FRANKFORT, Ky. — A federal judge jailed two disbarred lawyers who had been found guilty Friday of scamming their clients out of nearly $95 million in a diet-drug settlement.
It was the second trial for William Gallion and Shirley Cunningham. A federal jury in Covington last year was unable to reach a verdict for Gallion and Cunningham but acquitted a third defendant.
U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves ordered both men detained. They had been free on $2.5 million bond each.
“We’re sick people, and we don’t have long to live,” said Connie Centers, who had to have a mitral valve replaced in her heart after taking the diet drug fen-phen. “All they’re going to do is go to jail.”
Prosecutors said Gallion and Cunningham bilked some 440 clients who claimed they had been hurt by fen-phen, which was withdrawn from the market after it was linked to heart-valve problems.
