Fen-Phen Victims' Horse Has Come In

In 1997, the popular diet drug Fen-phen was pulled from the market. Its makers, American Home Products, quietly paid out billions in confidential settlements for the heart problems the medicine caused. Now a decade later, some of those billions are still at issue. CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson follows the money to an unlikely destination: the Preakness winner's circle.

But it didn't.

"You know, you should be able to trust your lawyer 100 percent with your life," Carter said.

It was bad enough that Fen-phen gave them permanent heart damage, but then their own attorneys - William Gallion, Shirley Cunningham and Melbourne Mills - ran off with most of the money.

First, they shorted victims on their settlement checks. Then, the lawyers took $24 million for a charity they set up, and paid themselves salaries.

They even put the judge in the case on the payroll after he retired.

And to keep the fraud under wraps, the attorneys threatened victims with fines and jail time if they told each other, or anyone else, about the settlements.

Eventually, the cheated clients got wise, and sued their lawyers.

In a deposition dated Sept. 29, 2006, one of those attorneys justified keeping most of the victims' settlement for themselves:

"It's not necessary to give away every dollar to the clients," Melbourne Mills said. "Not necessarily that at all."

But real twist came when, even after they were already being sued, two of the lawyers bought an unknown colt named Curlin. And if you know anything about racing, you already know where this is going…

At last year's Preakness, like in a fairy tale, Curlin came from nowhere to win.

The proud attorneys, Gallion and Cunningham, were in the winner's circle. And when the cheated Fen-phen victims saw their photos in the Kentucky papers, they decided to do something drastic: claim a share of the horse, now worth tens of millions of dollars.

"You know, he's a fabulous horse," Carter said. "Curlin has done for horse racing what Michael Jordan did for basketball or Einstein did for science, you know?"

Not to be lost in this horse tale is the human toll. In just this one group of 440 Kentucky plaintiffs, 25 have now died of heart problems believed related to the Fen-phen diet drug.

Since the Preakness, the lawyers have been indicted on criminal charges and are in jail awaiting trial. They've been ordered to pay back more than $64 million. And the Fen-phen victims? They got a stake in Curlin.

"I really think that if he could talk he would be really, really disappointed with the human race," said Carter.

Curlin, on the other hand, is far from disappointing. Just named Horse of the Year, he's now the odds-on favorite for a group of people who lost faith in their lawyers … but are betting on the horse.