companies who provide booktv to viewers as a public service. >> here's a look at books being published this week.

>> find these titles this coming week wherever books are sold and watch for many of the authors in the future on booktv on c-span2. >> tonight we are thrilled to have with us charlotte bismuth for the launch of her book "bad medicine: catching new york's deadliest pill pusher". charlotte bismuth started her legal career joining the new york county district attorney's office in 2008 as an appellate attorney. in 2010 she transferred to the office of the special narcotics which prosecutes felony narcotics crimes. after her work on the prosecution of doctor stanley she left the das office advocate for victims of the opioid epidemic. in partnership with activists, grieving families, academics, journalists and physicians this

news called for accountability from other entities responsible for launching the opioid epidemic. charlotte also served as consulting for prosecutor center for excellence, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting best practices and prosecutions. she is a graduate of columbia university, columbia law school and institute for political science in paris. she was in new york city with her husband and children. joining her in conversation is patricia mccormick. a two time national book award finalist and author of several novels, including never fall down, the true story of the boy who survived the killing fields of cambodia playing music and sold, of sexual trafficking that was adapted into a feature film in 2015. he is also the author of i malala, her book the plot to kill hitler was published in

2016. sergeant reckless, the true story of the little horse it became a hero came out in 2017. she attended columbia university graduate school in journalism and has msa from the new school, she lives in new york. without further a do please welcome charlotte bismuth and patricia mccormick to the stage. >> hi, everyone. thank you very much for coming. i am charlotte. >> i am patty. >> we wanted to start off by acknowledging the action is not just on-screen with a split in the audience tonight we were surrounded by people who made it difference in the lives of others. in the opioid epidemic, young man named matt dingo who was the person who reported doctor

lee to the police, he saved many lives and i want to acknowledge his contribution tonight. i see my partner, stephanie, investigator joe hall, they are here and i thank them and all the court reporters and all of you for coming. because this is the case that resulted in so much loss of life, patty and i would like to start with a short moment of reflection. i have written the names of a few victims, in this case, others in mind in our minds and hearts so we can take a few moments to think about them. >> thank you.

thank you, charlotte. i am happy to be here to help you launch this wonderful book. nearly lost someone to the opioid epidemic. i'm grateful to you. as are many people who are here tonight. i met charlotte at our reading walter kern was giving and instantly knew she was a writer. very talented and tenacious prosecutor as well but i could tell the soul of a writer lives in her and some very happy to see this book has come to fruition. i also have the honor of seeing her in court. i was so intrigued by the story, the case she was pursuing that i went to see her in court and so i can picture many of the scenes that were in this story and i saw her doing

her finest work. as many of you know, many people in the audience are familiar with the book. in this case, those who may not know it is a wonderful page turning legal thriller about a dirty doctor who resulted in the deaths of many people. charlotte and her team started with the tip on a post it note and really made legal history in prosecuting this doctor for homicide. i wonder if you started that moment of receiving the tip. you mentioned the tipster is

with us tonight and has allowed you to make his name public for the first time but i wonder if you could talk about the case where it first came to you. >> i should have mentioned that. i have information to reveal his name, eddie laura in the book. in 2010, i was a relatively junior prosecutor at the office of special narcotics prosecutor and we received a tip, my office have been noticing a significant and concerning uptick in prescription drug crimes and that night my boss handed me a note with a detective's name, doctor's name and address.

the tipster said, and and we didn't know if we were the right ones with the case. the doctor prescribed matter for medication. for the first few weeks, i was lucky enough, we had trouble having access, with the incredible detective work, and with that point, understood we might be dealing with a unique situation, a doctor who has a

sign up in the office, advertise the price, with extra fees if you came early with extra fees, controlled substances from other doctors. a doctor who didn't care about his patients suffering in the center didn't investigate their pain or send them for diagnostic tests. all he did was write a prescription and so many patients in so many years that followed took the money and put it in the pocket of his white coats. with that post-it note i have no idea if the case could change my life but thanks to the complainant it would save lives, bringing some measure of closure, those in a tremendous amount of suffering for the loss of their loved ones thinking they have been the ones to fail.

