Allen Jones used to work for Pennsylvania taxpayers and his job was to look into wrongdoing.

An investigator for the state’s Office of Inspector General, Jones uncovered payments from pharmaceutical companies to state officials in exchange for favorable treatment of their antipsychotic drugs in state medical programs.

Jones said he got fired for doing his job. That was June of 2004.

On Thursday, Jones learned he will share in $158 million that global pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay to the state of Texas, Jones and the federal government to settle charges of overcharging Medicaid and for illegally promoting its antipsychotic drug Risperdal, including for use in children.

"There was total subversion of science by the company," Jones said Thursday in a phone interview from Austin, Tex., where a jury had been hearing evidence in a trial that started Jan. 10. "There were many trials with negative information that the company completely buried. They did not forward it to the FDA. They denied it even existed. Then, on a state-by-state level, they infiltrated the mental health delivery system."

Jones’ investigation in Pennsylvania led him to Texas, whose attorney general joined the suit in 2006.

The Texas case was just one of dozens of court cases involving Risperdal. J&J and its Janssen Pharmaceuticals subsidiary, which makes the drug, are in New Brunswick, N.J., and Titusville, N.J. (Sister company Janssen Biotech is in Horsham, Montgomery County.)

"Janssen is committed to ethical business practices, and has policies in place to ensure its products are only promoted for their FDA-approved indications," Janssen Pharmaceuticals spokeswoman Teresa Mueller said via email.

J&J sold $4.5 billion of Risperdal in 2007, but sales of the tablet declined after it lost patent protection. The newer, longer-acting injectable version, Risperdal Consta, had $1.5 billion in sales in 2010, according to J&J.

The company was accused of overstating the benefit, downplaying the considerable risks and paying state officials to give Risperdal preference in state programs. Stephen Fiorello, a former pharmacy director for the Pennsylvania welfare department, was convicted of two felonies.

J&J, which still has a Risperdal case pending with Pennsylvania, was ordered to pay $327 million in South Carolina and $258 million in Louisiana, but it is appealing both judgments.

Texas sought $579 million, but this was the largest Medicaid fraud settlement in state history, and attorneys were leery of the conservative state appeals court.

"That was a very significant consideration," said Jones’ attorney, Thomas M. Melsheimer.

J&J’s legal team has dozens of individual civil cases and a federal criminal probe ongoing in Philadelphia.

The Complex Litigation section of the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court handles mass tort litigation, including 63 Risperdal cases. Stephen Sheller’s Philadelphia firm is leading the plaintiffs in that effort and he has asked the judge involved to allow evidence his firm collected to be presented to the FDA in hopes of getting Risperdal removed from the market.

"Children are at a higher risk for adverse events than adults," Sheller said.

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