Federal prosecutors may have differed with their superiors at the Justice Department over how aggressively to pursue fraud charges against the maker of the narcotic painkiller OxyContin, two lawyers who were briefed about the case say, The New York Times reports.

Those lawyers, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the case, say that higher-ups within the Justice Department appeared initially to favor a less aggressive approach to the case against OxyContin’s manufacturer, Purdue Pharma, the paper writes.

But by last fall, when plea negotiations involving Purdue and its execs ended, prosecutors handling the case appeared to gain the upper hand in pushing for more serious charges, including ones against company execs, the lawyers told the Times. The plea deals, in which Purdue Pharma and three present and former execs agreed to pay $634.5 million to settle charges related to deceiving docs about the potential for abusing OxyContin, will be reviewed in a hearing this afternoon before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Because federal prosecutors didn’t recommend jail time for the execs involved, the Purdue Pharma plea deals have been criticized by some drug industry specialists as well as parents of young people who died in OxyContin-related overdoses. In accepting the pleas this month, Judge James P. Jones of Federal District Court also expressed some displeasure at the lack of jail time but said that his hands were tied by the charges brought against the execs and the terms of the agreements.

The three men all pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of drug “misbranding,” which didn’t require prosecutors to show that the men were aware of crimes being committed by their subordinates. Lawyers for the execs have said they were innocent bystanders.

OxyContin, a long-acting form of the narcotic oxycodone, is used to treat serious pain. Purdue Pharma, which undertook a broad marketing campaign for the drug, fraudulently claimed to doctors and patients that OxyContin, because it was long-acting, posed a reduced threat of abuse and addiction than traditional, shorter-acting narcotics.

Soon after it was marketed, abuse of OxyContin became widespread, leading to crime waves in several parts of the country. The drug was also a factor in numerous overdose deaths among recreational users, including teenagers.

In recent months, the Senate Judiciary Committee has been investigating top Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, on suspicion of politically motivated misconduct in the firing of several US attorneys. At a hearing held this month, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the panel’s ranking Republican member, asked Gonzales why the Justice Department hadn’t sought jail time for the Purdue Pharma execs.

In his reply, Gonzales said that the prosecutor handling the Purdue Pharma case - John Brownlee of Roanoke, Va. - was “not confident” that his office had enough evidence that the men knew about any crimes at the company.

Brownlee, who will testify today, didn’t respond to an e-mail message that contained a copy of the testimony of Mr. Gonzales. During a brief telephone call, Brownlee declined to discuss any possible conflicts within the Justice Department about the case. He has previously defended the plea agreements as sending an important message to other drugmakers.

Two lawyers briefed on talks between Brownlee’s office and lawyers for Purdue Pharma said that when those discussions began last summer there appeared to be strong support among officials in the Justice Department for the company’s position that it shouldn’t be charged with a serious crime, if it was charged at all.

That support appeared to fade, however, as the plea agreement talks concluded late last October, possibly because the Justice Department was being engulfed in other controversies, those lawyers said. For example, prosecutors hadn’t initially insisted on criminal charges against the Purdue Pharma execs, but then changed course and did so.

A spokesman for Purdue Pharma, Timothy Bannon, declined to provide comment on the company’s views of the plea deal talks or the question of whether any lawyers or lobbyists for the drugmaker had spoken to Justice Department higher-ups about the case. It wouldn’t have been unusual or unethical for corporate representatives to do so.

Last November, Brownlee’s name, along with the names of four other United States attorneys, appeared on a proposed firing list drawn up by a Justice Department official. It is not clear if Brownlee’s appearance on that list had anything to do with his handling of the OxyContin case.

A Justice Department spokesman, Dean Boyd, declined comment on the matter, adding that the department was not confirming whether prosecutor’s names were even on such lists. He added, however, that those prosecutors like Brownlee who continued to serve enjoyed the complete confidence of Gonzales and the department.