A Tragic Miscarriage of Justice: We Must Convince the President to Release Jay Kimball

Back in the year 2004, we dedicated an issue of Life Extension® magazine to the growing threat of wrongful prosecutions that were not based on real "crimes."

These prosecutions are instead instigated to serve private business interests, sometimes by pharmaceutical companies that pay 'investigators' to find ways to destroy their small competitors.

With their enormous political influence, drug companies use these private investigations to persuade the federal government to arrest smaller competitors. The result is that innovative companies offering superior medications at lower prices are destroyed.

Pharmaceutical companies financially flourish, while consumers and the healthcare system of the United States collapses under the weight of this relentless corruption.

The most egregious example of prosecutorial misconduct occurred in 2000, when a man named Jay Kimball was sentenced to 13 years in jail for exporting a lower cost liquid deprenyl that may have been superior to the deprenyl tablets being sold for obscenely high prices in the US. The company making the deprenyl tablets launched a massive "private" investigation against Jay Kimball, and then turned their report over to the FDA and Justice Department.

Contrary to the 100,000 Americans who die each year from Big Pharma's fraudulently-approved drugs, nothing in the private report suggested anyone was harmed by Jay's products. Jay was nonetheless arrested on technical violations of pharmaceutical "export" laws and punished with such a draconian sentence that he may not leave prison alive unless we succeed in convincing President Obama to vacate his prison sentence to the many years he has already served. This legal process is called "commutation of sentence" and allows the President to order the release of a prisoner but does not nullify the conviction itself.

After reading this article, I urge each of you to contact President Obama's pardon commission at the Internet address we provide to petition for the immediate release of a human being who did nothing more than to provide a superior medication at a lower cost.

Deprenyl May Be An Anti-Aging Drug

Deprenyl is a drug the FDA approved to treat early-stage Parkinson's disease. It had long before been used throughout Europe. Deprenyl enhances and prolongs the anti-Parkinson effects of standard drugs like L-dopa.

Deprenyl has also demonstrated intriguing anti-aging properties.1-4 According to one study, rats treated with relatively low doses of deprenyl lived up to 38% longer than the control group.1

In humans prior to age 45, dopamine levels remain fairly stable. After that, dopamine in the human brain decreases by about 13% each decade. When the dopamine content in the brain reaches about 30% of normal, Parkinson's symptoms may be present.5 When levels reach 10% of normal, death ensues.5 This has led to the hypothesis that if we live long enough, we will all develop Parkinson's symptoms due to dopamine depletion in our brains.1

Monoamineoxidase B (MAO-B) is an enzyme in the brain that degrades neurotransmitters like dopamine. As humans age, MAO-B levels increase and degrade precious dopamine and other neurotransmitters. Deprenyl is a selective inhibitor of MAO-B.6 As little as 5 mg twice a week of deprenyl is all aging human may need to maintain their dopamine at youthful levels.5

Not only may deprenyl help prevent degenerative brain diseases, but it can also improve the quality of life, as evidenced by increased 'mounting frequency' in old male rats treated with deprenyl compared to untreated controls.5,7-10

Dopamine is a primary "feel good" neurotransmitter that progressively depletes after age 45 in humans.5 Restoring dopamine levels using low-dose deprenyl (5 mg twice a week) may help aging humans regain some of their youthful sense of well being.

Jay Kimball's Liquid Deprenyl

Deprenyl is now a generic, but when the patent was in force, it sold for a lot of money. Because of the inefficient regulatory environmentthat limits free market competition, generic deprenyl costs about the same now as when it was covered under a patent.

Jay Kimball had developed a purified liquid deprenyl that he claimed was superior to the outlandishly priced tablets the FDA had approved for Parkinson's patients.11

Jay first started selling his liquid deprenyl over-the-counter in the United States. When the FDA ordered him to stop, he capitulated as his small company lacked the resources to take on the FDA (and Big Pharma) in court. Jay continued, however, to export his liquid deprenyl to other countries.12

You might ask, what is wrong with exporting medicines to other countries? It turns out that unless the FDA first approves the export, even sending a medication to other countries is "illegal."

