

Director, Mesa Laboratories, Inc (1983-present)

 
It's interesting that Campbell, a very high-level executive at Johnson & Johnson, left the company in September of 1982. Although, in all probability the correlation between Campbells departure from J&J and the Tylenol murders is just a coincidence, it certainly would have warranted an interview by an investigator from the Tylenol task force. There is nothing to indicate that any J&J executives were questioned as "persons of interest" or as suspects in the Tylenol murders. In fact by all appearance J&J executives directed the investigtion.
 
In 1982, Johnson & Johnson was in the process of transforming its distribution and logistics systems. J&J was centralizing sales and logistics infrastructure in order to create efficeincies. The new centralized process would allow J&J's customers to order products from multiple J&J subsidiaries through just one J&J company; Johnson & Johnson Hospital Systems. Instead of receiving orders from multiple J&J companies in multiple shipments, customers would receive their weekly shipment of products for all J&J subsidiaries in just one shipment.
 
Executives from J&J subsidiary Ethicon Inc., were aggresively fighting against becoming part of J&J's new centralized sales and logistics infrastructure. As company Chairman, one would expect that H. Stuart Campbell was leading that battle.
 
Campbell founded Highland Packaging Labs, Inc. (contract packaging business) in Sommerville, NJ, in 1983. He was obviously an expert about packaging and distribution in the pharmaceutical and medical device and diagnostics industries. If for no other reason, Campbell should have been interviewed extensively because of his expertise in packaging and distribution. He would have been an important source for information related to the distribution of Tylenol, and the method in which somebody could poison Tylenol capsules within the channel of distribution.
 
 
 
 
A.) Highland Packaging Labs, Inc.           B.) J&J subsidiary Ortho McNeil 
 
 

 

 
 
HIGHLAND PACKAGING LABS INC (Now Imclone)
 
1181 RTE 202
SOMERVILLE, NJ 08876
 
 
 
 

PROCESS CODE / DESCRIPTIONLEGAL OPERATING STATUSUNIT OF MEASUREMENT TYPE / DESCRIPTIONCAPACITY TYPE / DESCRIPTIONQUANTITYCAPACITYEFFECTIVE DATE
S02 - TANK STORAGEINTERIM STATUS - CLEAN CLOSEDG - GALLONSD - Design2500001-JAN-92
S02 - TANK STORAGEINTERIM STATUS - OPERATING, ACTIVELY MANAGING RCRA-REGULATED WASTEG - GALLONSD - Design2500001-MAR-81
 
 
 

HIGHLAND PACKAGING LABS
908-665-8800
Fax: 908-218-0222
1181 Route 202
Somerville, NJ 08876

 

 
AGREEMENT OF PURCHASE AND SALE

BY AND BETWEEN
CORUM REALTY, LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, SELLER
IMCLONE SYSTEMS INCORPORATED, BUYER

Dated: as of December 17, 2001

Property: 1181 Route 202
Block 68.04, Lot 2.01
Branchburg, New Jersey

THIS AGREEMENT OF PURCHASE AND SALE (the "Agreement") is dated as of December---, 2001 by and between CORUM REALTY, LIMITED PARTNERSHIP, a New Jersey limited partnership, having an address c/o Highland Packaging Labs, Inc., 1181 Route 202, Somerville, New Jersey 08876 (the "Seller") and IMCLONE SYSTEMS INCORPORATED, a Delaware corporation, having an address at 180 Varick Street, New York, New York 10014 (the "Buyer").
 
2. Purchase Price:

(a) In consideration for the conveyance of the Property as contemplated hereby, the Buyer shall pay to the Seller the sum of Seven Million ($7,000,000) Dollars (the "Purchase Price").
 
 
 
ImClone Scandal
 
On December 27, ten days after Campbell sold Hyland Packaging Labs to Imclone, the FDA failed to approve Imclone's drug Erbitux.  Imclone shares plunged after the FDA decision was announced the following day.  What followed was the insider trading scandal that ensnared Sam Waksal and Martha Stewart.
 
