Rick Mountcasle - the Real Hero behind Dopesick - the mini series

Rick Mountcastle served as a federal prosecutor for more than 32 years, first at the Department of Justice and later at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Virginia. As a senior trial attorney in DOJ’s Criminal Tax Enforcement Section, he prosecuted criminal tax cases throughout the United States.  In 1993, Rick was awarded DOJ’s highest honor, the Attorney General’s Award for the Trial of Litigation, for his work as the lead prosecutor in the trial and conviction of a Russian organized crime leader and his associates for a multi-million dollar motor fuel excise tax scheme, United States v. Balagula, et al., in the Eastern District of New York.  While at the U.S. Attorney’s Office from 1995 through 2018, Rick served in numerous roles, including as  a criminal division Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA), a civil division AUSA, the chief of the civil division, the First Assistant U.S. Attorney, the Principal Deputy U.S. Attorney, and the interim U.S. Attorney. He was the lead prosecutor on several high-profile health care fraud cases, including the first Purdue Pharma prosecution (featured in the Hulu series “Dopesick"), the criminal and civil false claims prosecution of Abbott Laboratories for the fraudulent marketing of the anti-epileptic Depakote, and the Universal Health Services, Inc. False Claims Act litigation.  Rick previously served four years as an active duty Army JAG officer and 24 years as a National Guard and Army Reserve JAG officer.