On a brilliantly blue spring day, David Sackler, a third-generation member of the now infamous Sackler family, sits in a large conference room high above Manhattan. He’s a big, bearded guy in his late 30s, and he’s dressed casually, in slacks and a blue V-neck sweater that matches the sky. But the tension in the room is palpable. Sackler’s family, which founded and owns Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, is widely viewed as the central villain in the opioid crisis that is devastating America. David has decided to come here today, over what he calls the “consternation” of advisers and family members, to break his silence about the Sacklers’ role in the drug epidemic.

Since OxyContin came on the market in 1996, more than 400,000 Americans have died from opioid overdoses—including some 200,000 from prescription opioids. Millions more continue to struggle with addiction, and entire communities have been devastated by the epidemic. Forty-eight states, along with more than 500 cities, counties, and tribal governments, have sued Purdue, accusing the company of fueling the crisis with a wide range of deceptive practices. A lawsuit filed by Massachusetts—the first to name the Sacklers—paints a picture of an almost impossibly venal family who continued to push sales of longer-lasting, higher-dose prescriptions of OxyContin long after it was clear that both increase the risk for addiction. Since 2008, the Sacklers have made $4 billion from Purdue, most of it in the form of profits from opioids. “Eight people in a single family,” the Massachusetts suit alleges, “made the choices that caused much of the opioid epidemic.”

The backlash against the Sacklers has been furious. In recent months, many leading institutions that once happily accepted the family’s generous donations have announced they will no longer touch what the website Inside Philanthropy calls “blood money.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, whose Sackler Wing houses the famed Temple of Dendur, said in May that it will reject any gifts from the family. Only days before my meeting with David Sackler, protesters at the Guggenheim took to the museum’s grand spiral walkway to drop white slips of paper, meant to mimic OxyContin prescriptions, and to unfurl a banner with the message “SHAME ON SACKLER.” Even Purdue’s banker, JPMorgan Chase—an institution that has been fined billions of dollars for working with everyone from Bernie Madoff to Syria—has declined to do business with the company. Gossip had it that David and his wife, Joss, a fashion designer, rock climber, and linguist, were being excommunicated from New York society. (When a reporter covering her clothing line dared to mention the scandal surrounding her family, she retorted, “Stop talking about who the men in my life are and review the fucking neon hoodies.”) In a story headlined “Sacklers Fleeing NYC Following Family’s OxyContin Scandal,” the New York Post reported that the couple was selling their $6.5 million apartment on the Upper East Side and moving to Palm Beach.

Yet even as the rage around the Sacklers has escalated, no one in the various branches of the family that are still involved in Purdue has spoken to the press. The three Sackler brothers who founded the company in 1952, including David’s grandfather Raymond, have all passed away. But David, who runs a family investment office and served on Purdue’s board of directors from 2012 to August 2018, thinks it is time for at least one Sackler to share his version of events with the public. “I’m poking my head over the parapet,” he tells me. When I ask him why he wants to talk, he cites what he calls the “vitriolic hyperbole” and “endless castigation” of his family. “I have three young kids,” he says. “My four-year-old came home from nursery school and asked, ‘Why are my friends telling me that our family’s work is killing people?’ ”

Sackler also laments “the way our philanthropy has been turned against us.” The family, he says, has been “giving where our hearts are” for 40 years. “I hope we can have a conversation with our philanthropic partners,” he adds. “I hope they have a change of heart.”