Bad Acts: The Racketeering Case Against the Tobacco Industry

Bad Acts gives the inside story of the battle, not only in court but in politics, to bring Big Tobacco to justice. I know this from first-hand experience. Anyone who cares about what it takes to bring justice to big corporations needs to read this book.

David Kessler, MD, former Commissioner for the United States Food and Drug Administration

On January 20, 1999, President Bill Clinton announced in his State of the Union address that the Justice Department was planning to sue the tobacco industry and assigned the task to Attorney General Janet Reno and the Justice Department. This book is the story of that case - the politics, the litigation, the behavior of the industry and its lawyers, the efforts by the Bush Administration to gut the case, and the ultimate victory in court.

Bad Acts tells the story, not yet fully revealed, of what was happening behind the scenes at the Justice Department as the case approached victory, when the Bush Administration intervened, with some success, to protect Big Tobacco. The book examines the political influences and interferences of and by Clinton Democrats and George W. Bush Republicans. It is a candid behind-the-scenes account of how the case was put together, how the industry attempted to halt the case, and how it ultimately was won by the Justice Department.

Sharon Y. Eubanks is an attorney with the law firm of Sanford Wittels & Heisler in Washington, DC, where she specializes in civil rights and general public interest cases. She spent 22 years as an attorney in the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice, where she led the team that pursued for six years, including a nine-month trial, the case against the major cigarette manufacturers for violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Following the trial, she was forced into early retirement by the George W. Bush administration. She lives just outside Washington, DC, in McLean, Virginia, with her husband. She has three daughters, twins who are in college and one who is a recent graduate working on a political campaign.

Stanton A. Glantz is a professor of medicine and an American Legacy Foundation Distinguished Professor in Tobacco Control at the University of California San Francisco. He is the author of eight books and more than 300 scientific publications. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine. The tobacco industry has unsuccessfully sued the University of California twice in efforts to stop his work. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and near his two grown children, a journalist and a public affairs consultant and lobbyist.