Supplements brand pleads guilty, agrees to $4.5 million forfeiture

A supplements brand in Austin, Texas, pleaded guilty last week to distributing misbranded products and agreed to a $4.5 million forfeiture.

The products distributed by Defyned Brands, also known as 5 Star Nutrition, were marketed as workout supplements and sold at 5 Star retail locations, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a Jan. 12 news release.

Per the plea agreement in U.S. District Court, the products contained ingredients mislabeled as dietary ingredients or not declared on the product label, according to the release. 5 Star Nutrition admitted that from September 2018 to July 2020 it delivered misbranded supplements into interstate commerce, DOJ said.

Count 1 of the charging document alleged that 5 Star Nutrition shipped from Hutchins, Texas, to Hanover, Maryland, a product (Epivar) whose labeling was false because it declared on its label a non-dietary ingredient (3b-hydroxy-androstane-17-one) to be a dietary ingredient.

In a separate incident, 5 Star Nutrition shipped a product labeled as a dietary supplement called Alpha Shredded from Texas to Offutt, Nebraska, according to the charging document. The charging document described the labeling of the product as “false and misleading because Alpha Shredded declared on its label 1-4 OHP17beta-[{]-Keoethyl) androsta-1, 4-diene-3-one, 17a-ol, a non-dietary ingredient, to be a dietary ingredient.”

5 Star Nutrition also delivered a product from Texas to Aurora, Colorado, called Laxobolic that was labeled as a dietary supplement and misbranded as well, the government alleged. The “labeling was false and misleading because Laxobolic contained Diosgenin, an ingredient that was not declared on the label, and the label of Laxobolic declared 5-alpha-hydroxy-laxogenin, a non-dietary ingredient, to be a dietary ingredient,” according to the charging document.

“For almost two years, the defendant in this case misinformed consumers with inaccurate labeling on dietary supplements,” U.S. Attorney Jaime Esparza for the Western District of Texas said in the press release. “By requiring this company to forfeit its profits from this practice, we hope to reaffirm the public’s confidence in the safety of the products they purchase.”

As of publication of this article, 5 Star Nutrition and a lawyer representing the company did not return emails seeking comment.