(NewsNation) — Federal prosecutors in San Diego say a doctor who tried to profit from the pandemic by marketing what he called a “miracle cure” for COVID-19 has been sentenced to prison.
Jennings Ryan Staley, 44, received a sentence of 30 days in custody and one year of home confinement for trying to smuggle hydroxychloroquine into the U.S. to sell in COVID-19 “treatment kits.”
Staley pleaded guilty last year to one count of importation contrary to law, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. He admitted to working with a Chinese supplier to smuggle a barrel he believed to contain more than 26 pounds of hydroxychloroquine powder into the U.S. by mislabeling it as “yam extract,” according to the Department of Justice.
According to court documents, Staley confessed that he planned to sell the hydroxychloroquine powder in capsules as part of his COVID-19 “treatment kits” at the beginning of the pandemic in March and April 2020. Sentencing documents state that Staley also solicited investors, promising at least one that he could “triple your money in 90 days.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California reports that Staley sold his so-called “treatment kits” to customers of his Skinny Beach Med Spas in and around the San Diego area.
“At the height of the pandemic, before vaccines were available, this doctor sought to profit from patients’ fears,” said U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman in a news release. “He abused his position of trust and undermined the integrity of the entire medical profession.”
In conversations with an undercover FBI agent posing as a potential customer, court documents say Staley described his products as a “one hundred percent” cure, a “magic bullet,” an “amazing weapon,” and “almost too good to be true.”
The undercover agent bought six of Staley’s “treatment kits” for around $4,000 and reported that in a phone conversation with Staley he bragged that, “I got the last tank of . . . hydroxychloroquine, smuggled out of China, Sunday night at 1:00 a.m. in the morning . . . the broker . . . smuggled it out, so to speak, otherwise tricked Customs by saying it was sweet potato extract.” In a later phone call, the undercover agent says Staley offered to throw in doses of Viagra and Xanax.
During interviews with law enforcement, Staley denied ever claiming that the kits were a “one hundred percent effective cure,” saying “that would be foolish.”
“The defendant used a global pandemic to prey on the public’s fear by offering a ‘cure’ for COVID-19, and then lied to FBI agents about it,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Stacey Moy in a news release.
Along with his prison sentence, U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel ordered Staley to pay a $10,000 fine and give back the $4,000 paid by the undercover agent, as well as more than 4,500 tablets of various drugs, multiple bags of empty pill capsules and a capsule-filling machine.
Anyone who suspects COVID-19 fraud is urged to report it to the FBI immediately by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI or the National Center for Disaster Fraud hotline at 1-866-720-5721.