 
 
Sam Waksal Sentenced
Matthew Herper, 06.10.03, 12:56 PM ET
NEW YORK - Today, the former ImClone Systems chief executive, Samuel D. Waksal, was sentenced to 87 months and a $3 million fine for charges of insider trading and fraud related to his attempts to sell stock after learning that U.S. regulators would reject an application for his company's cancer drug, Erbitux. In addition to his prison time, which was the maximum to which he could have been sentenced, Waksal must also make restitution of $1.2 million to the state of New York.

Waksal's fate now appears sealed. But what about cancer patients who have been waiting for Erbitux, not to mention ImClone investors? Earlier this month, new data were presented by ImClone's European partner, Merck KGaA, that seemed to show that the drug might be as effective in colon cancer as was thought before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration rejected ImClone's new drug application. 23% of patients who took Erbitux with chemotherapy saw their tumors shrink--a greater percentage than would be expected with chemotherapy alone.

Those results do look good. Since the data were presented, ImClone shares have rallied by more than a third to $36. But approval is still no sure thing. And while ImClone and U.S. partner Bristol-Myers Squibb once seemed to be sitting on a surefire blockbuster, Erbitux's prospects have now dimmed. Avastin, a new drug from Genentech, increased survival in 50% of colon cancer patients tested when added to chemotherapy. Doctors may try it before turning to Erbitux. Moreover, Amgen and Abgenix are developing a drug very similar to Erbitux that may boast safety or efficacy advantages--either of which could in turn yield the upper hand in a marketing war.
 
 
A Chronology of Imclone and Martha Stewart

Thursday, July 8, 2004; 1:43 PM

 

Martha Stewart lost her bid to have the government drop a securities fraud charge for publicly declaring her innocence to allegedly prop up the stock price of her own company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Stewart's trial began in mid-January

Click here for detailed updates of Martha Stewart's Trial

2004

July 8, 2004: A federal judge refuses to grant Martha Stewart a new trial, paving the way for her to be sentenced for lying about a stock sale.

 

March 5, 2004: Martha Stewart is found guilty on all four counts she faced of conspiracy, obstruction and lying to federal investigators about her sale of ImClone stock. Stewart's broker, Peter E. Bacanovic, was found guilty of the same charges and a count of perjury for lying under oath to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Bacanovic was acquitted on a charge of making false documents.

 

Jan. 20, 2004: Martha Stewart pleads not guilty to a new indictment just minutes before jury selection begins.

 

Jan. 6, 2004: Potential jurors for Martha Stewart's criminal trial fill out questionnaires.

 

2003

Nov. 19, 2003: A judge denies Stewart's bid to drop the securities fraud charge, the most serious charge that Stewart faces.

Oct. 11, 2003: The Securities and Exchange Commission files civil insider-trading charges against Jack Waksal, the father of incarcerated ImClone founder Samuel Waksal, in connection with stock trades dating back to December 2001.

 

July 21, 2003: Lawyers for Martha Stewart asked a federal judge to order a government investigation of the lawyers, regulators and agents who had advance notice of her indictment, complaining that secret grand jury information had been leaked.

 

June 19, 2003: Harlan W. Waksal, the co-founder of ImClone Systems Inc., quit as chief scientific officer and stepped down from the ImClone's board.

 

June 19, 2003: A federal judge Thursday set a Jan, 12 trial date for Martha Stewart and U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum also set a Nov. 18 date for lawyers to make oral arguments on their pretrial motions.

 

June 10, 2003: Sam Waksal, founder of ImClone, is sentenced to seven years and three months in prison and will have to pay over $4 million in fines and back taxes.

