The Washington Post reported today that Rockford native Michael Elston, who was a senior official at the Justice Department at the time, phoned a U.S. attorney in Virginia last year and tried to get him to slow down in his prosecution of the manufacturer of the dangerous painkiller OxyContin.
The Post said the prosecutor rebuffed the effort and then soon found his name on Elston's list of U.S. attorneys to be fired.
Elston, who has been embroiled for months in the controversy over the sacking of eight federal prosecutors, quit his job at the Justice Department in June.
Four of the prosecutors who were fired have said that Elston implied by phone that they would face embarrassing recriminations if they didn't leave quietly.
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