Braswell is featured in his own advertisement for hair-growth supplements

Senior Swindler?

A Senate committee probes the claims of a vitamin magnate pardoned by Clinton

NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE

Sept. 8 — A. Glenn Braswell, the secretive Florida-based direct-mail kingpin whose last-minute pardon by President Clinton helped create a storm of controversy about the pardon process, has been subpoenaed by a U.S. Senate committee investigating deceptive marketing practices in the health-care industry. INVESTIGATORS FOR THE U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging tell NEWSWEEK that they have spent months looking into a labyrinthine direct-mail empire through which the 58-year-old Braswell markets a dizzying array of health care products-from “anti-aging” pills to purported sexual stimulants. Most of the marketing, investigators say, is aimed at senior citizens. At a hearing this Monday, the panel intends to call scientists who will testify that many of the claims made by Braswell’s direct mailings are unproved and that his products have little, if any, medicinal value.

Committee investigators served Braswell’s Washington lawyer, Jerry Feffer, with a subpoena last week, requiring his client to show up for Monday’s hearing, sources said. But committee investigators say they expect Braswell will almost certainly invoke his Fifth Amendment rights and refuse to answer any questions. The reason: for the past year, Braswell and his companies have been the subject of a federal criminal investigation in Los Angeles probing allegations of tax fraud and money laundering.

Asked for comment about the aging committee investigation last week, Feffer responded: “We’re going to have nothing to say.” The aging committee has launched a wide-ranging probe into the marketing of dietary and nutritional supplements-a multi-billion dollar industry that has been growing rapidly in recent years in large part because Congress weakened federal regulation on such products in 1994. The panel decided to focus on Braswell in part because, with annual sales estimated at more than $200 million a year, “he’s the biggest player in the industry,” says one committee investigator. But the probe also has a more personal history. Earlier this year, Lois Breaux, the wife of the Democratic Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana, the chairman of the aging committee, received one of Braswell’s promotional magazines, called the Journal of Longevity, at home. The magazine is filled with ads for Braswell’s products, including anti-aging potions with names like “Himalayan Life Formula” and “Longevity Caps.” These ads run alongside seemingly legitimate news articles that promote the products, such as one in the March 2001 issue that carried the headline: “Scientists discover way to extend life span with youth hormone.”

Rodham with Clinton

Rodham on a Florida golf course with Clinton last February Lois Breaux showed the magazine to her husband who was “horrified” by the advertising claims, a Breaux spokesman said. Sen. Breaux then ordered his aging committee staff to look into the matter.

One of the witnesses scheduled to testify, Dr. Joyce Lashof, the former dean of the University of California’s School of Public Health, serves on the editorial advisory board of the school’s “Berkeley Wellness Letter,” a publication that has repeatedly criticized Braswell’s promotions. In a 1999 analysis, the Wellness Letter analyzed one of Braswell’s products, called Gero Vita. The product was marketed with a brochure that “focuses on senility and actually claims that ‘age spots’ on the skin are the first sign of impending memory loss,” the newsletter wrote.

The “Berkeley Wellness Letter” called the claims “baloney” and said of Gero Vita: “It won’t prevent or cure anything.”

By putting Braswell—who almost never gives press interviews—back into the public spotlight, the committee hearing also promises to bring fresh attention to one of the more curious of Clinton’s last minute pardons. On his last day in office, Clinton pardoned Braswell for a 1983 conviction for mail fraud and perjury. The conviction grew out of charges by federal postal inspectors that one of Braswell’s companies had falsified photographs of hair growth to promote an “anti-baldness” cure he was then marketing.

Clinton’s pardon seemed especially puzzling because unlike some others who had received them, Braswell had been a big Republican Party contributor, donating $220,000 to various GOP committees in the past three years, including $25,000 to George W. Bush’s re-election campaign in Texas in 1998 and another $100,000 to the Florida Republican party in 1999.

The Bush campaign and the Florida GOP returned the money last fall after NEWSWEEK and the St. Petersburg Times reported that, following Braswell’s contributions, his Journal of Longevity carried a prominently featured article purportedly written by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush that seemed to endorse the kinds of products Braswell was selling. Bush’s office later disavowed the article.

But it later turned out that Braswell also had other political connections. Two days after the pardon, one of Braswell’s companies, GB Data Systems, wired $200,000 to the law firm of Hugh Rodham, the brother of Hillary Clinton. The money-which was described as a “success” fee for Rodham’s efforts to secure Braswell a pardon from the Clinton White House-created a public outcry. Rodham’s lawyer says he returned the funds. The circumstances surrounding Rodham’s role and the Braswell pardon remain the focus of a separate investigation by the House Government Reform Committee.

-- Anonymous, September 08, 2001