In June of 2024, after a nearly six-week trial in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey, Reese Marketos obtained a $150 million False Claims Act jury verdict against Janssen Products—a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. By statute, the damages awarded by the jury are set to be trebled. The jury also found that Janssen submitted more than 159,000 false claims. Under the False Claims Act, each false claim has a statutory penalty of at least $5,500. In total, the judgment could exceed $1 billion, which would make it one of the largest False Claims Act judgments in history. The case is United States ex rel. Penelow v. Janssen Products, LP, 3:12-cv-07758-ZNQ-JBD (DNJ).
In 2012, Relators Jessica Penelow and Christine Brancaccio blew the whistle on Janssen for its illegal marketing of HIV drugs to patients outside the scope of the FDA’s approval. The government declined to join the case, and, represented by Berger Montague in Philadelphia, Relators prosecuted the case for twelve years. In 2022, Relators hired Reese Marketos to serve as trial counsel. The trial team included Pete Marketos, Josh Russ, Andrew Wirmani, Adam Sanderson, and Whitney Wendel.