How Companies Make Millions Off Lead Poisoning Victims

The Takeaway | Aug 26, 2015

Click on the audio player above to hear this interview.

Freddie Gray became a household name when he was killed by police officers earlier this year.

But before his death, and before Baltimore exploded into protests and riots, Freddie Gray was another kind of victim.

As a child, Gray was poisoned by the lead paint in his Baltimore home. According to a 2008 lawsuit filed by his family, the poisoning led to a number of educational and medical problems for Gray, which may have contributed to his troubles with police.

Eventually, after a lead paint lawsuit, Gray was awarded a structured settlement. But not long after, a company named Access Funding reached out to him, encouraging him to sell portions of his structured settlement—which was designed to pay him over the course of many years—for a lump sum.

Predatory companies offer to buy structured settlements from lead poisoning victims, but the victims rarely understand that the windfall is for pennies on the dollar. Gray gave in, and he was just one of hundreds who've done the same.

Terrence McCoy of the Washington Post looks at Gray's case, and many others, in his new in-depth investigative piece: "How Companies Make Millions Off Lead-Poisoned, Poor Blacks."

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