 

June 5, 2003: Martha Stewart and her former broker are indicted on nine counts of criminal charges for allegedly conspiring to obstruct a probe into her personal stock sales by lying to investigators and altering a key document to support their story. Stewart stepped down as chairman and chief executive of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. (Read Article)

 

April 30, 2003: Robert F. Goldhammer, chairman of the board, and Harlan W. Waksal, president and chief executive, resign as the company scrambled to deal with a recent debacle involving taxes.

 

April 1, 2003: ImClone announces that it will be forced to delay filing its annual report while it seeks to get to the bottom of a new tax problem that could ultimately cost as much as $60 million.

 

March 11, 2003: ImClone founder Samuel D. Waksal agrees to pay $800,000 and never again serve on the board of a public company to partially settle civil insider-trading charges filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

 

March 3, 2003: Samuel D. Waksal, founder of ImClone, enters a guilty plea to conspiracy and wire fraud for plotting with a Manhattan gallery owner to avoid paying $1.2 million in sales tax on nine paintings he bought for $15 million.

 

2002

Nov. 1, 2002: Stewart's media company reports 42 percent drop in third-quarter profits compared to the same period in the year prior.

 

Oct. 22, 2002: Securities and Exchange Commission investigators inform Martha Stewart that they intend to pursue securities-fraud charges against her in connection with her sale late last year of ImClone shares.

 

Oct. 15, 2002: Samuel Waksal, founder and former chief executive of ImClone Systems, pleaded guilty to six criminal charges of securities fraud, perjury, bank fraud and obstruction of justice.

 

Oct. 3, 2002: Douglas Faneuil, assistant to the Merrill broker who handled Stewart's account, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges that he accepted payments to withhold information about why Martha Stewart suddenly sold ImClone Systems stock.

 

Sept. 14, 2002: Samuel and Harlan Waksal, the two brothers who ran ImClone Systems, ordered shredders for the company's executive offices the day before the Securities and Exchange Commission requested corporate records in January, according to documents turned over to a congressional panel.

 

Sept. 11, 2002: A House panel asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Martha Stewart lied to Congress.

 

Sept. 6, 2002: Congressional investigators said that they have evidence of a five-minute phone call from Martha Stewart to ImClone Systems founder and former chief executive Samuel Waksal on Dec. 31, during a period when Waksal has maintained the two did not speak.

 

Aug. 20, 2002: Congressional investigators demand ImClone Systems turn over new records and certify that it is not withholding important facts about its controversial cancer drug, Erbitux.

 

Aug. 15, 2002: ImClone Systems announces that it has filed suit against Samuel Waksal, claiming that he improperly ordered the destruction of documents, and is also demanding the return of $7 million in severance pay granted to Waksal.

 

Aug. 13, 2002: Waksal pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of securities and bank fraud.

 

Aug. 8, 2002: A federal grand jury indicts Waksal on 13 counts of securities fraud, bank fraud, perjury, obstruction of justice and other charges after talks toward a possible plea agreement broke down.

 

June 25, 2002: The e-mail message that set off a chain of sales of ImClone Systems stock and eventually led to the arrest of its former chief executive explicitly said the company's cancer drug, Erbitux, was about to be rejected by the Food and Drug Administration.

 

June 22, 2002: Merrill Lynch places Martha Stewart's stockbroker Peter Bacanovic and his assistant on administrative leave.

 

Jun2 20, 2002: ImClone discloses that it had received formal notice of SEC civil action.

 

June 15, 2002: A House panel investigating stock sales at ImClone Systems says it will seek clarification of testimony given by Lily Lee, ImClone's vice president of regulatory affairs, because it bears on whether ImClone's chief executive had inside information when he made $44 million selling the biotechnology firm's stock.

 

June 14, 2002: Samuel Waksal declines to testify before a panel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

 

June 13, 2002: Samuel Waksal is arrested on a criminal complaint that alleges he told family members to sell the biotechnology company's stock, just before a negative government report on ImClone's main product, an experimental cancer drug.

 

June 5, 2002: A congressional panel subpoenas Waksal after he declines to testify at a hearing scheduled

 

March 22, 2002: Congressional investigators begin probe on Imclone stock trades made by company insiders.

