Misbranding Weight Loss Pills Leads to Guilty Plea for Distributor

/ Law Firms / / By
weight loss pills

LawFuel.com – Pills Sold Throughout the United States Contained an Undisclosed Prescription Drug Banned By the National Football League Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Mark Dragonetti, Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Office of the United States Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) Office of Criminal Investigations (“OCI”), announced that BALANCED HEALTH PRODUCTS (“BHP”), the United States distributor of “StarCaps” weight-loss pills, and its sole owner, NIKKI HASKELL, pled guilty today to distributing misbranded pills which failed to list Bumetanide, a prescription drug, as an ingredient. BHP and HASKELL pled guilty before United States Magistrate Court Judge Sarah Netburn.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: “For years, Nikki Haskell and Balanced
Health Products distributed weight-loss pills throughout the United States that they sold as ‘allnatural’
when in fact the pills contained a prescription drug banned by the National Football
League and other major sports organizations. Consumers are entitled to know, when they buy a
product, what they are putting in their bodies. With today’s pleas, the defendants begin to face
the consequences of their unlawful conduct.”
FDA-OCI Special Agent in Charge Mark Dragonetti said: “The FDA Office of Criminal
Investigations is fully committed to investigating and supporting the prosecution of those who
may endanger the public’s health and safety by manufacturing and selling unsafe products. We
will continue to aggressively pursue manufacturers, distributors and other responsible persons
who fail to protect consumers from harmful products and we commend the United States
Attorney’s Office for their prosecution of this matter.”
2
According to the Information filed today, and statements made in Court:
The FDA is a federal agency responsible for enforcing the provisions of the Federal
Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, Title 21, United States Code, Section 301, et seq. The FDA’s
responsibilities include, among other things, ensuring the safety, efficacy, and accurate labeling
of prescription and non-prescription drugs shipped, delivered, and received in interstate
commerce.
From at least in or about November 2006 through December 2008, BHP was a Delaware
corporation headquartered in New York, New York. BHP’s primary business was the
distribution across the United States of a purportedly all-natural weight-loss pill known as Nikki
Haskell’s StarCaps (“StarCaps”). At all times, HASKELL was the President and Chief
Executive Officer of BHP and resided in New York, New York.
As alleged, according to its product label, StarCaps contained only all-natural
ingredients including, for example, papaya extract. In truth and fact, however, while not
reflected on its label, from at least approximately November 2006 through approximately
December 2008, StarCaps also contained a prescription drug, Bumetanide, a diuretic drug used
clinically to treat heart failure, acute renal failure, high blood pressure, and edema, and available
in the United States only by prescription issued by a licensed physician.
In addition to being available only by prescription, Bumetanide was banned by
certain professional sports organizations including the National Football League (“NFL”).
Among other things, Bumetanide was banned by the NFL because it can be used to mask the
presence in the human body of steroids and other banned doping agents.
* * *
HASKELL, 72, of New York, New York, pled guilty to one count of misbranding, a
misdemeanor which carries a maximum term of one year in prison, a maximum term of
supervised release of one year, and a maximum fine of $100,000. BHP pled guilty to one count
of misbranding, a misdemeanor which carries a maximum fine of $200,000 or twice the gross
pecuniary gain derived from the offense. Both defendants are scheduled to be sentenced before
U.S. Magistrate Court Judge Netburn on June 30, 2014. The maximum potential sentences are
prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing
of the defendants will be determined by the judge.
Mr. Bharara praised the outstanding investigative work of the FDA.
The case is being prosecuted by the Office’s Complex Frauds Unit. Assistant U.S.
Attorney Robin W. Morey is in charge of the prosecution.
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What’s A Good Jewish Lawyer Doing Defending an al-Qaida Accused?

/ Featured, Lawyers / March 26, 2014 / By

As the case against Sulaiman Abu Ghaith goes to the jury, you might wonder how a Jewish lawyer like Stanley Cohencame to be representing a man charged with participating in a terrorist conspiracy to kill as many Americans as possible and how he could have made a career out of representing Muslim terror suspects generally.

Who better to know about this interesting lawyer, labelled a “traitor” and “enemy of the Jews, Israel and America” by fellow Jews, but a Jewish newspaper like the Jewish Daily?

Cohen feels just as much at home in Beirut and Gaza as he does in New York and who is as comfortable with leaders of Hamas as with the Jewish friends and neighbors he grew up with.

Cohen, 62, with a full graying beard and ruffled hair, is a veteran of courtroom battles for defendants too controversial for others to take on. He won his fame, and some say notoriety, when defending Hamas activist Mousa Abu Marzook and later becoming a close ally of the Palestinian resistance group classified in the United States as a terror organization.

But for Cohen, who has never shied away from controversial cases or from the limelight that follows them, Abu Ghaith’s case is a first. Cohen proudly hosts a section devoted to “haters” on his personal website. He admits to feeling less at ease with defending an Al Qaeda activist even though he believes his client is no more than a “deer in the headlights,” who happened to be “in the wrong place in the wrong time.”

Such ambivalence doesn’t entirely square with how Cohen came to represent the close relative of the man who was once America’s most wanted terrorist. After Abu Ghaith was extradited to the U.S., he was given a court-appointed attorney, but asked for Cohen, instead.

While it’s not unusual for a defendant to switch lawyers, in this case there was an added complication: Cohen is under federal indictment in Syracuse and federal investigation in Manhattan.

The Jewish Daily reports that Cohen had a strong Jewish upbringing, but enjoyed the support of his parents notwithstanding the controversial nature of his work.

Fulfilling the dream of his Jewish parents, Cohen became a lawyer, but from the start it was clear he was not in it for the money or the mainstream recognition. Cohen worked for the Legal Aid Society in New York and later opened his own practice specializing in criminal defense. He increasingly began taking on more political cases, from the Warrior Society of the Mohawk Nation, to the Weather Underground and Muslims on trial after 9/11. His partner in some of these cases was Lynne Stewart, who was later convicted of supporting terrorists by passing on messages from her client, the blind sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, to his followers.

A protégé of activist lawyer William Kunstler, Cohen stressed that he is “not the American Civil Liberties Union,” meaning he does not take on cases purely because he believes that every defendant has the right to legal representation. Cohen looks for a “general communality of ground” with his clients. Hamas fits this docket perfectly, whereas other clients, such as Abu Ghaith, are less of a match.

Cohen said that his parents, who have passed away, supported his work on behalf of Palestinian defendants. Both were “disillusioned from what has become of Israel and walked away from Zionism completely, ” he said.

 

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