>> that is important, the role of the loved one in helping to see this case through. the way you kept concerns front and enter. >> doctor lee of course, ultimately at trial, to be deceived, the real pain was among patients and families seeking a legitimate position,

were visibly distressed, visibly requiring and monetized suffering. patients in been betrayed by a physician, they knew above the one, child or father or sister, and felt interest because of that, and joseph haig's sister, so it was okay and wrote a note to his family and don't use illegal drugs, profound betrayal, it is crucial to us to connect with the patients, survivors, or go forward and tell the jury what they had

seen but this, driven by greed. >> the picture and others, kept one on the desk when the investigation started. >> i had a photo, nicholas passed away at the age of 21. on the day of the opening statement i was petrified, the beginning of the trial had been put off one day to the next to the next and i just wanted to remind myself why we were there. anybody who considered becoming a prosecutor, or served in that role, serving the victims especially the ones who cannot speak for themselves is a

sacred duty and for me to have this, his wife was interrupted, very important person in my life and that reminded me of why we were there and it reminded me to overcome -- may be not overcome. i didn't overcome the nerve but pushed through. >> i will read an excerpt from a letter sent by one of the families to doctor lee. this letter is in response to your daughter and patient, she is in very bad shape mentally and physically as well. you must stop prescribing deadly doses of drugs from methadone to you name it. what was it like to meet doctor lee. >> after reading those patient

files and that letter and notes, recording his conversations with other parents. when i first saw him on the day of arraignment, relief to know we had shutdown his clinic in november of 2011, so much work to do to trace back the criminal conduct and capture it through the actions of another grand jury but i think i can safely speak for my trial partner, joe holland everybody else on the case that it was an enduring mystery to know how he had come to sit in front of these men and women and write out those prescriptions, and even have the presence of mind

to require the extra, and doctor lee had died in prison of covid-19, everyone who works in the case knows that nobody deserves a lonely and isolated death and it points out the fact that we will never know but with respect to the letter that you read, that letter shockingly submitted to doctor lee in 2007 and we found it in the patient files in 2011 and not only had t.a.r.p. -- stan li continue to prescribe the very medications those parents were begging him to stop. >> you describe a really shabby

operation, prices posted on the walls almost like sandwich prices at a deli. can you talk about the long, painstaking process that you and investigators and partner went through to make sure you had the case you wanted to bring? >> i think everyone from the team is probably having flashbacks to long, heated debates, long meetings in conference rooms, sessions going through 1200 patient files page by page reading them to each other, escalating them to supervisors, we had an incredible consultant on the homicide front, nancy ryan, who serves as mister morgenthaler's right-hand woman, chief of the

trial division, she came in, really vetted the homicide cases and educate us about what would be required. it was tough and daunting because charges capture the criminal conduct but at the same time you don't want to overreach and endanger the case. it involved a lot of free legal research, we were looking for a couple things. we were looking for patients whose vulnerability was visible or known to stan li, or call to ms. in the case of michael cornett are whose emergency room psychiatrist called and said your patient is in the er in an overdose and yet stan li continue to prescribe.

patients who were only a few times to see stan li with a bare-bones complaint of pain and sometimes months going between visit to stan li new were getting references from other doctors and he continued to prescribe so gradually he built a filtering process where even though there was tremendous universe of harm, over 1200 patients, we learned of 16 pickeds -- patients who died under his care or within a year of being contacted, we had to filter it down and brought it down to 20 patients, presented evidence to a grand jury. over a dozen men and women who came in and heard a case over six months, heard evidence and voted on 218 charges against

doctor lee including two count of homicide. >> host: was there one moment when you really caught an incredible break in the case and things turn or conversely was there one or more moments when you thought, not going to happen. >> guest: it was every minute of every day. we felt we were walking a tight rope. it was such a broad complex case, trying to keep track of the medical records and testimony was difficult but there were brakes in the case and those breaks came because of the obsessive work we were doing. i remember one day in 2012 when jill hall and i were in a

