new york state governor andrew m. cuomo and attorney general barbara d. underwood announced on august 14, 2018, that they had filed a lawsuit "suffolk county v. purdue" or "new york v purdue pharma lp et al" at the new york state supreme court against the stamford, connecticut-based company purdue pharma lp, which created and manufactures oxycontin, "one of the most widely used and prescribed opioid drugs on the market", and purdue's owners, the sacklers the complaint against purdue pharma l.p., purdue pharma inc., pursue frederick company, inc. ("purdue") and defendants, alleges a "decades-long and continuing pattern of persistent deceptive and illegal conduct, whereby purdue's misled prescribers and patients about the risks of its opioids, including oxycontin, intentionally understating the risks and overstating the benefits of these powerful and dangerous drugs". they are accused of "widespread fraud and deception in the marketing of opioids, and contributing to the opioid crisis, the nationwide epidemic that has killed thousands." npr's wshu described suffolk county's august 2018 lawsuit as "rare"—while there are "tens of thousands of opioid lawsuits" in the united states naming purdue pharma—the suffolk county lawsuit specifically names the sackler family. according to an october 30, 2017 "the new yorker", there are eight members of the sackler family, representing three generations, who were serving on purdue pharma's board of directors in 2017. attorney paul hanley, who represents suffolk county in the lawsuit, said in a radio interview that, the sackler family "marketed the drug while knowing it was promoting faulty information about it." "[they] were instrumental in developing the entire marketing program for oxycontin, which was predicated upon entirely false science … or no science at all … and because among other things, they have profited grandly from sales of oxycontin." according to paul hanley, who is representing suffolk county in suffolk county v. purdue, said that because of the release of new evidence in october 2018, he expanded the 2016 lawsuit to include the sackler family.