A Florida man who peddled mislabeled erectile dysfunction pills won’t hurt.
On Monday, January 31, U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia D. Barksdale sentenced U.S. Army veteran Timothy Terrance DeJoris, 42, of Ponte Vedra, to six months probation and a $2,500 fine for distributing mislabeled boosters in the Jacksonville area.
He had faced up to a year behind bars and a $100,000 fine for importing and selling”Dr. Seltzer’s Tough Assistant,” a Chinese man sildenafil citrate-powered imitation of Viagra. The United States Food and Drug Administration prohibits the importation of prescription drugs into the United States without proper documentation and labeling.
DeJoris had already remitted $50,000 to the federal government and fully cooperated with the investigation.
“What happened was the factory they were using went out of business and a new distributor sent the wrong product,” his Miami-based attorney said. Edward Joseph O’Donnell IVnoted.
O’Donnell said Coffee or Die Magazine that DeJoris had earlier shipments from the first Chinese supplier tested in a lab, and that they were not prescription pills masquerading as herbal supplements.
He considered taking the case to court, but the charge had been reduced to a misdemeanor; and it’s hard to win strict liabilitywhich makes an accused liable for committing certain misdemeanors even though he did not intentionally attempt to break the law.
“It was a setback for him, but he’s doing great,” O’Donnell said. “He’s a hard worker, and he’ll be fine.”
According to the plea agreement DeJoris signed with federal prosecutors on September 17, 2021, his penis pill troubles began on June 18, 2019, when U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers intercepted a pair of large parcels at the DHL International Mail facility in Jacksonville.
Both contained barrels filled with blue pills, not the shitake mushroom extract claimed on the invoices, and were addressed to “Dr. Seltzer LLC” and Tim DeJoris in Ponte Vedra. He had received a similar shipment from China on 11 June 2019.
An internet search revealed ‘hardonhelper.com’, which sold Dr. Seltzer’s product as a ‘100% natural male enhancement supplement’, as well as sales on the retail giant online eBay and Adam and Eve adult stores.
DeJoris charged $10.99 for a single pill, but there were discounts for buying in bulk. A dozen capsules fetched $79.99.
On June 20, 2019, an undercover agent purchased eight of the tablets on eBay. Six days later, another agent purchased seven packs from an Adam and Eve retail store. Both purchases were for sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra.
On August 2, 2019, law enforcement visited DeJoris at his home in Kiwi Palm Court. DeJoris told officers that the pills seized by Customs and Border Protection were from a new supplier and that he did not realize the capsules were filled with sildenafil.
He told officers he paid $4,000 for 50,000 pills. He recovered 12,290 tablets that were still in his home. His business partner was not named in federal law enforcement records, but he also turned over 3,937 capsules to officers, and they confiscated another 8,460 from a packaging facility the partners used to ship tablets.
The business partner then handed over another 277 packages of the product it picked up from Adam and Eve stores in the Jacksonville area. Adam and Eve paid $4 for each pill.
DeJoris also completed 8,043 transactions on Amazon worth $453,413.07.
Letters from friends asking for clemency for DeJoris praised him as a U.S. Army veteran who served at Savannah Army Airfield in Georgia, Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan, and Camp Taji in Iraq.
They also portrayed the Florida man, a former sales chief for a malpractice insurance company, as a great father, devoted cat lover and avid fisherman.
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