New York State Attorney General Letitia James made a stop at St. Vincent”™s Hospital in Harrison Tuesday morning to deliver oversize presentation checks to local government officials. The checks represented the first payments in what could be an estimated $94 million going to the Hudson Valley as a result of settlements with manufacturers and distributors of opioids.
James had sued various manufacturers and distributors over their roles in the opioid epidemic, and different settlements so far have yielded about $1.5 billion in funds for New York state.
Among the companies that settled were Johnson & Johnson, McKesson, Cardinal Health, Amerisource Bergen, Endo and the Sackler Family and Purdue Pharma.
Two other cases are in bankruptcy court and have not yet been settled. The cases brought against the two remaining defendants, Teva Pharmaceuticals USA and Allergan Finance, currently are being heard in state court.
Amounts earmarked for counties in the Hudson Valley are yet to be finalized but fall into the following ranges:
- Dutchess County: $3,682,781.87 to $6,433,863.62
- Orange County: $4,360,832.35 to $7,618,425.84
- Putnam County: $996,022.69 to $1,740,063.46
- Rockland County: $2,590,593.17 to $4,525,797.00
- Sullivan County: $1,587,590.46 to $2,773,539.37
- Ulster County: $2,070,408.78 to $3,617,028.70
- Westchester County: $10,678,857.89 to $18,888,019.80
Westchester County Executive George Latimer accepted a check amounting to $13,522,237.42.
Some cities that were especially affected by the opioid crisis will directly receive a share of the money collected by the state. For the city of Yonkers, Mayor Mike Spano accepted a presentation check in the amount of $5,365,782.38 at Tuesday’s event.
“These funds will help the Hudson Valley turn the tide on the opioid crisis,” James said. “While no amount of money will ever make up for all the lives lost, these funds will be vital in helping to prevent future deaths.”
When James went to court against the manufacturers and distributors in 2019, she charged that they were responsible for heavily marketing opioids to doctors, hospitals, health care systems and others, which led to the overprescribing of the drugs across New York state and the rest of the nation over a period of approximately 20 years.
A state law requires that any money received by New York as the result of an opioid  settlement or a winning a lawsuit in court must go into an opioid settlement fund that will support treatment, recovery and epidemic abatement efforts rather than into the state”™s general fund.
