Phu Tan Luong, a 55-year-old health-care fraudster who moved from Huntington
Beach to a federal prison cell in Plano, Texas, where he is serving 10 years for a scam involving wheelchairs and hospital beds, has now been charged with
distributing mis-branded drugs marketed as “all-natural” versions of prescription boner pills like Viagra.
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The con, who is also known as Peter Luong, and his 26-year-old daughter Helene Ngoc Bich
Luong, were
charged in a filing recorded in the United States District Court in Los Angeles last week with using a company called
Vitapro, Inc. to deliver into interstate
commerce misbranded drugs called Vitalex for
men and Vitalex for women.
The Luongs allegedly obtained the components
of Vitalex from China and shipped
the drugs from Orange County throughout the
United States and to other
countries. They were advertised and labeled as “herbal
sexual enhancement supplements”
and “all-natural” versions of Viagra, Cialis
or Levitra.
But, according to the feds, the supplements actually contained an
unregulated drug–an Acetildenafil-analog–which is similar to those
found
in brand-name erectile dysfunction drugs and which
pose a serious health risk. (Go here for more details.)
Five years ago, Phu Tan Luong was convicted
of 35 counts of health-care
fraud and five counts of money laundering in
connection with a medical supply
company he owned called United Medical Supply
that submitted fraudulent claims
to Medicare for enteral nutrition, motorized
wheelchairs, and hospital beds that
were not medically necessary and, in many
cases, never delivered. Medicare suffered $14 million is loses from the scam.
The latest filing alleges Luong used ill-gotten gains from that scheme to launch Vitapro with his daughter and even continued to run the
business from behind bars.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration
seized a large amount of the Vitalex
products and packaging from the
Vitapro business and Luong family residence in 2008.
However, Vitalex products continue to
be sold over the Internet. In fact, while researching this post, Clockwork found another Orange County man with a web page hawking the all-natural boner uppers.
He may not be in business for long, according to Thomas Emerick, special agent in charge, FDA-Office
of Criminal Investigations, Los Angeles Field
Office, who says in a press statement his office “is
fully committed to investigating
and supporting the prosecution of those who
may endanger the public's health and
safety by manufacturing and selling unsafe
products to be used on an
unsuspecting public.”
The Luongs are each charged with one count of
delivery for introduction into
interstate commerce of a misbranded drug, a
misdemeanor offense that carries a
statutory maximum sentence of one year in
federal prison.
The elder Luong is expected to be returned to Southern California for a June 7 arraignment date.
Helene Luong is believed to be in Canada. She had been residing in the family's Huntington Beach home–before the government seized it.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.