A Winnetka, Illinois, medical provide firm proprietor was convicted Friday of price-gouging N-95 masks at first of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Krikor Topouzian, 62, was the proprietor of Concord Health Supply in Skokie, Illinois. In his capability as firm president, he gathered round 79,160 N-95 masks between March and April 2020 at round $5.08 a pop.

Due to the pandemic, former President Donald Trump had designated the masks as scarce materials underneath the provisions of the Defense Production Act. As such, promoting the masks far above market costs was unlawful.

Despite this and regardless of warnings from pals, clients and regulation enforcement that his costs had been too excessive, Topouzian bought the masks at costs as excessive as $19.95 per single masks, a markup of 185% to 367% per masks.

Topouzian additionally remained brazen within the face of warnings about his value gouging, responding to at least one such message that “Who is going to report me?…  I’ve already been threatened by so many people that they’re going to call the FBI,” based on written Findings of Fact cited in a Justice Department launch.

To offset unfavourable evaluations of his firm concerning the blatant gouging, Topouzian recruited a relative to search out pals and others to write down fictitious, constructive evaluations of Topouzian’s enterprise on-line.

At one other level, Topouzian boasted in a textual content message that “You can’t imagine my business. $50-80,000 a day, I did $1 million in the last couple weeks.”

Topouzian is due for sentencing on Oct. 10, 2023, and faces as much as one yr in jail.

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