Pharmaceutical Company Destroys Jay Kimball

The pharmaceutical company that sold deprenyl tablets became outraged when Americans who wanted Jay's purportedly superior liquid deprenyl began ordering it from other countries. That is when Jay got into big trouble.

The company making deprenyl tablets did not like the low-priced competition, so it ran to the FDA demanding that Jay Kimball be stopped. The FDA did not move fast enough to suit the drug company, so it hired a private detective agency to conduct a criminal investigation independent of the government. The private detectives did a superb job of documenting that Jay was indeed shipping deprenyl to other countries. This file was turned over to the FDA, which used the information supplied by the private investigators to raid Jay Kimball's premises and eventually indict him on numerous criminal counts. There were no victims of Jay Kimball's actions, just violations of FDA "export" regulations.

What happened after Jay was indicted is so unprecedented that few attorneys believe the story until they read it. Just from watching TV, most Americans are aware that defendants are entitled to an attorney and that if they cannot afford one, an attorney will be appointed and paid for by the government. In fact, the government is often quite generous in providing a free attorney for violent street criminals. If you murder someone, the government will sometimes pay an expert criminal defense attorney huge fees so that the "incompetent counsel" argument cannot be used to overturn a death-penalty sentence.

Jay did not kill or injure anyone, but he was denied an attorney for his trial. Jay's problem was that he was not indigent, as are most street criminals. Jay had some money to feed his wife and then 13-year-old son and to provide housing for them. The federal government demanded that Jay liquidate all of his assets to pay for an attorney, or else represent himself in court. That would have meant that his wife and son would have to live on the street.

The federal prosecutors offered him a relatively lenient sentence if he pleaded guilty, but Jay defiantly stated that he had not harmed anyone and did not believe he did anything wrong. Jay was told that if he did not plead guilty, he faced up to 3 years in prison if convicted. Jay pleaded for an attorney, but since he was not flat broke, the government would not pay for one. Jay thus had to represent himself in court against the federal prosecutors, the FDA, and the drug company's private detectives.

Having never practiced law, Jay did an abysmal job of defending himself and managed to get the judge to despise him in the process. After the jury found Jay guilty, the judge sentenced him to an astounding 13 years in jail, citing Jay's conduct in trial as a reason to add 10 years to what had been a maximum three year imprisonment.11

Health Freedom Activists Try to Help

When news spread that Jay Kimball was sentenced to 13 years in jail for FDA violations that had harmed no one,12 the health freedom community was outraged. Jay was denied the basic right to have an attorney represent him, and then was sentenced to 10 years beyond the maximum sentence he was told he would face prior to trial. Federal rules mandate that defendants be told their maximum prison sentence exposure in order to determine whether a guilty plea is appropriate.

While Jay had no legal resources to fight with during his trial, donations poured in after his conviction. An appeal was filed seeking to overturn the 10 additional years the judge had arbitrarily and unjustly imposed on him. Despite the best efforts of one of the nation's leading criminal defense firms, the appeal was denied (as most are nowadays).

Jay made it clear to the judge that he was a political dissident and did not recognize the FDA's authority over him. Jay had become the embodiment of a "political prisoner." As is the case in all police-state countries, this meant he would be sent to the harshest jails the Bureau of Prisons could find. He endured filthy county jails in the beginning and then was sent to one of the worst jails (in Belle Glade, FL), where third-world-like squalor breeds infectious diseases among prisoners.11 Jay contracted traumatic injuries at the hands of guards and infectious diseases that almost killed him. Medical treatment was repeatedly denied.

