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Milk & Honey Ventures and two partners bought 250,000 KN95 filtering facepiece respirators from a foreign manufacturer, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said Tuesday, March 29.
MHV had never sold personal protective equipment before, Sellinger said.
The company and one its partners sold 100,000 of the masks to a chain of New Jersey grocery stores at $5.25 per mask -- far in excess of prevailing market prices, the U.S. attorney said.
That's price gouging, he said.
Rather than face trial, a representative pleaded guilty on behalf of the company to price gouging via teleconference with a judge in Newark on Monday, March 28, Sellinger said, without identifying the victimized grocery chain.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Jessica S. Allen scheduled a March 28 sentencing during which a substantial fine is expected to be imposed.
Sellinger credited special agents of the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations with the investigation leading to Monday's guilty plea, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney David V. Simunovich of his Government Fraud Unit and Nicholas P. Grippo, chief of his Criminal Division, both in Newark.
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