A Little Saigon businessman who trafficked counterfeit dental products and has been ordered to pay $24.1 million in restitution after losing a civil lawsuit is now facing two, related criminal charges following a grand jury indictment.
According to Assistant United States Attorney Jeannie M. Joseph, Anh Tuan Luu defrauded customers as well as his former employer, Kerr Corporation, by producing and selling fake versions of that company’s trademarked products for six years until 2012.
After his arrest, Luu–owner of Tri Dental Innovators/Tri Dental Inc. in Garden Grove–pleaded not guilty inside Orange County’s Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse in December and is free from custody on $250,000 bail.
Kerr products Luu allegedly copied included Unidose, Optibond, Revolution and Prodigy, according to the indictment.
In March, the company won its $24.1 million civil judgment against Luu.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Jean P. Rosenbluth ordered the defendant to surrender his U.S. Passport until the case is resolved.
According to court records, Luu–who is represented by a public defender–began his alleged crime spree after Kerr terminated his employment in 2006.
A Jan. 27 status conference is scheduled with Judge James V. Selna in Santa Ana.
Selna hasn’t set a trial date.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.