Rockland CEO Pleads In $46 Million Product-Testing Fraud Scheme

NEW CITY, NY — The owner of a consumer products testing company in New City accused in a $46 million, 30-year fraud scheme pleaded guilty Tuesday.

"As he has now admitted, Gabriel Letizia schemed for decades to defraud customers of his laboratory, and caused sunscreens and other consumer products to be sold and marketed to consumers on the basis of false laboratory testing reports," Audrey Strauss, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement. "Letizia’s guilty plea underscores that my Office will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to investigate and prosecute fraud and endangerment in the consumer products testing industry."

Former employees of AMA Laboratories, Inc., David Winne, Mayya Tatsene, Patrycja Wojtowicz, and Kaitlyn Gold, already pleaded guilty in connection with their respective roles in the scheme, Strauss said.

From 1987 through April 2017, Letizia, 71, and his co-conspirators defrauded AMA’s customers of more than $46 million by testing products on materially lower numbers of panelists than the numbers specified and paid for by AMA’s customers. They sent the customers fraudulent reports, which falsely represented that AMA had tested the products on the number of panelists specified by the customers, causing the introduction of misbranded products into interstate commerce.

Winne served as AMA’s technical director, Tatsene was its clinical lab director, Wojtowicz was AMA’s associate director of clinical studies, and Gold was the company's supervising laboratory technician.

Letizia, of New City, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison; and two counts of causing a misbranded drug to be introduced into interstate commerce, each of which carries a maximum penalty of one year in prison.