Zicam Inventor Swindled Investors in Lucille Ball Scam, Blew Spoils at Las Vegas Casinos

A federal grand panel has indicted the artificer of coldness remedy Zicam on hoax charges. He’s accused of bilking investors inward a sham TV production troupe which he claimed had links to the later(a) Lucille Ball.

Charles Hensley, of Redondo Beach, Calif., used at least $331,000 of almost $600,000 extracted from 21 investors as his own personal expenses. These included unsparing trips to unnamed Las Vegas casinos and payments to hock shops, according to the indictment.

Hensley claimed he had made millions from Zicam. He did coinvent the product inward the mid-1990s. But he was broke when he began canvassing for investment inward his eggshell production company, Desilu Studios Inc (DSI), inwards August 2017.

At that time, Hensley had been “repeatedly peppy checks and overdrawing bank building accounts to acquire hard currency and pay off expenses,” according to the indictment.

Borrowed Name

He borrowed the public figure from Desilu Productions Inc., the companion formed by Lucille Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz, as a Gladstone bag of their world-class names.

It was once the second-biggest production troupe in the US, creating classic video shows the like I Love Lucy, Star Trek, and Mission Impossible before its demise inwards 1968.

Hensley “falsely and misleadingly represented that he was affiliated with the existent Desilu and making new content using the Desilu name,” reads the indictment.

He further told investors he was championship the society with his non-existent fortune from Zicam. DSI fellowship was worth $11 billion, he claimed.

Hensley also pushed a phony pharmaceutical company, “Migranade,” which he said was precious at $50 million.

Phony IPO

Meanwhile, he told investors Desilu Productions was nigh to proceed public and that its stock up was worth more than its face value, which would increase significantly after the imminent IPO.

In fact, as suspect Hensley and so knew, representations regarding any public offering were misleading because DSI had few to no assets, no CFO, accountant, or auditor, no financial statements or any of the other requirements for an IPO, and the stock was not worth what was represented,” reads the indictment.

Hensley obtained a trademark on the Desilu figure from the US Patent Office inward 2018. That year, he sued CBS Studios for exclusive utilisation of the mark. He later withdrew the case and was countersued past CBS, which had used it continually for decades inwards its video programming.

Hensley has been charged with 11 counts of conducting wire hoax and i tally of provoked personal identity theft, according to the US attorney’s office for the Central District of California. He faces upwardly to 20 years inwards prison if convicted.