The Pensacola company was declared after allowing it to illegally distribute unregistered pesticide products during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Servismed, LLC, previously located on South Parafox Street in Pensacola, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the federal pesticide, fungicide, and the Rodentycide Act (FIFRA). The company has sold chemicals sold as effective against COVID-19 without approval from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Court records show that between March and December 2020, the service distributed unregistered pesticides to local law enforcement agencies and attempted to export more than $250,000 in export cargo to Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Federal authorities intercepted exports before leaving the country.
As part of that ruling, we will pay local law enforcement $13,330 in compensation, fined $40,000, lose the seized exported product and dissolve it as a business.
“The company has broken the law by leveraging the Covid-19 pandemic through the deceptive distribution of chemicals that are not registered or approved for human use.” “This conviction and sentence should serve as a deterrent to future criminal plans that will allow the company to be held liable for the criminal conduct of the company and put our community at risk.”
Kristopher Martel’s EPA assistant special agent said the incident demonstrates that businesses are responsible for putting the public at risk. “The defendant in this case was selling unregistered pesticides during the height of a global pandemic and tried to benefit from the fears of people getting the coronavirus,” Martell said.
The investigation was conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Bureau, the Department of Commerce’s Department of Industrial and Export Enforcement Bureau, and the Federal Investigation Bureau. The case was indicted by US lawyers David L. Goldberg and Justin M. Keene.
