CALIFORNIA MAN CHARGED WITH USING STOLEN IDENTITY IN EFFORT TO OBTAIN PROPRIETARY INFORMATION FROM DRUG MANUFACTURER

Boston, MA... A California man was charged today in federal court with wire fraud in connection with his efforts to obtain proprietary information from a Massachusetts pharmaceutical manufacturer by using the stolen identity of an employee of the company.

United States Attorney Michael J. Sullivan and Kenneth W. Kaiser, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New England, announced today that RAY NATHAN, age 54, of 13734 Trento Place, San Diego, California, was charged in a one-count Information with wire fraud.

According to the Information, NATHAN is a founder of Argus Therapeutics, a start-up pharmaceutical company that was considering trying to manufacture a generic version of PhosLo, a drug used to treat renal patients and manufactured by Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, a Florida company. Until approximately two years ago, Lyne Laboratories, in Brockton, Massachusetts, manufactured PhosLo, as a sub-contractor, for Nabi.

It is alleged that in an effort to obtain proprietary information about PhosLo, in June 2005, NATHAN fraudulently used the identity of a senior Nabi employee to open a Yahoo e-mail account and then sent several e-mails from that Yahoo account, purporting to be from the Nabi employee, to Lyne Laboratories, in Massachusetts. In those e-mails, NATHAN asked Lyne Laboratories to send proprietary information about PhosLo to NATHAN’s fraudulent Yahoo account. The Lyne Laboratories employee who received the e-mails was concerned about their authenticity and, therefore, checked with Nabi, at which point he learned that the e-mails were fraudulent, and he did not send the requested information.

If convicted, NATHAN faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, to be followed by 3 years of supervised release, a $250,000 fine, and restitution.

Nabi Biopharmaceuticals referred this matter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for investigation and prosecution, and both Nabi and Lyne Laboratories provided valuable assistance during the investigation. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Bookbinder in Sullivan’s Computer Crimes and Intellectual Property Unit. This case is just one of several identity theft cases the U.S. Attorney’s Office is prosecuting.

The details contained in the Information are allegations. The defendant is presumed to be innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

An Identity Theft Task Force, comprised of 17 federal agencies and departments, was established by Executive Order of President Bush on May 10, 2006, to oversee the implementation of real and practical solutions at the federal level to defeat the ongoing intrusion into the lives of law-abiding Americans created by identity theft. Last week the Task Force announced its interim recommendations and plans to deliver a final strategic plan to the President in November. The Task Force recommendations include the formulation of a step-by-step guidance to federal agencies on the actions they should take should they suffer a data breach; the development of a uniform police report that can be used by identity theft victims; an amendment to the criminal restitution statutes that would allow identity theft victims to recover for the value of the time that they spend attempting to make themselves whole; and several “good government” measures that can be taken to reduce the amount of paper currently in circulation that contain Social Security Numbers, which can be an identity thief’s most valuable piece of consumer information.

Anyone wishing to ask questions about identity theft may call 1-877-ID-THEFT, or visit the DOJ’s website, www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fraud/idtheft.html, or the Federal Trade Commission’s website, www.ftc.gov/idtheft.

Press Contact: Samantha Martin, (617) 748-3139