Important Message From Ba
Started by BoardAdmin , Jan 03 2017 03:41 PM
As many of you may already know, a recent article was posted online about us being targets of the DEA for alleged “anabolic distribution steroid ring”. Against my attorneys’ advice, Mrs. BA and I strongly feel that we now need to come to the forums and address this article and explain firsthand what we have been dealing with since our home and warehouses were raided in mid June. We also need to set the record straight on the misinformation that was mentioned in the article regarding being raided in 2004 once and for all. We would have discussed this on open forum months ago but from our experiences in the past we felt that it wouldn’t be good to cause alarm when there once again were no controlled substances to be found. Their claim that we have committed DASCA violations are resultant of a misunderstanding/misuse of DASCA’s definition of compounds that are structurally similar to testosterone for it to effectively serve as a new analogue act for similar compounds, whether or not they had been listed in the bill. As there have not been any charges and our strong views on the potential outcome of the investigation, we didn’t want to post private information and worry about rumors and misinformation spreading on other forums if it wasn’t necessary. When this article posted with no forewarning or chance to give our sides of the story upfront in rebuttal or defense, now we decided to make this post. The worst part is that the article was snuck in on Christmas Eve and it has already spread here and to several other online discussion forums before I had the chance to explain anything to members.
I want the chance to discuss the WHOLE story and finally break everything down…..ALL of our experiences since first opening our business in 2003 (known as Liquid Research at the time) to now, but it is most important to start with this initial release because otherwise this post would be about 20 pages long. Again when this first happened, we only told a few reps that we felt we could trust. My wife (Mrs. BA) wanted to come straight here to talk about what happened and so did I but I know how words can get twisted and haters will try to change the story around, so I asked her to wait. There were a few times that we mentioned coming to the boards to talk about the claims about DASCA being an analogue act and what they were trying to say we had done to break the law, but we chose not to. Our attorneys kept telling us not to discuss anything online every time we would say anything about bringing the discussion to our forum, so we didn't discuss what was going on.....only to have the DEA leak 45 pages of an application for a new search warrant that ended up in the hands of a reporter from the Advocate.
First, I want say the article is absolute bullshit and just a fraction of the truth about what all has happened to us since 2004 regarding any aspects of the handling of our businesses. The article was written by a New Orleans Advocate journalist, Jim Mustian, who seemingly was handfed a copy of the 45 page application for a search warrant by one of the DEA task force agents in attempts to defame my wife and I’s reputation shortly before the deadline for them to return seized property came around. The things I don't get are how a sealed investigation was openly available to the public and why now, not back in mid June when it first happened. So now it is OK for some random reporter (who frankly doesn't know his head from a whole in the ground about this or any investigation involving us) to bring news of the raid and investigation online (and in print) when we were told specifically not too? The only true FACT is that this reporter has been allowed (and quite possibly encouraged by enforcement agents) to selectively use bits and pieces of a search warrant application and an old article written about a raid that resulted with no illegal substances or activity being found and write this unfairly biased and skewed story.
We have asked multiple times for the "sealed" sections of the warrants served on our home and warehouses back in June for months but because they are sealed and we haven't been charged with anything our defense attorneys haven't even been able to have access it, but JIM was able to find it in a little over a month on some “public roster” and was so intrigued by the details of the warrant application as to push to release an article right in time for Christmas on his own regard and intuition. Very convenient timing by the way after there was a major media event the week before discussing the recent raids of “corrupt” DEA task force agents and Tangipahoa Parish Sherriff Office after an ongoing investigation of the whole task force has been ongoing by the FBI. Convicted drug offenders are being released and active investigations involving local DEA task force are being turned away by the Justice Department as FBI is just beginning to unravel the web of corruption. Our investigation involves DEA task force and the evidence for indictment against us was already lacking so as we are approaching the deadline to return property and issue an indictment the very task force trying to come after us is all over the news. What better way to counter the bad press then to set up this low blow in local media to make us look like an organized criminal enterprise that has been skirting the hammer of the law for over a decade. One of the first task force agents arrested has been referred to the “white devil” and compared to Denzel Washington’s character in Training Day, but worse.
Just a few of the recent articles involving DEA task force pasted below:
http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/crime_police/article_9e707b84-c2eb-11e6-8888-e332dd5c4b9a.html
http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/crime_police/article_e5c73558-9222-11e6-8cc2-c744a24067aa.html?sr_source=lift_amplify
http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/article_b1a39fbb-dd91-5870-bf25-bca4c8b3bed8.html
http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/politics/article_6b3d8fa6-c3b1-11e6-a4df-07a8c6a2c2b5.html?sr_source=lift_amplify
The agent quoted in the search warrant application, Brian Phillips, is a New Orleans Police Department street crime federally marshaled to assist DEA, the same DEA task force under investigation by the FBI.
