On April 13, 2011, the Department of Justice re-indicted former GlaxoSmithKline attorney Lauren Stevens on charges of obstructing an official proceeding, concealing and falsifying documents to influence a federal agency and making false statements to the Food and Drug Administration. This case presents interesting issues because Ms. Stevens asserts that she was following the advice of counsel and thus did not have the intention of breaking the law. These charges are essentially the same as those dismissed without prejudice by the United States District Court for the District of Maryland on March 23, 2011 upon a finding that the prosecutors misstated the law regarding good faith reliance on advice of counsel negating specific intent when it presented the case to the grand jury that indicted Ms. Stevens. The trial is tentatively set for April 26, 2011. For details regarding the initial charges, see our alert from March 29.
The Department of Justice's press release on the subject can be found here.
For more information, please contact your Baker Donelson attorney or any of the attorneys in the Government Investigations, Drug, Device & Life Sciences or Health Law Groups.