The Nueces
County District Attorney's Office is looking into allegations that
representatives of Bayer Pharmaceutical Co. engaged in jury
tampering.
Bayer is involved in a civil
trial in County Court-at-Law No. 4 over its withdrawn cholesterol
drug Baycol. Hollis Haltom of Corpus Christi filed a lawsuit
against the company after experiencing a breakdown in muscle
tissue less than a month after he began taking the drug, according
to the lawsuit.
Haltom's attorney, Mikal Watts,
said he became concerned when he heard people on a local radio
show Friday morning make comments regarding information listed in
confidential medical records. Watts said some of the comments came
word for word from a letter Bayer acknowledged it distributed in
the area.
Bayer attorney Philip Beck said
in an interview that the letter was a mistake on his client's
part. He did not know of it until Thursday afternoon.
The letter from Meredith B.
Fischer,vice president for Bayer HealthCare North America
Communications and Public Policy, referred to the case and
provided some background on Baycol.
"Over the next several
weeks, there will undoubtedly be interest in the Corpus Christi
community about a local man who is suing Bayer Corporation
regarding a drug called Baycol, which was voluntarily withdrawn
from the market in August in 2001," the letter dated Feb. 17
states.
"We're sorry that the letter
went out," Beck said. "It's not going to disrupt the
trial in any way."
Friday morning, Watts asked
County Court-at-Law No. 4 Judge James Klager to forbid the company
from engaging in jury tampering, according to court records. He
also asked the judge to schedule a hearing that could levy
sanctions against the defendants.
Klager signed an order
prohibiting both parties from contacting jurors.
The allegations of jury tampering
were filed in a motion after Bayer sent more than 2,000 letters to
local residents this week, Watts said in an interview.
"As you hear and see reports
of the trial, I hope that you will keep an open mind to the
efforts that Bayer made to give fair redress to this
gentleman" the letter also stated.
District Attorney Carlos Valdez
said the recipients were pulled from a mailing list.
Some local attorneys and a
prospective juror in the case, as well as others, received the
letter.
Beck said the letter was sent out
in response to pre-trial statements recently released by the Watts
Law Firm.
Fischer and one of Bayer's
attorneys have been subpoenaed regarding a post-trial sanction
hearing, he said.
Valdez said his office would
review the allegations. If they decide to pursue criminal charges,
Fischer and others involved in creating the letter could face
misdemeanor charges of coercion of a public servant or improper
influence.
Since the allegations have
surfaced, Beck said that he told company representatives not to
make comments to the media regarding litigation.
After the judge heard the jury
tampering motion, testimony continued Friday morning.