conference room, a little bit dusty, you should know that, and we had been in there for hours. we had in front of us boxes and boxes of material seized from stan li's home in new jersey so we were going through page by page, we were going through receipts, ledgers with the names of every patient who had seen it every day he was open and the amount of money they paid him and at one point we came across a yellow folder and in that yellow folder there were a couple. sheets that were the same format of doctor lee -- stan li's patient files. we were puzzled why they were in new jersey with the files they belonged to and as often happened when i was working with joe we would look at each other and he would run off to the locker to grab the patient

files that belongs to those sheets and we compared them and in that moment we realized stan li falsified his patient records and why does this matter? it matters because those patients, his treatment of those patients was under scrutiny by the state administrative board. we had consciousness of guilt. we had awareness that not only were his records inadequate but his practice was inadequate and it was criminal and it was -- that moment i think was a real turning point because we knew that it had been about the money but this compelling evidence of stan li's lack of credibility not only made us feel we were on the right track but we knew it was important evidence to present to a grand

jury and i would add - they would tell you they spend dozens of hours painstakingly comparing every sheet of paper in each of the 20 patient files for each of the victims brought off the trial to make sure there were no differences and to show the jury to the extent, a couple hours of testimony, and behind that, so much work by peter and the witness in preparing for that. it made a big difference to the jury. >> host: i remember reading they had already come to talk to him.

but failed to catch him? >> guest: i am inclined to say everything, he did a very good job of keeping it up. stan li when confronted by the da in 2009 assured them he was conducting exams for every patient. the few occasions he was asked for patient files when the oversight agency contacted him. on one occasion even when a medical examiner contacted him he falsified the records. he also had a full-time job in a well-respected hospital in new jersey, very well-qualified doctor with excellent credentials. he was an anesthesiologist. if he knew how to do anything it was to bring people into a state of unconsciousness and safely bring them back. in addition to everything else

he enjoyed the privilege of status. he enjoyed the trust of the da and society and that is what allowed him to continue exploiting the pain of his patients for so long. >> host: this is the story of the people you worked with. in particular your relationship with your colleague peter. can you talk about the many miles the 2 of you have traveled? >> guest: peter, who heard an early draft of the book, was kind enough and unsurprisingly for his character brave enough to tell me and this is literally what he told me, you are allowed to talk about what we have and that and so much.

i think that the level of respect and friendship i have for peter now is not only from having been in the trenches together with joe, stephanie, the brave witnesses who came forward but also comes from having had to but heads a little bit and talk about it. we had a remarkable number of discussions, preparation for the trial. why can't we agree on anything and we had a lot of disagreements but our style is so complementary. i tended to overstretch beyond what was absolutely necessary to prove the case and peter, who actually tried few homicides before but many homicides before would bring me back and this is what we need

to focus on, this is what matters and that is absolutely essential so to have his blessing to tell the truth about productive working relationship, what does it mean to really go through a test of endurance like that was very meaningful and also i went to read the book to peter and inevitably his son or somebody else meaningful to him with us so i knew it was an incredible experience to have his feedback and have somebody out there to respond. it was like being in the editing room but for a book. >> host: you developed a real friendship out of this in the end. >> guest: for my part yes. i hope peter would agree.

>> host: you bear a lot of yourself in the book. the narrative of your own life runs parallel to the narrative of the case and i can't imagine that was easy to be as honest as you were. can you talk about that decision a little bit? >> guest: yes. i will avoid that question by saying the friendship with peter, and the amount of work they did. and and and i will learn how to charlotte. i've come to believe it is important to lift the curtain

on the reality of prosecution and the reality of crime, the reality of the so-called workplace balance, which is as one friend said there is no work life balance, just work life choices and it was hard. i asked my children if he was okay with them. i respect to those limits and for the depression and anxiety, i have come to understand a lot about the stigma attached to opioid disorder and a real struggle to conform to expectations. that need to be discussed and it would be a relief to me to know others are experiencing

the same thing and the heartfelt messages from my team members about it now and working with them changed everything. >> host: as a reader it made me feel closer to you and more trusting of everything that you said because you were willing to be honest about the stress, the strain of your job, you got feedback from other readers. >> guest: for young professionals, the messages, one of the other themes of the book, i may has been

