establish that Mr. McConnell understood the RXL business model among the constellation of other co-occurring Paul Le Roux busi- ness ventures,” the motion declared.

The government asserted, instead, that the defendants had been “willfully blind” to the illegality of RX Limited, that they’d worked hard to avoid knowing that the business was clearly illegal. “RX Limited was a pill mill, designed to sell addictive prescription drugs,” they restated in their response.

On a Monday morning in early March 2017, Judge Nelson called the court to order. “Good morning, everybody,” she said. “Rule 29 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure states this court must enter a judgment of acquittal as to any offense for which the evidence is insufficient to sustain a conviction.” After a brief review of the law, she turned to the evidence against Oz and McConnell. “Even the most compelling facts presented by the gov- ernment do not clear the hurdle of reasonable doubt,” she con- cluded. “Therefore, as to Messrs. Oz and McConnell, the Rule 29 motions are granted.” They were free to go.

The trial would continue for Tumpati and Karkalas, she ruled, as there was just enough evidence to force the two doctors to put on a defense. But by this point, the outcome of both cases seemed a foregone conclusion. One week later, the jury returned the same verdict for the two doctors: not guilty on all counts.

The results were a disaster for Marks’s team. After a decade- long investigation with dozens of targets, they’d failed to obtain a single conviction in federal court beyond the half dozen defen- dants who had given up and cooperated, most of them in exchange for avoiding jail time. Richman and Friedberg were so outraged by the case that they filed a motion under an obscure law to force the government to pay their legal fees, claiming that the prosecution had been carried out “in bad faith.” They ultimately lost, but in a hearing on the motion, Marks’s team was forced to admit that their case had “imploded.” Judge Nelson excoriated the govern- ment once again. “Even ‘innocent’ mistakes—those that result from inexperience or negligence rather than affirmative misconduct—