Criminal trial in Boston has roots in Western New York

BUFFALO, N.Y. — There’s a criminal trial happening in Boston that a lot of Western New Yorkers may want to keep an eye on.

It involves the opioid crisis and allegations a drug company made the problem worse.

The defendant also has strong ties to the University at Buffalo.

The suspect’s name is John Kapoor. He founded Insys Therapeutics and is worth almost $1 billion.

Through the years, he’s been a big donor to his alma mater, the University at Buffalo.

Despite conspiracy, wire fraud and even RICO charges against him, UB’s School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences building still has his name on it.

Just across the street from there sits a house with signs out front, reminding folks to follow Kapoor’s trial and the words “fentanyl kills.”

Kapoor is accused of bribing doctors to prescribe his highly addictive drug spray called Subsys, originally intended to treat cancer.

It contains fentanyl.

Prosecutors said in opening arguments that Kapoor put profits over people.

They accuse him and his employees at Insys of paying doctors millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks to boost sales.

Meanwhile, his defense team said he did nothing illegal and shifted blame to Insys’s former CEO, who has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the government.

Kapoor is the highest-level drug company executive in the country to face a trial amid this ongoing opioid epidemic.

UB released a statement following Kapoor’s arrest in October of 2017, saying it would follow the case.

But so far no action to remove his name from that building.

He donated $5 million to support the south campus.

In addition to the criminal trial, Kapoor’s company has already paid a $150 million civil settlement with the U.S. government.

New York has also sued Insys, as have many former patients, who say they were given high doses of that spray, even though they didn’t have cancer, and they claim they weren’t warned of the risks of becoming addicted to the opioid treatment that, by the way, is 50 times more powerful than heroin.