A La Mesa-based sanitation company and its owners have been sentenced for selling a product with false claims that it could eradicate viruses, including the one that causes COVID-19.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Integral Hygienic Solutions, Inc. — doing business as TruClean — claimed its TruClean 365 product could eliminate the virus that causes COVID-19, as well as other viruses and bacteria, for one year when applied on surfaces.
However, prosecutors said that when the pandemic began in early 2020, the defendants actually bought bottles of chemical products from a different company, then placed TruClean's labels onto the bottles. The company claimed in its marketing that TruClean 365 had undergone "rigorous testing" by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which validated that TruClean 365 provided year-round protection against virus infections.
In a plea agreement, the defendants admitted selling more than $800,000 worth of the products, which by law should have been registered as pesticides by the EPA, but weren't.
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A sentencing memorandum filed on behalf of the defense states that company owners and brothers Ray Louis Smith Jr. and Ramont Joseph Smith "trusted in and followed the guidance of their product supplier when they marketed an unregistered pesticide product."
When the pandemic began, the company sought to market its products to "COVID-conscientious customers," according to the memorandum, which states the Smiths viewed social media posts from their product supplier that indicated its surface coating products were effective against viruses, including SARS-CoV-2.
"The Smiths actually believed that the products worked as the supplier represented they did," the defense memo states. "They had no intention to mislead their customers when they repeated what the supplier had told them about the coating products' efficacy."
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The company pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud, while the Smiths pleaded to misdemeanor counts of unlawful sale/distribution of pesticides.
On Friday, a San Diego federal judge sentenced the owners and the company to five years of probation and ordered restitution to be paid in the amount of $823,669.31.
