Married couple whose home was bursting with truckloads of illegal sex pills sentenced
Eduard Yusupov and Diana Fuzailov sold male and female sexual enhancement products online via their company Love Potion, Inc., claiming them to be made from natural ingredients.
But the products offered by the couple included erectile dysfunction drugs containing an undeclared ingredient: Sildenafil – the active ingredient in Viagra, according to court documents seen by The Independent.
Love Potion's online advertising falsely claimed the drugs and dietary supplements, which were largely manufactured in China, were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. This was not true, as Sildenafil must be sold via prescription.
Between November 2016 and February 2022, the couple received 200 parcels of sex pills to their home in Wading River, New York, before selling and shipping the products to customers located throughout the U.S.
Two such parcels were seized by customs officials in March 2021 and contained more than 20,000 capsules. The powder inside the capsules contained Sildenafil.
According to court documents, the couples' earnings from the scheme totaled over $3.5 million.
Yusupov and Fuzailov pleaded guilty to charges of wire fraud and introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce and were sentenced at a federal court on Long Island Thursday.
Judge Joanna Seybert sentenced Yusupov to a year and a day in prison and Fuzailov received three years of probation, according to The New York Times.
According to the FDA, 'contaminating' drugs with undeclared substances constitutes a type of medical health fraud.
'Many products that claim to help with sexual enhancement or treat sexual dysfunction—such as male enhancement supplements, erectile dysfunction treatments, male energy pills and stamina pills—are likely to be contaminated with dangerous hidden ingredients,' the FDA website states.
'These contaminated products are a type of medication health fraud.'
Addressing the judge Thursday, Yusupov admitted to being '100 percent at fault' and said he was 'addicted' to buying the pills, The NYT reported.
In a letter to the judge prior to her sentencing, Fuzailov's lawyers wrote she had accepted her part in the crime and was remorseful for her actions.
'She did not set out to commit a crime or do anything illegal.' the letter said. 'It is also acknowledged that she did not properly vet what she and her husband were doing and instead focused on making money without properly investigating the basis for the business.
'She also acknowledges that the lure of making money and paying off their debts took precedence over the red flags she increasingly became aware of.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
10 minutes ago
- The Independent
Muslim leaders increase security after vandalism reports at Texas and California mosques
After a spate of vandalism reports involving graffiti at a few mosques in Texas and California, Muslim leaders there have stepped up existing efforts to keep their sacred spaces and community members safe. The incidents and subsequent hypervigilance add to what many American Muslims say has already been a charged climate amid the fallout in the U.S. from the Israel-Hamas war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and devastated Gaza. The war started in October 2023 with a deadly attack by Hamas on Israel. 'The past two years have been extremely difficult for American Muslims,' said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization. A constant stream of images showing the death, destruction and ongoing starvation in Gaza has taken a toll, said Mitchell, as has a rise in anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian bigotry in the U.S. He pointed to one of the most egregious examples of that bigotry: After the war started, an Illinois man killed a 6-year-old Palestinian American Muslim boy and wounded his mother in a hate-crime attack. Worry and frustration The recent vandalism reports have left some worried and frustrated — but not entirely surprised. 'Since October 2023, we've definitely seen rise in Islamophobia,' said Rawand Abdelghani, who is on the board of directors of Nueces Mosque, one of the affected mosques in Austin, Texas. 'Anti-Palestinian, anti-immigrant, all of that rhetoric that's being said … it has contributed to things like this happening.' Nueces security footage showed someone, their face partially covered, spray-painting what appears to be Star of David symbols at the property. CAIR Austin said similar incidents were reported at two other Austin mosques. They all seemingly happened on the same night in May, in what the group described as part of 'a disturbing pattern of hate-motivated incidents.' It called for increased security patrols and protective measures. Shaimaa Zayan, CAIR Austin operations manager, called them an intimidation attempt. Less than two weeks earlier, someone had spray-painted graffiti at the Islamic Center of Southern California, including the Star of David on an outer wall there, center spokesperson Omar Ricci said. 