When the government identifies a political dissident, the punishment often greatly exceeds that of a common street criminal. After all, a dissident dares challenge the very authority of the government itself. An example of this barbaric behavior was Saddam Hussein, who jailed those who committed street crimes but summarily executed those suspected of questioning his absolute authority. The same was true of Adolf Hitler's death camps. Eleven million people were murdered in the Nazi death camps. Six million of those were Jews, with the remainder consisting of unpopular ethnic groups, gypsies, homosexuals, those with physical or mental disabilities, and political dissidents.

We Must Stand Together and Insist That President Obama Commute Jay Kimball's Sentence

The pharmaceutical company-motivated indictment, the trial without a defense lawyer and brutal incarceration of Jay Kimball is an abomination on the US justice system.

Based on the enormous growth of Life Extension membership over the past eight years, along with a huge number of pro-freedom groups we have allied ourselves with; I believe we can generate enough letters to President Obama's pardon commission to commute Jay Kimballs' sentence to "time served," which is now the better part of a decade.

Prosecutorial misconduct affecting ordinary Americans is growing worse each year. One way of helping to stop this police-state oppression is to convince President Obama to liberate the wrongfully prosecuted and incarcerated Jay Kimball.

Unlike pharmaceutical executives who intentionally sold lethal drugs like Vioxx®, Bextra®, Avandia®, Paxil®, Risperdal®, the FDA never charged Jay Kimball with harming anyone—yet he is confined to what may amount to life in prison.

If you have any questions on the scientific content of this article, please call a Life Extension® Wellness Specialist at 1-866-864-3027.

---

UPDATE (2016): Jay Kimball was released from federal prison in June of 2015 after serving the entirety of his sentence.

References

1. Knoll J. Antiaging compounds: (-)deprenyl (selegeline) and (-)1-(benzofuran-2-yl)-2-propylaminopentane, [(-)BPAP], a selective highly potent enhancer of the impulse propagation mediated release of catecholamin. CNS Drug Rev. 2001 Fall;7(3):317-45.

2. Dalló J, Köles L. Longevity treatment with (-)deprenyl in female rats: effect on copulatory activity and lifespan. Acta Physiol Hung. 1996;84(3):277-8.

3. Kitani K, Kanai S, Carrillo MC, Ivy GO. (-)Deprenyl increases the life span as well as activities of superoxide dismutase and catalase but not of glutathione peroxidase in selective brain regions in Fischer rats. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 1994 Jun 30;717:60-71.

4. Freisleben HJ, Lehr F, Fuchs J. Lifespan of immunosuppressed NMRI-mice is increased by deprenyl. J Neural Transm Suppl. 1994; 41:231-6.

5. Knoll J. (-)Deprenyl-medication: A strategy to modulate the age-related decline of the striatal dopaminergic system. J Am Geriatr Soc. August 1992;40(8): 839-47.

6. Magyar K, Knoll J. Selective inhibition of the "B form" of monoamine oxidase. Pol J Pharmacol Pharm. 1977 May-Jun;29(3):233-46.

7. Available at: http://www.lmreview.com/articles/view/an-interview-with-joseph-knoll-md. Accessed February 8, 2012.

8. Knoll J, Dallo J, Yen TT. Striatal dopamine, sexual activity and lifespan. Longevity of rats treated with (-)deprenyl. Life Sci. 1989;45(6):525-31.

9. Gelowitz DL, Richardson JS, Wishart TB, et al. Chronic L-deprenyl or L-amphetamine: equal cognitive enhancement, unequal MAO inhibition. Pharmacol Biochem Behav. 1994 Jan;47(1):41-5.

10. Brandeis R, Sapir M, Kapon Y, et al. Improvement of cognitive function by MAO-B inhibitor L-deprenyl in aged rats. 1: Pharmacol Biochem Behav. 1991 Jun;39(2):297-304.

11. Available at: http://proliberty.com/observer/20021102.htm. Accessed February 22, 2012.

12. Available at: http://www.iahf.com/free_jay/20001127.html. Accessed February 24, 2012.