 

Feb. 28, 2002: Shares of ImClone Systems jump 32 percent after the company announces it has come up with a new strategy that could win approval for its product from the Food and Drug Administration.

 

Feb. 22, 2002: A House committee investigating ImClone requests documents from drug and biotech companies that had discussed potential partnerships with ImClone.

 

Jan. 20, 2002: Shares of ImClone Systems falls 30 percent amid news that it would be the subject of a congressional inquiry.

 

© 2004 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive
 
 
 
 
More Arrests In ImClone Scandal

Waksal Friends Charged With Insider Trading

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 10, 2005; Page E01
 

Two former close associates of imprisoned ImClone Systems Inc. founder Samuel D. Waksal were arrested yesterday on criminal conspiracy and securities fraud charges in connection with their sales of the company's stock just before bad news was announced.

 

Zvi Fuks, chairman of the department of radiation oncology at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering hospital, and Sabina Ben-Yehuda, an executive of an investment company connected to Waksal, were arrested on charges that they made trades after they were tipped off to bad news by the biotechnology company's founder. The arrests came days after Martha Stewart returned from serving time in a federal prison for obstructing an investigation into her sale of ImClone stock.

 

Waksal, who is serving an 87-month sentence at Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institution in Minersville, Pa., provided grand jury testimony against Fuks and Ben-Yehuda last month, according to court papers.

The charges against Fuks and Ben-Yehuda, who court papers say had a "close personal relationship," were lodged in a criminal complaint by federal prosecutors in Manhattan. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed related civil insider-trading charges against both defendants yesterday, alleging that they took advantage of advance knowledge that federal regulators had rejected ImClone's application to sell Erbitux, its leading cancer drug.

 

"It is unfortunate the government has chosen to pursue this case three years after the facts on the word of an admitted liar," said Stephen Fishbein of Shearman & Sterling LLP, a lawyer for Ben-Yehuda. Lawyers for Fuks did not return calls, but they told Bloomberg News that they would fight the charges.

 

Court papers released yesterday suggest that the defendants had multiple conversations between 5:59 a.m. and 9:08 a.m. on Dec. 27, 2001, including several calls to or from Waksal.

 

Waksal allegedly tipped off Ben-Yehuda, who on Waksal's advice then called Fuks to share the bad news, according to court papers. Fuks was on ImClone's advisory board in December 2001.

That morning Fuks, a prominent cancer doctor who met Waksal more than three decades ago, sold 89,173 shares of ImClone stock, for proceeds of $5.3 million. Ben-Yehuda, who worked at Scientia, a company Waksal created to make investments in emerging biotechnology firms, sold 1,178 shares for proceeds of $73,453, U.S. Attorney David N. Kelley said.

 

Both defendants avoided thousands of dollars in losses in the stock by selling on the inside tip, the government alleged. ImClone's share price fell more than 16 percent after the company revealed that the Food and Drug Administration had rejected its application for the Erbitux cancer drug after the close of business Dec. 28, 2001. The agency eventually cleared the drug, in February 2004.

 

In his recent grand jury testimony, Waksal apparently implicated both defendants and described conversations in which they expressed concern that investigators would learn of the improper tips.

"Waksal had a conversation with Ben-Yehuda, who stated that she and Fuks were worried because they were aware Waksal was under investigation and had concerns about what Waksal might say," according to the criminal complaint signed by FBI Special Agent David Makol. "Ben-Yehuda asked whether Waksal was going to protect her and Fuks. Waksal replied that he would."

 

Federal securities regulators also sued Fuks and Ben-Yehuda yesterday, seeking disgorgement of profits and unspecified civil penalties.

"The commission punishes insider trading whenever it occurs and will not allow anyone to profit from it," said Bruce Karpati, an assistant regional director in the SEC's New York office.

 

Fuks, 68, continues to work at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, a hospital spokeswoman said yesterday afternoon.