Do tho parents who complained Purdue execs got off with no jail time realize the US Attorney General’s office tried to slow the plea agreement? The night before the government secured a guilty plea, a senior Justice Department official called the US attorney handling the case and, at the behest of an executive for the drugmaker, urged him to slow down.

That’s what the prosecutor, US Attorney John Brownlee of Virginia, told the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, The Washington Post reports. Brownlee testified he was home the evening of Oct. 24 when he received a call on his cellphone from Michael Elston, then chief of staff to the deputy attorney general and one of the Justice aides involved in the removal of nine US attorneys last year.

Brownlee said the head of the criminal division had authorized him that afternoon to execute the plea agreement. In his testimony and in an interview afterward, Brownlee recounted that he asked Elston whether he was calling for his boss, Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, and Elston replied, “No.”

“I told him to leave it alone, to go away,” Brownlee said, “and he did.” Eight days later, his name appeared on a list compiled by Elston of prosecutors that officials had suggested be fired, although he ultimately kept his job.

But Elston’s attorney, Robert Driscoll, said his client had telephoned Brownlee at the direction of McNulty, who that evening had received an appeal for more time by Mary Jo White, a defense lawyer representing an executive for OxyContin’s manufacturer, Purdue Pharma. White is a former Manhattan US attorney. A Justice official, who spoke about internal deliberations on the condition of anonymity, also said McNulty had asked his chief of staff to place the call.