The U.S. government is seeking $280 billion tobacco lawsuit in penalties from the tobacco industry

healthfinder.gov, Mar 09, 2005

Big U.S. tobacco companies collaborated for decades in an effort to deceive the public about the health dangers of smoking, a federal lawyer charged Tuesday during opening remarks of a civil racketeering trial.

The U.S. government is seeking $280 billion in penalties from the tobacco industry.

The government alleges that, starting in the 1960s, big tobacco companies put hundreds of millions of dollars into organizations they created to dispute scientific data that linked smoking to cancer, the Associated Press reported.

In his opening remarks, Justice Department attorney Frank Marine said that internal tobacco industry documents indicated that company executives were aware that this was an attempt to deceive the public.

It was expected that the government's opening statement would last all day Tuesday. Tobacco industry lawyers are scheduled to make their opening statement Wednesday.