An American man who for 30 years sold diet pills he promised would lead to effortless weight loss has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
During his career, Frank Sarcona was served with orders from numerous judges across America but continued to pay for lurid adverts in newspapers and magazines claiming the pills would make fat just disappear.
Copy included promised like, “Blast up to 49 pounds off you in only 29 days!” and “Amazing Fat-Fighting Super Pill Devours Fat!” and while thousands desperate to lose weight believed the fabulous claims, they were based on nothing but lies.
Sentencing Sarcona, U.S District Judge said that the number of people taken in by the fraud was ‘astronomical’. District Attorney Kerry Baron described how Sarcona and his partner made over $10,000,000 from 130,000 people between 2000 and 2004. Some people were promised they would be part of a clinical study, while his adverts for the Lipoban Clinic featured a Mexican doctor unliscensed in the U.S.
Mr. Sarcona claims that despite his 62 charges of fraud and the lengthy jail term, he is the victim of the government, who do not share his belief in diet pills, describing himself as a ‘champion’ for dietary supplements.
Investigators previously convicted him for a massive fraud involving pills called ‘Slim America’, where the doctor touted as his spokesperson was actually revealed to be suffering from dementia in a nursing home.
Then, Sarcona was ordered to post a $5m bond, but it was never done. However eventually the millions he made was discovered in a Bahaman bank account and the money was returned to consumers.
We at the Online Clinic think the significant jail term is an excellent step towards cracking down on the criminals who raise hopes and create false beliefs in obese patients when they promise ‘magic’ solutions. No diet pill can melt fat away and with any slimming pill, diet and exercise will always be needed for the pill to work.