A Utah man accused of posing as a health care provider and making at the least $2 million promoting a faux Covid-19 remedy was arrested final week, ending a three-year manhunt that was a part of a Justice Department initiative to stem unlawful profiteering amid the Covid-19 pandemic, prosecutors mentioned this week.
The man, Gordon Hunter Pedersen, 63, of Cedar Hills, Utah, was arrested Wednesday, a few month after he was seen on a surveillance digicam at a fuel station roughly 40 miles south of Salt Lake City, in line with court docket paperwork. He fled prosecution in 2020 after being charged with seven felonies together with mail fraud, wire fraud and promoting misbranded medication with the intent to defraud and mislead, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah mentioned in an announcement on Monday.
Since at the least 2014, Mr. Pedersen offered merchandise that promoted silver as a remedy for numerous illnesses together with arthritis, diabetes and pneumonia, prosecutors mentioned. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Pedersen started selling the merchandise as a remedy for Covid-19 in 2020, prosecutors mentioned.
Falsely presenting himself as a medical physician, prosecutors mentioned, Mr. Pedersen offered a product known as “structural alkaline silver,” which he claimed might “destroy the membrane of the virus” and remedy Covid-19. He promoted the false remedy via YouTube movies, Facebook posts, podcasts and web sites, they added.
In his movies, Mr. Pedersen wore a white lab coat with a monogram that added “Dr.” to his identify and falsely claimed that he was a board-certified “anti-aging medical doctor” with doctorates in immunology and naturopathic drugs, prosecutors mentioned.
“There is no drug that man has made that can do the same,” Mr. Pedersen mentioned in regards to the product on a podcast interview in March 2020, in line with court docket paperwork. “If you have the silver in you, when the virus arrives, the silver can isolate and eliminate the virus,” he added. In an interview with federal brokers in April 2020, he maintained that his silver product might destroy Covid-19 however admitted that his credentials have been exaggerated, prosecutors mentioned.
Mr. Pedersen profited immensely: From January via April of 2020, the corporate Mr. Pedersen co-owned, My Doctor Suggests, generated roughly $2 million in gross sales, in line with court docket paperwork.
A restraining order was filed within the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah in July 2020, stopping Mr. Pedersen from labeling the merchandise as cure-alls, the Justice Department mentioned in an announcement on the time, and he was indicted by a federal grand jury in reference to the scheme. (One of the web sites remains to be energetic and now redirects guests to Amazon, the place a product is on the market for $40.) Days later, although, he didn’t seem at a court docket listening to, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
After three years on the run, Mr. Pedersen was a particular agent with the Food and Drug Administration noticed him on July 5 in a automotive registered to his spouse, Julia Currey, prosecutors mentioned. The agent adopted the automotive to a fuel station, the place he was recorded by a surveillance digicam, prosecutors mentioned.
He was arrested final Wednesday.
Robert Hunt, a lawyer for Mr. Pedersen, didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Tuesday. Mr. Pedersen’s spouse couldn’t instantly be reached by cellphone on Tuesday.
Mr. Pedersen appeared at a detention listening to on Tuesday in federal court docket in Salt Lake City, in line with the U.S. lawyer’s workplace in Utah. Prosecutors argued that as a fugitive, he must be detained whereas awaiting trial as a result of he was a critical flight danger, in line with court docket paperwork. No trial date has been set.
The case towards Mr. Pedersen was supported partly by a process power created byAttorney General Merrick B. Garland in 2021 with the purpose of prosecuting individuals and companies making an attempt to “profit unlawfully from the pandemic,” in line with a Justice Department assertion on the time. The process power developed amid the rampant unfold of misinformation surrounding the virus and its unproven therapies, together with salt water gargling, daylight and nutritional vitamins.
Source: www.nytimes.com