Things were going well for Charles Anthony Jones last Valentine's Day. Business was good, he had $3,000 cash in his front pocket and enough anti-impotence medication in his car to kill a stallion.
But that's when things started going down hill. Irving police arrested him later that day and took the drugs. Even though he gave his name as John Smith, the "Erection Connection" business cards in his car were enough to link him to his arrest in Addison almost a year before, when police found the same business cards and containers of Sildenafil, Vardenafil, and Tadalafil or, if you prefer, the active ingredients in Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis, respectively.
Jones got out of jail soon after the Valentine's Day bust and went about his business as usual for the next six months. There were the emails asking for so much Cialis, text messages to set up a deal at a gas station, phone calls to the number Jones had listed online asking for various amounts of Viagra.
What Jones didn't know was that a lot of the people he was selling erectile dysfunction drugs to were actually undercover cops who knew his product was counterfeit and were building a criminal case against him. Seems that the large amounts of illegal prescriptions and "Erection Connection" business cards had aroused their suspicions, so to speak.
Jones, 48, was arrested yesterday morning by Irving police and special agents with the Food and Drug Administration. He is charged in federal court with six counts of trafficking in counterfeit goods, five counts of introducing and delivering misbranded drugs, and one count of conspiracy. According to the feds, he obtained generic ingredients, branded them as Viagra, Cialis, or Levitra, then sold them over the Internet.
For each of the dozen counts, he faces at least five years in prison and a $250,000. A detention hearing is scheduled on Aug. 27.