experiencing, families and victims i was working with, still struggling with the aftermath of stan li, whatever i was experiencing, to get my documents in order, nothing compared to what we were asking of them. to come forward, about their past, their struggles, stan li -- to have him prescribe more and asking a jury to begin and subject to cross-examination, michael cornett's girlfriend

resulted in terrible pain because stan li's defense attorney confronted her with the packed -- the fact that her own position was prescribing her boyfriend in addition to doctor lee, prescribing her boyfriend a staggering number and she collapsed. the judge became very angry and that moment, he, i think, felt it had been unnecessary to call her to the stand. that had been a difficult decision. we had a difficult day but ultimately she said it had been important to do it and unanimously the witnesses felt that they had made a difference and they really did, save lives by telling the truth. >> host: it was a pleasure to see you in the courtroom and to see you as an attorney.

i am curious about the writer part of your identity as well. it is your first book. it is very well done and you employed a very ambitious structure going back and forth in time. might have been easier if you are used to somebody building a legal brief to do things in order or chronologically. it built a lot of tension and talk about the writing process and how you made that choice. >> guest: that, women should be accepted not by me but jeff who is in the audience tonight, extraordinary editor who worked with me on the final chapter of the book, semifinal, many drafts of the book and she kept telling me you have to trust

your reader and absolutely right, i had a tendency, to do this sort of exhaustive layout, it was unnecessary, to help my motion or whatever i was writing and bring them down to be essential and had a rigorous editing process and jessica did the same as dude my editor, with the book, she really felt and i have to agree that it was a way to allow the reader to experience the parallel between building the case and my life and also as a prosecutor you don't get to keep this in order and also wants to think about that moment in time when my life was infected, moment of arraignment in 2011 and i was thinking about what had been happening that i didn't know

about before, what was i experiencing and how that intersection changed everything so it was an f structure if you will. jessica taught me how to let go of that perfectionism, focusing on the moment that expressed the story. >> host: you told me the red pen edit treatment you got on your brief also helped to develop a sense for how good it is to be edited. it is painful but how it makes the final product so much better. >> a team makes everything better. i always thought i had to go it alone. a team makes everything better. it can be a challenge to learn

how to work with the team, how to delegate especially when you're fortunate enough to work as i was, to work not only with people who had tremendous experience but people who had incredibly powerful brains and instincts like stephanie and others, john courtney, and under the leadership of bridget brennan who had a lot of guts in confronting the opioid epidemic and going after the doctor so on my own i would not have done any of this. none of the people in the book and in life would have been able to reach the deck of accountability if we haven't worked together. >> host: how and when did you know was a book in addition to being a case, not only to prosecute the individual but you needed to create a record, document and a drama?

>> guest: i felt the trial, building a case for trial is similar in some ways to writing a book. when the trial was over i remember joe hall and i stepping out into the street and looking at each other and thinking now what? can't believe it is over and the fact is it had been such an intense experience for everyone involved but other than doing what we had to do to prepare the case for appeals or whatever might come next, we didn't talk about it and i didn't want to write about it. i wrote a very bad novel before i wrote the book and then realized my husband who had been telling me for years that this was a story i should write have a point. i have to credit him for that.

>> host: what are you working on now? >> guest: i am working on a couple things. i have been following the purdue bankruptcy and working with an incredible advocacy group founded by photographer nan golden who is fighting for accountability at the national level with members of the backward family in produce so i started drawing cartoons related to the bankruptcy as a way of communicating what is going on in a more user-friendly manner and i might try to do something there. may be a graphic novel of sorts in partnership with experts and a couple of other books i am thinking of. the beauty of being a writer rather than an attorney for me has been i feel more freedom to draw on any other part of my

life and some attorneys like bridget, like peter, who are able to bring that into their work but for me, writing about the law, translating the jargon, translating the procedure, is much more my calling even though i really miss the investigation. >> host: is there anything left unsaid if you could put in a blog in the book or there was more you would want readers to know? what would it be today? >> guest: i would like to give a direct voice to the families who were involved and for them if they feel inclined to tell the story from their perspective, the one thing that bothers me is we lost 500,000 lives in the opioid epidemic. it is unspeakable.

