A man who posted a false statement on Facebook claiming a consumer product was contaminated pled guilty today in federal court in Cedar Rapids.
Luke A. Truesdell, age 40, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was convicted of one count of communicating false information that a consumer product had been tainted and one count of making a false statement to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
In a plea agreement, Truesdell admitted that, on Jan. 26, 2012, shortly after he was fired from his job in Linn County, Iowa, he called the FDA and made a false statement. Truesdell told the FDA he was a Hepatitis B carrier and then falsely claimed he had bled into batches of an FDA regulated consumer product manufactured by his former employer. Truesdell also admitted that, on Jan. 27, 2012, he posted similar, false information on the Facebook page of one of his former employer’s customers.
Sentencing before United States District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade will be set after a presentence report is prepared. Truesdell remains in custody of the United States Marshal pending sentencing. Truesdell faces a possible maximum sentence of ten years’ imprisonment, a $500,000 fine, $200 in special assessments, and six years of supervised release following any imprisonment.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Peter Deegan and was investigated by the United States Food and Drug Administration Office of Criminal Investigations.
Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is 12-CR-8 LRR.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
