Guilty Plea In Net Drug Sale
By Bob Kessler
STAFF WRITER
June 29, 2002
An Indiana man has pleaded guilty to selling a banned weight-loss drug on the Internet, which was linked to the death of a Baldwin man.
Sean Zhang, 25, of Bloomington, Ind., entered his plea to one count of mail fraud on Tuesday before the start of his trial in Federal District Court in Central Islip on multiple charges of fraud and selling a misbranded drug, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Wayne Baker.
Zhang had been charged under federal laws regulating the sale of food and drugs because there was no proof he was aware the drug - DNP - would cause the death last year of Erick Perrin, 22, officials said.
Perrin had dropped out of Cornell and became obsessed with body building, his parents said. DNP, or dinitrophenol, has been heralded as a weight-loss drug that has been banned for human use since the 1930s because of its toxicity.
Perrin purchased the drug from Zhang through an encrypted Internet chat room that is frequented by bodybuilders who want to obtain illegal drugs, officials said.
Zhang faces 18 to 24 months in prison under federal sentencing guidelines, but prosecutor Baker said he intends to ask for a greater sentence when the Indiana man is sentenced because of Perrin's death. Prosecutors are allowed to seek a greater sentence if they believe the federal guidelines do not take into account the seriousness of the crime.
Zhang's attorney, Stuart Grossman, declined to comment on the plea, but said he was still investigating whether there is clear evidence that the DNP caused Perrin's death.
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No ratting involved but he had to take a deal because the feds pulled up some hard evidence off of a board he was on before that hurt his case - they were going to drop the whole case before that - someone tipped them to it tho and they went digging in the right place appearantly.
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