there hasn't been any breathing on the collective level. it was difficult and everybody iran into, that is traumatizing for us. i will hear stories of people who are fighting back and i would like to draw attention to the legal proceedings where we have a chance of getting accountability like the purdue bankruptcy, hopefully criminal prosecution. >> host: you and your colleagues notched a win and epidemic or a world we don't often see accountability.

do you think the epidemic is on the way? >> guest: know. unfortunately the cdc released statistics showing 12 months between may of 2019 and may of 2020, 81,000 people have lost their lives to overdoses which far outpaced the 12 preceding month. i think the combination of the covid-19 epidemic and the pandemic has led to a horrific sense of isolation, reduction of harm, reduction efforts. many of those programs already in danger of stigma. and and give them a chance to

stay alive until they are able to pick a different path of that is what they want to do. i never imagined that on the day this book would come out it would have gotten worse but it has. >> host: if it means there are other stan lis out there and other people read this book it shows the prosecution, successful prosecution is possible. thank you. we would like to open it up to our audience to see what questions you have for charlotte. >> there are a lot of excellent questions here, thank you. everyone. how do you feel about modern criminal justice reform and how they may impact criminal charges against medical professionals?

>> a couple changes make the law in new york state during and after the stan li case. it was implemented which created a system where doctors had to check whether their patients were receiving controlled substances from other physicians so that kind of forced visibility, force transparency, accountability is important. the other changes that occur were some of the criminal statutes were changed to include pharmacists and physicians in the definition of certain crimes and that is essential. there can't be a bias flipped into the law, the medical pool, can't sell a prescription. you can't be guilty of selling a prescription.

one of the biggest -- and the special narcotic prosecutor which focused on exposing the greed of dirty doctors and holding them accountable. we need to do that at a national level, with corporate executives who launched the opioid epidemic, those who have profited, distribution companies, other sort of systemic actors who profited from the epidemic. they can't be above the law and some of the laws on the book like reckless manslaughter may apply and they should be pursued. >> okay. out of dark curiosity, do you have an idea how stan li treated his noncached outpatients, to be vigilant

about addiction potential? with some who came to the queen clinic and cashed in on the vulnerable? >> whoever submitted that question is thinking like a prosecutor and that is not just a question of curiosity but a crucial question because we were trying to understand his state of mind, his intense, trying to see what in fact his clinic was about but we learned even though there were sales and highly addictive substances before a certain date which was somewhere around 2007 or so, the patients he was seeing before then were vehicles for insurance fraud and so he was seeing a population of elderly patients with chronic pain conditions stemming from old age and illnesses and he would double bill or otherwise falsify insurance records to maximize the amount of money so

we were able to present evidence of schemes to defraud to the grand jury and i think the crucial part of the case because the jury saw from the beginning there was greed driving this, what he had on the weekends. .. i don't know. i think it can be a blessing and a curse to have a cinematic life, so right now my purpose is to draw attention to the need for accountability and that's all i can speak to.

>> this one is a little more personal. who inspires you charlotte? do you have a hero you look up to? >> i do. i would sat matt and margaret and kingsly, kristin, joe hall, stephanie. bridget, my heroes are the people who i have seen working so hard, putting one foot in front of the other through the impossible. i think of them every day. and i also -- there's another young woman whose name is andrea howard in the book, who told dr. li her father killed himself in front of her and she wanted to kill herself. she was in such suffering, he pushed her to the jinx she agreed to testify, when she

testified she held a stuffed animal in his arms after the trial she gave it to me. she is my hero. >> i am not going to tear up. >> i am. one of the braveest people i've ever met. >> incredibly brave. >> we have a question from jordan. thank you for doing this. charlotte can you say anything more but your reaction to hearing about li's death? you -- did you show at all in coming to that conclusion about the man who as you proved at trial took live inside. >> i didn't because he was sentenced to a term in prison. he was not sentenced to death. i am strongly opposed to the death penalty. i believe those who are in the custody of the government deserve to be protected, and he

