On 05/29/07 Tony was promoted to the position of the Assistant Special Agent In Charge (ASAIC) of the FDA Office of Criminal Investigation's (OCI) Metro-Washington Field Office.  She is OCI's first Black female to hold this position. 

The official announcement was as follows…” We are pleased to announce the promotion of Senior Special Agent Antoinette V. Henry, OCI Metro Washington Field Office to Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAIC) - Metro Washington Field Office.  For the past five years ASAIC Antoinette Henry has been an agent in the Metro Washington Field Office. She was the co-case agent on the Purdue Pharma investigation in which pleas were recently announced.

Prior to coming on board with OCI she was an agent with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission/OIG for five years. Antoinette served for four years as an officer with the USAF/Office of Special Investigations. This provided her with years of experience as a first line supervisor. She is also a graduate of a year long executive leadership program which she participated in during 2000-2001. ASAIC Henry has significant experience as a criminal investigator and proven credentials as a supervisor".

On 05/30/07 Antoinette was the co-recipient of OCI Director Terry Vermillion's "ATTA Agent Award" which reads as follows - " It gives me great pleasure to award Special Agents Antoinette V. Henry and Thomas W. South the 2007 Director’s Atta-Agent Award in recognition of their outstanding investigative work on the Purdue Pharma pharmaceutical fraud case.

Since 2002, Antoinette Henry and Thomas South have played significant roles in the investigation of Purdue Pharma, LP, and its promotion and marketing of OxyContin, a time-release prescription pain medication.  Prior prosecutions of physicians for prescribing OxyContin without a legitimate medical purpose exposed some of Purdue Pharma’s illegal sales and promotion tactics for the drug. 

OxyContin, which is widely-used, has a high abuse potential.  It has become the primary prescription drug of abuse in many parts of the United States, prompting several state and Congressional investigations.  Working with the United States Attorney’s Office in Abingdon, VA, Agents Henry and South became the lead agents in an extensive, multi-agency federal investigation into the company’s false and misleading submissions to the FDA concerning the drug, as well as its fraudulent promotion and marketing practices. 

To compile evidence of the company’s illegal conduct, Agents Henry and South reviewed thousands of boxes of documents and interviewed witnesses throughout the U.S.  Their work revealed that Purdue Pharma was promoting OxyContin for a much broader range of patients than the law allows.  The company also disseminated information to physicians that overstated the drug’s safety and trivialized the risk of addiction and abuse.  This conduct bypassed the safeguards of FDA’s new drug approval process with the goal of maximizing revenues from the sale of OxyContin. 

Agents Henry and South worked with and supervised the activities of task force officers from the Virginia and West Virginia State Police who were detailed to work on this investigation.  The OCI agents made sure that prosecutors, who could be very demanding and who periodically changed course during the course of the investigation, always considered the interests of our agency.  This was a very high-profile case that was briefed at various times to the Deputy Attorney General. 

Due in large part to evidence uncovered by Agents Henry and South, Purdue Pharma pled guilty on May 10, 2007 to a felony count of misbranding OxyContin. Three of Purdue’s current and former top-level executives pled guilty to a misdemeanor violation of misbranding the drug through its false and misleading promotional and sales tactics.  Purdue agreed to pay more than $700 million to resolve criminal charges and civil liabilities.  The forfeiture settlement alone amounts to over $276 million, the largest such settlement in the history of OCI.  The global settlement was the third largest ever in an FDA/OCI case.

On 05/25/07 Antoinette was selected by DOJ's Criminal Division's Asset Forfeiture & Money Laundering Section and the OCDEFT Executive Office to receive the 2007 National Asset Forfeiture Award for her outstanding investigative efforts in the Purdue Pharma investigation.  An awards dinner will be held on 07/31/07 in WDC for the recipients .