Qui Tam

DRAFT VIRGINIA QUI TAM HERO JOHN BROWNLEE FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL OF VIRGINIA!!!

By Zachary A. Kitts

Okay, maybe the headline is a little premature.  Still, the single most exciting development in the 2009 Virginia Attorney General race since my Open Letter has been John Brownlee's resignation from his position as United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia. 

Why?  Because Brownlee is rumored to be considering a run for Virginia Attorney General.

As you may or may not recall, Brownlee was responsible for the single largest false claims recovery in the history of Virginia in May of 2007.  The recovery, on the order of $634 million dollars, included criminal guilty pleas by a three top Purdue executives, in which they admitted that Purdue fraudulently marketed Oxycontin.  Virginia received more than $34 million dollars from these three  Purdue executives, and an additional $25.3 million dollars as part of the settlement.  

In other words, John Brownlee returned almost $60 million dollars to the Commonwealth by his focus on qui tam and the False Claims Act. 

That alone would be enough to make him a hero, but when we consider that Brownlee stood up to considerable pressure from the Bush administration in order to obtain this settlement, his character and bravery puts him in a class all by himself and would make him my choice for Attorney General.  

It almost cost him his job, by the way.  In a little known turn of events, Brownlee rebuffed an apparent attempt from DOJ to obtain more time for Purdue to consider the agreement.  The date was October 24, 2006.    

Exactly one week later, on November 1, 2006, Brownlee showed up on the infamous Kyle Sampson's "black list" of U.S. Attorneys to be dismissed. 

I don't know of any show of character on the part of McDonnell or Cuccinelli that can match that, and I definitely can't remember the last time a Virginia Republican stood up to big business interests that way.  

So everyone, pass the word--the effort to draft John Brownlee to run for Virginia Attorney General is under way! 

Zachary A. Kitts
Cook & Kitts, PLLC
    

Full post as published by Virginia Qui Tam Law on April 26, 2008 (boomark / email).