California man imprisoned after fX drinks injure partygoers

FDA Consumer, July-August, 1998 by Tamar Nordenberg

A California chiropractor was sentenced to three months in prison and three months in a halfway house and fined $2,000 for illegally distributing tainted liquids that sickened more than 100 partygoers at a New Year's Eve 1996 "rave" party in Los Angeles.

Thirty-year-old Daniel Bricker was sentenced Feb. 2, 1998, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California after pleading guilty to mis-branding a food or drug product. The product contained a chemical related to the dangerous and sometimes lethal substance gammahydroxybutyrate (GHB).

Police and firefighters were called to the party when revelers began complaining of symptoms ranging from dizziness and nausea to difficulty breathing. The officials dispersed the crowd, estimated to exceed 10,000 people, and seized about 10,000 vials of the brew that had been distributed free at the party to promote the product.

On New Year's Day, investigators from FDA's Los Angeles district office interviewed some of the more than 30 people who had been taken to area hospitals.

Also that day, the agency warned consumers not to ingest the products blamed for the injuries, which were labeled "Cherry fX Bombs," "Lemon fX Drops," and "Orange fX Rush."

On Jan. 2 and 3, 1997, FDA sent a number of vials of the liquid to the agency's laboratories in Cincinnati, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. The laboratories determined that they contained an industrial solvent known to target the central nervous system if swallowed.

On Jan. 28, special agents with FDA's Office of Criminal Investigations searched Bricker's business, Bricker Labs of Escondido, Calif., and gathered evidence that helped link Bricker to the crime, including vials, stoppers, and packaging related to the product.

On the same day, during a search of Bricker's home in Valley Center, Calif., special agents found documents containing results of laboratory tests on the products, which showed that Bricker knew when he distributed the fX products that they contained the harmful industrial chemical.

According to one special agent with FDA's Office of Criminal Investigations, Bricker substituted the industrial chemical for an ingredient from the kava-kava plant that he planned to use because he couldn't get the plant substance in time for the party.

"He knew in advance that these people would get sick from it," the investigator says, "and he distributed it anyway in the hopes of making some money. It was an extremely dangerous thing to do."

Bricker pleaded guilty in November 1997 to the misbranding charge. He began serving his sentence near the end of March, and at press time was expected to go to the halfway house in July.

Bricker's accomplice, Michael Moffett, whose company mislabeled the industrial solvent as kava-kava extract, pleaded guilty in October 1997 to a misbranding charge. He cooperated with FDA's Office of Criminal Investigations and received a $2,000 fine and a two-year probation.

Tamar Nordenberg is a staff writer for FDA Consumer.