There is a reason that there were never any charges filed against us in 2004 after Jefferson Parish Sheriff first raided our business when operating under the name NuRave Development and commonly known in the industry as Liquid Research. Jim went on to reference misinformation posted in 2004 by Times Picayune the day after we were raided. He is twisting details about us as if it were the hard facts about a proven illegal operation and painting us as hardened criminals.... We were raided by Jefferson Parish authorities in 2004 within the first year of starting our business (Liquid Research at the time) and before there was even time to inventory or test the so called "illegal" substances seized; Harry Lee (Sheriff of Jefferson parish also known for corruption in office) interrupted regularly scheduled programming to announce that they had had just busted the "largest drug operation in the history of Jefferson Parish". The large white barrels of powder were raw material of supplements such as Calcium carbonate and stearate, Acteylated Phenibut and 2 other phenibut derivitives that I planned to bring to the market at the time. The headlines in 2004 "alleged" us of online sales of steroids and GBL without any evidence of sales, any proof of intent to sell or even possession of either types of these drugs. DEA task force and US Customs used a bartering ram on my home all because an undercover agent bought steroids from an ex-employee of ours shortly after he left our home. The craziest part is that several of the deputies involved in ours and similar raids were being found guilty of their own misconduct including steroid use just a few months after they nearly destroyed our lives.
We were targets of a very sloppy and misguided operation by a local Sheriff department widely known for its corruption. Jefferson Parish was already known for scandals and corruption of the Sheriff and his deputies and shortly after we were raided it was uncovered that many were being investigated and had even been arrested for their abuse of power and crimes. The task force was conducting targeted and/or illegal searches and seizures looking for drugs (steroids were specifically mentioned), cash and other property that they had been "informed" of and that would be taken for their own personal use. Many deputies were in the news for being found to be on steroids themselves. We never saw their warrant, we were removed from the premises as they were still conducting the search and steroids were just one of the many spoils that the deputies were hoping to find. Our entire product inventory, computers and even a flat screen monitor were seized and never returned. The articles posted by local media would be used by competitors or haters for years to try to hinder any new business ventures as well as left an open-ended source for our reputation to be slandered for years to come.
What was not mentioned in the article is that we were also raided in 2007 during that whole "Operation Raw Deal" when operating as IBE. This was about a year after our Epistane first came out. We had a shipment of raw material get seized at the New Orleans airport and when tested under high heat it was mistakenly identified as a controlled substance. The US Customs agent that detained the shipment was present in 2004 and recognized the name and immediately pulled the shipment to analyze. This Customs agent already had a vendetta following the raid in Jefferson Parish because of a rebuttal post that described him and we learned shortly after he led the raid on our home and commercial properties Fortunately, we had already been testing all material we were ordering by a forensic toxicologist who was regularly called to testify for FDA, DEA and other grand jury and was able to quickly quash the claim of results from the US Customs test. Again no illegal substances or operations were found and the prosecuting attorney (AUSA) told our attorney at the time that we could continue to operate our business(es) after only a few weeks of investigating the documents and property seized. US Customs walked away with 50k from bank accounts, documents and 80k in product inventory and their 5 year window to indict us had expired, the only “property” returned to us was 20 boxes of documents.
Our operations have not changed since 2007 aside from adding new websites, adding new products/brands that were all similar to the existing catalog during previous investigation(s), and we even had an attorney specializing in federal steroid criminal law review both our current websites and he issued legal opinions letters for both ecommerce sites that quoted legal statutes currently listed under DEA/federal classification laws and even gives the exact url to locate the statutes his references and opinion had been derived and we did this so that we would not have to fear another unjustified legal enforcement. When DASCA became law we immediately discontinued and removed any products that could potentially be viewed as an illegal compound as defined in the new bill. Any products that were listed in DASCA were removed from our catalog nearly 2 weeks before the bill was actually signed. All products and raw materials were immediately removed from our online store and all stock discarded without hesitation. While most companies were selling last minute stock up to days before DASCA was enacted as law, we wouldn’t even risk selling the high demand product we had on hand. We had offers from many venues to purchase our remaining stock while still legal and we refused. We even recalled and refunded any pending orders waiting to ship because it wasn’t worth the chance that even one package be found in transit after DASCA became law. We weren’t willing to risk being raided for a last minute effort to liquidate stock to recover the financial loss we suffered. The loss of revenue and inventory due to our decisions were a major financial loss. DASCA changes left us with 50% less monthly gross revenue, receivables loans and other accumulated debt that could no longer be paid, and a resulting decline in membership and customer base as a whole. We also instructed all staff and representatives of our new policies regarding sales, the changes the DASCA would cause and instructions for communicating with customers and also a strict and close monitoring of any discussions being held on our online discussion forum so that all of this could be avoided. But here we are again, and the worst part is they raided us when we had already closed our brick and mortar store and had stopped taking orders from Pure Oils website due to losing our supplier in December 2015. We had a very limited amount of Celtic Labs product on hand.
We have never been charged or convicted of a crime, we were already raided on both a state and federal level and even after neither investigation provided significant evidence of controlled/illegal substances in possession, being stored, sold or used relative to any business or bring criminal charges against us for any of the previously alleged crimes.......we were raided again and here we are once again, guilty before innocent.
The thing that everyone needs to understand very clearly……. the US government isn’t after us, it is local task force and enforcement using the resources of the federal government that have held a grudge from the raid(s) before and this most recent raid is an attempt to try to finish what they started in 2004.
