I've been following this case closely. This is what it looks like to me -->
Singerman is a smart man. He knew the feds had him when it came to Blackstone Labs several years ago. He methodically parlayed that initial business success into a purely legal enterprise RedCon1. He postponed his plea agreement as long as possible so that he could work on RedCon1. The new business was apparently structured with partners in a way that it and its current/future profits/assets would be legally untainted and untouchable by the Blackstone indictment.
RedCon1 provided him and his family with significant, legitimate wealth that could continue providing substantial income while he is incarcerated and provide an extremely soft landing when he is released.
The question is now that the day of reckoning is here: Will this work out as planned? Was it worth it for him? His family? Four years in federal prison? No one can say other than those involved and time will tell.
Singerman was probably surprised by the lengthy sentence. His attorneys asked for 5-year PROBATION and at most home confinement and requirement to do PSAs encouraging supplement companies to follow the law.
Singerman parlayed his financial success from the illegality of Blackstone Labs into an even bigger success with 100% legal by-the-books RedCon1.
His attorneys argued that his RedCon1 success was proof that he learned his lesson:
Mr. Singerman’s departure from Blackstone Labs was an inflection point for him, bending the arc of his life away from the crimes at issue in this case. His actions during the nearly six subsequent years provide context and guidance for this Court with respect to the person that Mr. Singerman is and has grown to be. After departing Blackstone Labs in April 2016, Mr. Singerman founded his own company, RedCon1. RedCon1 quickly became the fastest growing sport supplement company in history, and it currently employs over 100 people in south Florida and nearly 200 people nationwide. The entire staff of RedCon1 was continuously employed throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, due in no small part to Mr. Singerman refusing a personal salary from the business and redirecting those funds to RedCon1’s employees.
From the outset, Mr. Singerman’s goal at RedCon1 was to create safe, legal products appealing to a broad range of consumers. [...]
In stark contrast to Blackstone Labs, RedCon1 has never received any FDA warning letters, has never been cited or sued for marketing unapproved dietary supplements, and has never to its knowledge been the target or subject of any government investigation. Within a year of RedCon1’s founding, Mr. Singerman obtained a personal certification in current good manufacturing practices and later encouraged RedCon1’s president, most of its executive team, and numerous employees to do the same. Mr. Singerman hired professionals in the fields of regulatory law and compliance at RedCon1, and those individuals – still with the company – confirm that their marching orders from Mr. Singerman were to make sure that RedCon1’s products and processes fell well within all of the law’s requirements.
As RedCon1’s Chief Legal Officer puts it, “there is zero chance that what
occurred at Blackstone Labs will occur at Redcon1” because of Mr. Singerman’s focus and attention to regulatory compliance. (Letter of J. Manfre.) Before Mr. Manfre ever agreed to work for Mr. Singerman and RedCon1 as their Chief Legal Officer, he demanded “assurance that no products would be sold . . . without being reviewed and approved by [him] beforehand,” that “[he] would be provided with the resources necessary to ensure that Redcon1 was not only meeting, but exceeding, its regulatory requirements,” and that “Redcon1 would never put profits before compliance.” (Id.) Mr. Singerman readily agreed to those terms, and he gave free rein to Mr. Manfre and Redcon1’s sophisticated regulatory team to develop, modify, and, if necessary, veto all aspects of RedCon1’s manufacturing and marketing operations. (Id.) Mr. Singerman told Mr. Manfre, and Mr. Singerman’s actions have since borne out, that “he wanted Redcon1 to be the ‘gold standard in regulatory compliance.’” (Id.) RedCon1’s Compliance Officer sees the company’s standards as “uncommon in the industry” and “only possible when the starting point, the DNA of the company, [is] compliance and ethics, and that in turn is established through tone at the top, starting with [Mr. Singerman].” (Letter of A. Connors.) Mr. Singerman “has built a company with compliance policies and procedures that are second to none in the industry.” (Id.)
One significant failure at Blackstone Labs during the course of the conspiracy was the failure to treat seriously any reports by customers of potential adverse reactions to that company’s products. As a result of Mr. Singerman’s leadership at Redcon1, every employee there with potential customer contact is “trained (and retrained) on how to handle incoming health complaints,” and every such complaint is investigated, tracked, followed up, and reported to Redcon1’s Chief Legal Officer regardless of its perceived severity. (Letter of J. Manfre.) An independent third-party safety group with on-staff physicians reviews every complaint of this sort received by anyone at RedCon1, and that independent group determines whether and how to report that event to the FDA. This process well exceeds regulatory requirements established by the FDA and imposes significant additional costs on the RedCon1 business. But Mr. Singerman “approved these costs without hesitation,” just as he has “always approved granting more resources to quality control [and] safety and compliance” at RedCon1 and “continues to reinvest into these most important areas as [RedCon1] continues to grow.”
Mr. Singerman’s involvement in RedCon1 illustrates that he long ago turned away from the criminality at the heart of this case. He could have left Blackstone Labs after his disagreements with Defendant Braun and attempted to replicate the illegal conduct occurring there in his own business, but he followed a different path. He has demonstrated over and over again during the last six years that he is committed to participating in the supplement industry legitimately, lawfully, and with a focused eye on consumer safety. He is a demonstrably different businessman and person today than he was nearly six years ago, and his purposeful actions in creating RedCon1 show a public and intentional repudiation of the kind of criminal conduct that led to his indictment in this case.
