for multiple days by the prosecution, then cross-examined by four separate defense attorneys in turn. On the stand she seemed calm and practiced, if sometimes annoyed at the questions. ("No, I did not record the call," she said at one point, cutting off an elabo- rate sequence of queries from Robert Richman about an under- cover phone buy. "So, you're feeling a little defensive about the fact that you did not record the call, I take it?" he replied. "I don't feel defensive," she said, smiling tightly. "I just knew where you were going.") But her tone sometimes registered the same friendly irritation with her own prosecutors as she displayed to their op- ponents.

Even in Brill's testimony, Marks and Gural quickly ran head- long into the original challenge that the DEA investigators had faced at the start of the case: The drugs sold by RX Limited weren't listed as controlled. Much of the prosecution hinged on the idea that Fioricet, one of the big three drugs sold by RX Limited, could be classified as a controlled substance. The reality was more com- plicated: one ingredient in it, butalbital, was indeed a Schedule III controlled substance. But Fioricet, which combined barbituric acid with caffeine and Tylenol, was trapped in a gray area. So gray, in fact, that Brill was forced to admit on the stand that she'd had to consult a lawyer at the DEA to determine Fioricet's status. Gray enough that, as the defense gleefully pointed out, the head of the DEA himself had testified before Congress—right in the middle of the Le Roux investigation in 2011—that Fioricet was "exempted" from the law. Partway through their own prosecution, the govern- ment gave up on the argument and dropped the portion of the charges related to controlled drugs.

That still left dozens of charges against the four defendants, just based on the fact that they'd prescribed drugs without a doctor's visit. But prosecutors would still have to show that operators like Oz and McConnell knew that what they were doing was illegal.

The testimony of Jon Wall—Le Roux's former shipping man- ager from Kentucky, who had taken a plea deal—represented their