He was convicted in US District court on Tuesday and faces up to 140 years in prison for 26 felony counts. I’ve heard the US Federal Corporation spent about a million $USD (hey they print ‘em anyway, huh?) to prosecute this case – nice priorities eh? How bout another bailout for the FDA?

Sorry – sometimes my optimism spills out some cynicism.

Anyway, the mainstream news on this will be centered on the assumption that if a machine is not FDA classified that it should fall under their jurisdiction in all cases. Fact is most electronic instruments don’t fall under FDA classification. Consider all the electronic frequency generators made by Hewlett Packard, Agilent, Tectronix, etc.

Then there’s the assumption that just because a jury convicted him that what he was selling was a rip off and there were a lot of complaints but this doesn’t appear to be the case.

This was assumed by 99% of the people that have made comments on the newspaper postings of this story where website visitors comment about placebo affects and snake oil. I guess like attracts like and if the mainstream writers like Keith Darce bias towards the FDA and the court ruling the visitors just take it as gospel.

You folks have more of a brain than that – I’m quite sure of this.

If Jim was using marketing materials that were misleading then he may have been asking for trouble and that is a shame. He will be a political prisoner and we’ll see for how long when they sentence him on May 11th.

Today, from what I’ve heard the trial has ended with a conviction of Jim Folsom on three counts and he has been allegedly been put in jail pending sentencing. It’s unfortunate that he may have had a chance to avoid all this but decided to fight instead of plea bargain to a much smaller offense about a year ago.  This information cannot be verified at this time.

If this is true he may have wasted a huge fight and now is paying the price.

The case related to how Jim sold his machines called the “Energy Wellness” machine which allegedly included promotional material which may have made claims as to beneficial health effects from the use of the machine. According to strict guidelines the efficacy of this sort of machine has not been proven therefore claims of efficacy cannot legally be made.

The FDA claims this type of instrument is under it’s jurisdiction regardless of the fact that they were used many years before the FDA existed – this seems to be the background and big picture of this case.

I’ve heard of attempts to create a fund to ‘bail him out’ but I’ve heard that may be near impossible and sentencing may be done shortly. I’ve heard there were some big holes that may lead to a good appeals case but Jim may have to wait in jail for a lengthy appeal process from what it appears.

The big question is how this will affect others who sell instruments but are more careful not to make any statements regarding efficacy?