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Law360 (March 5, 2021, 10:28 PM EST) -- A New York man pled guilty on Friday to hoarding personal protective equipment at the start of the coronavirus pandemic and then selling it — sometimes at a 500% markup — online and at his pizzeria, attempting to profit off the global crisis in violation of the Defense Production Act of 1950.
Imran Selcuk, 35, admitted to purchasing about 100,000 KN95 facemasks and 25,000 surgical-style facemasks from abroad in March 2020 for $1 each and 50 cents each, respectively, pleading guilty on Friday to a single misdemeanor charge of price-gouging.
Selcuk's attorney, Nicholas J. Evanovich III of LaMarche Safranko Law PLLC, told Law360 on Friday that Selcuk is "remorseful," noting that Selcuk only sold about 500 units of PPE.
In his plea agreement filed late last month, Selcuk admitted to selling the masks, sometimes at a markup, online and at a pizzeria he owns in Troy, New York.
Selcuk further admitted that on May 5, KN95 masks were available for purchase at his pizzeria for $10 per mask.
He also tried to unload the masks on eBay, only to be blocked by the online marketplace because of price-gouging concerns, according to the plea agreement.
Law enforcement became privy to Selcuk's website. They purchased masks from him online and searched his properties in August. During the search, investigators found most of the masks that Selcuk had ordered and stockpiled between March and May.
In his signed guilty plea, Selcuk admitted to using an acquaintance's funds to purchase the face masks with the intention of splitting the profits from reselling them.
The plea agreement also states that the masks' manufacturer had not been registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and that three out of 10 masks tested were found to filter less than 95% of required contaminants.
Selcuk also admitted to falsely advertising that the KN95 masks he sold had been certified by the FDA, which does not "certify" face masks.
Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York Antoinette T. Bacon said in a statement on Friday that Selcuk had preyed on people's fears, seeing the pandemic as an opportunity to rip them off.
"He purchased thousands of masks from overseas and offered them for sale at highly inflated prices when masks were scarce and the pandemic had just started to take hold," Bacon said.
She said her office will continue working with the COVID-19 Hoarding and Price-Gouging Task Force "to prevent greedy profiteers from taking advantage of this emergency for illicit gain."
Kevin Kelly, special agent in charge of the Buffalo field office of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations, also criticized Selcuk and others who have exploited the pandemic for their own gain.
"It is unfathomable that during a global pandemic, individuals such as Selcuk place their selfish greed above service to community," Kelly said Friday, adding that Homeland Security Investigations will continue "to work tirelessly to arrest anyone attempting to leverage the pandemic to illicitly profit from our communities."
Selcuk faces up to a year in prison, a $10,000 fine and up to a year of post-imprisonment supervised release. His sentencing is scheduled for July 2.
Since the pandemic began, a wave of people and companies have been charged with hoarding and price-gouging personal protective equipment.
In June, the U.S. Department of Justice charged a Chinese electronic device manufacturer with selling 140,400 falsely labeled and defective KN95 respirator masks to a New Jersey company.
Pennsylvania's attorney general in August sought $1 million in penalties against a Philadelphia-based company accused of illegally jacking up the price of hand sanitizer it sold on Amazon.com as the coronavirus pandemic took hold.
In September, a Long Island, New York, man agreed to donate more than $400,000 worth of medical items to hospitals and health care providers as part of a deferred prosecution agreement.
The plea deal did not mention what would happen to the PPE that Selcuk hoarded.
The U.S. is represented by Michael D. Gadarian and Joshua R. Rosenthal of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of New York.
Selcuk is represented by Andrew Safranko and Nicholas J. Evanovich III of LaMarche Safranko Law PLLC.
The case is U.S. v. Imran Selcuk, case number 1:21-cr-00060, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York.
--Editing by Regan Estes.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
