‘A punch in the gut’: After years of waiting, many opioid victims will be shut out of Purdue settlement | CNN

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published by ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. It was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with The Philadelphia Inquirer. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive its stories in your inbox every week. Mary Jannotta sliced meat and cheese behind deli counters at Acme and Pathmark supermarkets in the Philadelphia suburbs for decades, developing aches that came with working on her feet. A botched back surgery in 2008 made the pain worse. Her doctor repeatedly prescribed OxyContin, Purdue Pharma’s marquee painkiller — the high-dose opioid the company later admitted it criminally marketed and distributed. Jannotta said she soon became dependent on opioids. Cut off by her doctors, she found her way to Kensington, home of Philadelphia’s dangerous open-air drug market, to score pills. She eventually lost her car, her home — and her grandson. Tyler Cordeiro first pilfered Jannotta’s prescription pills as a teenager. He was 24 when he died of an overdose. When Purdue filed for bankruptcy in 2019, Jannotta, along with near