'In light of what's going on within Palestine and the genocide in Gaza, it felt like an attack,' said Ricci, who's also a reserve Los Angeles Police Department officer. Some specifics remained unresolved. The LAPD said it opened a vandalism/hate crime investigation and added extra patrols, but added it has neither a suspect nor a motive and noted that nonreligious spaces were also targeted. The Austin Police Department did not respond to Associated Press inquiries. Nueces had already increased its security camera use following three incidents last year, including someone throwing rocks at the mosque, Abdelghani said. After the May vandalism, it also added overnight security, she added. Nueces serves many university students and is considered a 'home away from home,' Abdelghani said. It's where they learn about their faith, meet other Muslims and find refuge, including during tense times, like when some students got arrested amid campus protests last year, she added. CAIR says that in 2024, its offices nationwide received 8,658 complaints, the highest number it has recorded since its first civil rights report in 1996. It listed employment discrimination as the most common in 2024. The group says last year, U.S. Muslims, along with others of different backgrounds, 'were targeted due to their anti-genocide … viewpoints.' Referencing former President Joe Biden, the CAIR report said that for 'the second year in a row, the Biden-backed Gaza genocide drove a wave of Islamophobia in the United States.' Israel has strongly rejected allegations it's committing genocide in Gaza, where its war with Hamas has killed more than 59,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials. The initial Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, killed some 1,200 people, while about 250 were abducted. Tensions in multiple spaces The war has fueled tensions in myriad U.S. settings. After it started, Muslim and Jewish civil rights groups reported a surge of harassment, bias and physical assaults reports against their community members. Pew Research Center in February 2024 found that 70% of U.S. Muslims and nearly 90% of U.S. Jews surveyed say they felt an increase in discrimination against their respective communities since the war began. More recently, leaders of U.S. Jewish institutions have called for more help with security after a firebomb attack in Colorado on demonstrators showing support for Israeli hostages in Gaza that left one person killed and others injured, as well as a fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum in Washington, D.C. Politically, the conflict loomed over last year's presidential election, leaving many pro-Palestinian U.S. voters feeling ignored by their own government's support for Israel. It has roiled campuses and sparked debates over free speech and where political rhetoric crosses into harassment and discrimination. There've been bitter disagreements, including among some Jewish Americans, about exactly what the definition of antisemitism should cover, and whether certain criticism of Israeli policies and Zionism should be included. That debate further intensified as President Donald Trump's administration sought to deport some foreign-born pro-Palestinian campus activists. The Islamic Center of Southern California has been targeted before, including vandalism in 2023 and separate threats that authorities said in 2016 were made by a man who was found with multiple weapons in his home. Incidents like the latest one cause concern, Ricci said. 'People see that it's not going to take very much to spark something in the city,' he said. 'There's a lot of emotion. There's a lot of passion' on both the pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli sides. Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said 'if people think they can get away with graffiti, then the next step is to firebomb a mosque or even go attack worshippers.' Opening doors and receiving support Al-Marayati and others praised how many have shown support for the affected Muslim communities. 'The best preparation is what we did in Los Angeles and that's to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies and be there for one another,' he said. In Texas, a gathering at Nueces brought together neighbors and others, including Christians and Jews, to paint over the vandalism, clean up the property and garden, Zayan said. 'It was beautiful,' she said. 'It's really important to open your doors and open your heart and invite people and to rebuild this trust and connection,' she said. 'For non-Muslims, it was a great opportunity for them to show their love and support. They really wanted to do something.' ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
The Guardian
41 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The Macrons' Candace Owens lawsuit marks new phase in battle against conspiracy theories
When the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his wife, Brigitte, took the rare step this week of filing a US defamation lawsuit against the rightwing podcaster Candace Owens, it marked a new phase in a legal battle on both sides of the Atlantic against the false claim that Brigitte Macron is a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux. The Macrons' US lawsuit attacked what it called the 'verifiably false and devastating lies' being repeated online by Owens that Brigitte Macron, 72, was born a man. The lawsuit said evidence clearly disproved this 'grotesque narrative', which had become 'a campaign of global humiliation' and 'relentless bullying on a worldwide scale'. The case prompted broader questions this week about how conspiracy theories spread worldwide, whether they can be stopped in the courts and what this false narrative, which began in France after the Covid pandemic, says about French society's distrust in politicians. 'This is now one of the biggest fake news stories worldwide in terms of popularity – a billion people have seen it,' said Emmanuelle Anizon, a senior journalist for the French weekly Nouvel Obs, who last year published a book, L'Affaire Madame, investigating the origins of the rumour in France. 