June 17, 1994 from the Albuquerque Journal
A man who said he was a simple businessman selling vitamins until he was arrested at gunpoint agents from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration struck a sympathetic chord with jurors Friday.
Instead of a possible three-year jail sentence, a federal court jury that had spent four days in deliberation cleared Rodger Sless of 11 of 15 counts in an indictment. Jurors failed to reach agreement on the remaining counts.
Sless had been charged with conspiracy, introducing unapproved new drugs into interstate commerce, importing merchandise through false declarations, using a fictitious name and selling a counterfeit drug.
“I feel overwhelmed.” Sless said after the verdict. “It sounds like a cliché, but it makes me think the (judicial) system works.”
The substance that was the focus of the case was Gerovital or GH3, believed some to slow the aging process. The government alleged GH3 is a drug not approved for sale and Sless said it is a dietary supplement that has been in use for 40 years with no ill effects for anyone.
U.S. District Judge John E. Conway accepted the verdict for Judge LeRoy Hansen, who presided over the Albuquerque trial but couldn’t be present when the verdict was rendered. Conway, thanking jurors for their service, also said Hansen had told him that he expected the verdict would be for acquittal.
Spilling into the hallway after the verdict was read, jurors warmly greeted Sless and his attorneys, Richard Utman of Albuquerque and Atlanta physician/lawyer Nancy Lord. They styled the case as an issue of personal choice and government overreaching.
“This is a very important decision, not just for Mr. Sless, but for the USA, because we will not have to live under the threat of a terrorist agency, the FDA, seizing vitamins and nutritional supplements without proper notice or public hearings,’ Lord said.
FDA attorney Gerald Kell said afterward the evidence presented the government was that Sless had arranged to bring GH3, an unapproved prescription drug, into the country using false names and mail drops. “Apparently the jury didn’t agree, and we accept that,” he said. “The jury performed their function.”
One Albuquerque juror, Tania Chavez, said jurors “worried that so much a part of our lives is going to be cut out.” She said she buys herbal cough drops and medicinal teas that are plastered with FDA warnings. And she says she knows people who use curanderas, or traditional healers, and feared she might need to use one someday and be prevented the FDA.
Those who use supplements and feared being cut off from them appeared regularly at Sless’ trial. Sless testified that supporters who believed he was being persecuted raised more than $5,000 for his legal defense. But Sless said after the verdict that he doesn’t know if he will go back into the vitamin business.
“It’s not fun to be under the thumb of the federal government and I don’t to go through that again,” he said. He added, however, he hopes to case sends a message to the FDA that people “want to have a choice about products.” And he said he hopes agencies will take another look at what he called the “raid first mentality.”
Sless’ computer and other records were seized the government in an April 8, 1993, raid on his Albuquerque company, Tierra Marketing.