Almost five years ago, a Bedford man, identified in court documents only as “KD”, bought an online illegal depressor who finally led to his suicide.
Now the California man who certainly will spend 30 months in prisonThis week announced the United States Prosecutor’s Office.
Paul Z. Lamberty, 62, of Folsom, California, stated to guilty last August a conspiracy count to defraud the United States and a count of the introduction of misconceptions with the intention of defrauding and deceiving.
On May 30, Lamberty was sentenced to Boston’s federal court in prison time followed by three -year sales -supervised launch to the Etisol On the Internet from 2017 and finally, gaining more than half a million dollars.
The etizolam is part of a class of drugs chemically related to benzodiazepines (commonly known as benzos), which depress the central nervous system.
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Doctors can prescribe benzodiazepines that are approved by food and drug administration to treat insomnia and anxiety, but also have risks of dependence, toxicity and even a fatal overdose, particularly when they combine with other depressants in the central nervous system, according to the United States lawyer.
The FDA has not approved the Etizolam for medical use and, therefore, cannot be sold or prescribed in the United States and yet it is selling regularly Illegal online markets As a “designer drug” that mimics the pharmacological effects of controlled substances or recipe drugs, according to court documents.
In July 2023, the administration of the drug application temporarily programmed Etizolam as a controlled substance of the list andThat is, the agency considered that the drug an “imminent danger to public safety”.
The Mass. Man’s death
According to court documents, Lamberty played an important role in the operation of two websites, Everna.com and Ohmod.com, where he sold and sent Ethizolam to clients in residential addresses across the country, including Massachusetts. He and his co-conspirator, who has no name through court documents, accepted the payments only through cryptocurrency, according to prosecutors.
In July 2020, a customer in Bedford, Massachusetts, died from an overdose of Etizolam and Miragynine, also known as Kratom, showed the results of autopsy.
In his judgment memorandum, Lamberty’s defense stated that the man’s death was an overdose with intent and finally ruled suicide due to a note he left behind. Prosecutor Robert Helfend argued that without the “proposal actions” of the Massachusetts man, his client would not “not be in front of this court”.
According to email records, the man had bought Etizolam on Lamberty websites about 15 times between July 2019 and June 2020.
In the meantime, United States Assistant Attorney Jared Dollan wrote that “KD” was a victim “due to the original sale of the defendant Etizolam by the defendant, not the subsequent overdose.” The heart of the argument, he said, is that Etizolam is illegal to sell to the United States
“This was the drug treatment with another name”
Lamberty imported the etizolam of suppliers to China. In the United States, he sold it with false labels, saying that the products were “only for research” and “not for human consumption”, show court documents.
In 2018, Lamberty’s commercial partner sent him an email informing -on a press release from the Department of Justice referring to a FDA investigation into several people accused of selling Etizolam on the Internet.
According to prosecutors, the warning did not deter Lamberty.
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Later that year, customs and border protection of the United States detained a pill press According to court documents, he acquired that Lamberty had bought, so he could produce Eizolam’s tablets.
From the analysis of banking and cryptocurrencies, prosecutors say that Lamberty and their co-conspirator made raw sales of more than $ 550,000 from Etizolam.
“This was another drug name and drove, as the drug treatment often does, to predictable and devastating results,” the United States prosecution wrote in his sentence memorandum. “Lamberty knew the risks of selling this unregulated and not approved design drug and should now be responsible for the benefits he made at the expense of victims like KD”
The defense, which seeks probation with the confinement of the home, said that Lamberty has accepted the responsibility of its crimes, without having additional criminal history and “a circle of family and friends who want sober and need it.”
“He strives to do it better in the future,” his lawyer wrote.