'What's new is that for the first time, Emmanuel Macron has joined his wife in taking legal action.' The Macrons' US lawsuit states the accusation that Brigitte Macron was born a man named Jean-Michel Trogneux is completely false and Trogneux is in fact is her older brother. Trogneux, 80, lives in the northern French town of Amiens, where he grew up with Brigitte and four other siblings in a family famous for its local chocolate business. He was present in public alongside his Brigitte at Emmanuel Macron's two presidential inaugurations in 2017 and 2022. Owens, whose podcast and social media channels have an audience of millions, said this week she stood by her narrative. The false claim that Brigitte was a man first went viral in France in 2021, at a moment when distrust of politicians in was at a high, after the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) anti-government protest movement and the Covid pandemic that killed more than 130,000 people in France. In December 2021, a woman who used the name Amandine Roy and called herself a 'spiritual medium', broadcast a four-hour YouTube interview with Natacha Rey, 51, who had worked previously for a small essential oils business and described herself as 'an independent investigative journalist, self-taught, and not from the inner circle of mainstream media'. Rey said she had spent three years investigating Brigitte Macron, after questioning the first lady's body-shape in photos. Rey said she believed Brigitte Macron was actually a man called Jean-Michel Trogneux. Within hours, the interview had 500,000 views and the hashtag #Jean-MichelTrogneux was trending on social media in France, promoted by, among others, some far-right and anti-vaccine accounts. A small far-right newsletter had already published Rey's theories but it was the video interview that sent the claim viral. 'There was a deeper societal problem at that time in France: the mistrust of political, media and economic institutions,' Anizon said. 'There had been years of political health scandals worldwide and in France – from a contaminated blood scandal to the Mediator weight-loss drug. Many people had gradually reached a point of distrust, switching off traditional mainstream media and turning instead to online accounts – Covid and vaccine mistrust increased that.' The rumour spread in part because the Macrons' relationship had long been a topic of comment online. Brigitte Macron, who is 24 years older, first met Emmanuel Macron when she was a French teacher at his Jesuit secondary school in Amiens, directing him in a school play. The Macrons' US lawsuit this week stated: 'Through the school's theatre programme, president Macron and Mrs Macron formed a deeper intellectual connection.' It added: 'At all times the teacher-student relationship between Mrs Macron and President Macron remained within the bounds of the law.' Brigitte Macron, who has three children from her first marriage, divorced in 2006 and she and Emmanuel Macron married the following year when he was 30. In early 2022, after the first viral video allegations, Brigitte Macron and her brother, Jean-Michel Trogneux, filed a defamation case in France against Roy and Rey, who both denied wrongdoing. In September 2024, a Paris court found the two women guilty and ordered them to pay €8,000 in damages to Brigitte Macron and €5,000 in damages to Jean-Michel Trogneux. The women appealed against the verdict and, this month, they were acquitted by a Paris appeals court. The appeal court verdict did not imply that the claims that Brigitte Macron was a man were true, but instead judges ruled that the case against the women did not fit the definition of defamation. Brigitte Macron and Jean-Michel Trogneux have taken the case to France's highest appeals court, the cour de cassation. Brigitte Macron has filed a separate case for online harassment and 10 people will go on trial in Paris in October. Each time the Macrons' relationship is in the spotlight, the false allegations about gender spread again online. This was the case in May, when video images appeared to show Brigitte pushing her husband away with both hands on his face before they disembarked from a plane on a tour of Southeast Asia. Macron dismissed the incident as play-fighting, telling reporters that 'we are squabbling and, rather, joking with my wife', and that it had been overblown into 'a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe'. Brigitte Macron has not spoken publicly on the false gender claims since 2022 when she told French radio, RTL, that allegations that 'I am my brother' were an 'impossible' attack on her parents' family tree. She told TF1 TV at the time she wanted to set an example so other people would not suffer in the same way. She said fighting online bullying 'is my battle'.
Daily Mail
41 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Cam shows jaw-dropping moment on-duty cop kisses elementary teacher in her classroom
A police officer has been stripped of his badge after kissing an elementary school teacher and engaging in sexual activity in her classroom. Brian Gilley was barred from ever returning to law enforcement in Tennessee after Lebanon Police Department concluded an internal investigation into his relationship with teacher Shelby Moss on school property at Castle Heights Elementary School. Extraordinary bodycam captured part of the tryst, including the moment a student walked into the room about two minutes before the pair locked lips. Gilley had previously worked on the D.A.R.E. program educating students on drug prevention, WZTV reported. The incident in question took place last September. Gilley later accepted that students may have still been on campus at the time. The footage was not linked to the September incident, which ultimately led to Gilley's resignation. While he initially denied the sexual conduct, he ultimately admitted it and resigned shortly after. Teacher Moss was reportedly in a relationship at the time of the affair with Gilley, according to an investigative report.
