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Fen-phen scandal: the lawyers' cut

Like you, I have been following coverage of the fen-phen frauds exposed here in Mississippi (May 8), and yet I have never seen any reference in any paper in the state to one of the most obvious questions raised by the scandal: what happened to the contingency fees pocketed by the original plaintiff lawyers? Yes, the fraudulent claimants must pay restitution, but do the lawyers get to keep money which in retrospect was paid only because of fraud? Or are they having to return it? The question never seems to come up in the reporting, but I don't know why. -- S.W. Bondurant, Grenada, Miss.

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Comments

I second the motion. Somebody needs to address this question.