should have been able to serve his term and return to his family. i -- having seen the pain of people who lost loved ones in an untimely manner and having seen the devastation of covid, there wasn't a moment or hesitation. >> okay. a question from callie. charlotte, you mentioned harm reduction. can you speak but the policy implications of what you learn from the trial? >> i have undergone a real sea change with respect to the disorder which i think many of us in the law enforcement community, because the laws are written a certain way, tends to see the criminalattity in -- criminality in that rather than

the michigan disease and i believe that if we recognize as the medical community has, the legitimate medical community has, that addiction is an illness, then we have to reduce the suffering. so, i believe not just that harm reduction should exist but that it is an urgent need right now. from what i've learned recently, it is much more painful to inject with a needle that has been used than it is not to and addiction can already be a state of suffering. why wouldn't we help keep people alive? there's also a family from the case who lost their brother, solicitation of dr. li and they lost theirsen and their son died alone he was young. there was fentanyl laced in the substance he was using. harm reduction can allow for

safe injection sites which i know are very controversial but again, nobody wants people to die alone and none necessarily. i think we need to set aside some of our thinking on that for those of us who maybe struggle to accept it and just save lives. >> what is -- does a judge's personality play in the trial? >> he kept us on a very tightrope. it was very hard for him, i think, to -- as it was for everyone to keep track of the exhibits witness. 72 witnesses and four months and wasn't just the victims and witnesses who had so much to lose if the case had turned into a mistrial but the judge as

well. he really worked very, very hard and i think that must have been an incredibly stressful experience, and i appreciate the difficulty of what he had to do. i did think it was ironic that sometimes he would remark on our facial expressions because i was working so hard on my poker face, but what can you do? >> and we have time for one last question. what do you think is a realistic outcome and perhaps separately a proper outcome on the lawsuits. >> well, all of the lawsuits have been essentially frozen now because of the bankruptcy proceeding if think the members of the sackler family should not be granted a release from civil immunity as a result of the bankruptcy. they should be criminally prosecuted and i think the people who suffered should be able to recover.

they can't recover the lives and the time they have lost, but maybe they can have some financial compensation and i fear that is not the direction the bankruptcy is going in right now. >> okay. i think that's all the time we have for tonight. thank you, both of you, for joining us tonight and talking about these very heavy but very important topics that are really a part of our lives on a daily basis. thank you or wonderful audience for joining us tonight. is there anything either of you would like to say to the audience before we sign off for the night? >> just thank you. thank you for being here and i know that every one of you is trying to make a difference and it's working so keep doing it. thank you. >> thank you sophia for hosting and thank you, patty. >> it's my pleasure. >> wore watching booktv on

c-span2. television for serious readers. here's programs to look out for. tonight, social justice active gist tim wise discusses racial touchpoints during the obama and trump administrations, followed later by a weekly author interview program "after words" with amelia pang who reports on the labor camp inside china used to produce u.s. consumer goodsed and tomorrow at noon eastern we are live with presidentsal braver, robert merry, trucking but presidential history and the current state of politics. find schedule information online at booktv.org or consult your program guide. >> recently investigative journalist share attkisson offered thoughts on censorship

and journalism. >> the narrative has taught it and i think this has been quite successful prop again to effort we are in the news decide who is right and wrong even though we can't know the truth of the matter 0 matter of opinion or debate and then we are to shade what we report to the pock by make sugar we controversialized those who are off the narrative or discredit the people right like that or the scientific studies off the narrative and push instead a one-sided version of somebody's right to and if you dig behind that, it's not a fair-minded, this is what we think is right because we have investigated. thisser more what we're push taught you. >> to watch the program visit our residence, booktv, use the search back at the top of the page to look foresail at tisson.

>> you're watching booktv on c-span2. a if weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors. booktv on c-span2, created by america's cable television companies. today wore brought to you by these television companies who provide booktv to viewer as a public service. >> i want to start by asking you to comment on something you write in the book which is win it comes to dementia, what do you mean by that? >> if i can acknowledge this evening as well. i'm glad you brought that up and heather did as well. we thought -- i'm glad we're having this conversation still because i think life shouldn't stop for things necessarily but it is a very strange time. i was having this conversation with my father earlier, like so many people who have probably listening, either immigrant or children of