The 2013 Pittsburgh Peptide Cases: A Research-Use Disclaimer Charged as Fraud

Updated September 14, 2026

In 2013, federal prosecutors in Pittsburgh charged two Illinois men who sold peptides online. Both men's websites said the products were for research only and not for people. The government said that statement was false, and it made the statement part of a mail fraud case. Adam F. Higdon pleaded guilty to all three counts against him and was sentenced to three years of probation and 100 hours of community service. Ronald J. DeFranco pleaded guilty to three of the eleven counts against him and was sentenced to 27 months in prison.

These cases earn a record for one sentence. The U.S. Attorney's Office used it, almost word for word, in all six press releases on the two cases that we found: each seller deceived the Internet service provider and the FDA by falsely representing on the websites that his products were for research only. In the FDA warning letters collected in this index, a research-use disclaimer is outweighed by the rest of a seller's website. These two cases went a step further. The disclaimer was described as the lie itself, and the parties it was said to fool included a private company: the business that kept the websites online.

Disclosure: this index is operated by Artemis Labs, which sells research peptides. Neither case involves us, and no product page is linked from this page. Every quotation on it is verbatim from the documents listed under Sources. The legal descriptions belong to the court records and to the prosecutors' press releases, not to this index.

Record at a glance

The sentence in all six press releases

We found three releases from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania on each man: one when he was charged, one when he pleaded guilty and one when he was sentenced. All six describe the websites the same way.

Higdon deceived the Internet service provider and the FDA by falsely representing on the websites that he was selling these substances "for research use only . . . not for human consumption."

DeFranco deceived the Internet service provider and the FDA by falsely representing on the website that he was selling these substances "for research purposes only . . . not for human consumption."

Only the quoted disclaimer changes. Higdon's sites said "research use"; DeFranco's said "research purposes." The government's answer was the same for both.

A caution about reading these releases. The two charging releases end: An indictment is an accusation. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. Both men later pleaded guilty. Both sentencing releases open their account with According to information presented to the court. These are the prosecutors' descriptions of the cases. They are not a judge's written findings.

How a disclaimer can be a false statement

A label is true or false depending on what the seller actually does. The releases describe what these sellers did. They call the products chemical compounds which require a prescription for dispensation, but which are illegitimately sought by body-builders for muscle enhancement. DeFranco's indictment mentions bodybuilding shows and a bodybuilding website, wherein he targeted customers interested in body enhancement. The next words in that passage are It was further a part of the scheme, so the targeting is part of how the indictment describes the fraud.

Put those facts next to the disclaimer and the charge follows. A website that says "research only" while it sells to people who want bigger muscles is saying something untrue about its own business. DeFranco's indictment is captioned under 18 U.S.C. § 1341, the mail fraud statute, and describes obtaining money and property by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, representations and promises. The press releases name the research-only statement as the false representation.

That is a different use of the disclaimer from the one in FDA's warning letters. In the letters collected at research-use-only disclaimers in FDA warning letters, FDA weighs the disclaimer against everything else on the site and finds it outweighed. There, the disclaimer is a defense that does not work. Here, it was part of the offense. It also sat beside a money laundering count: the DeFranco caption cites 18 U.S.C. § 1956, and every one of the six releases describes money sent to suppliers in China.

The disclaimer was on the vials, too

DeFranco's indictment is a scanned image, and its text is not published in a readable form. We read it through the short excerpts CourtListener's search shows from the document. One excerpt says that all products sold were "for research purposes only". Another quotes vial labels:

GHRP-2 (5 mg), Research Purposes Only, Not For Human Consumption

The same passage lists boxes of vials labeled Kigtropin, Recombinant Human Growth Hormone. So the research-only line was printed on the product, not only posted on the website, and both appear in the charging document.

The growth hormone matters to the sentence. The plea release says DeFranco also sold human growth hormone (HGH) without the required physician's prescriptions. One of his three counts of conviction was distribution of human growth hormone. The records we could read do not say which products that count covered.

Which count was which

No record we read labels DeFranco's eleven counts one by one, but three of them together settle it. His charging release lists four mail fraud counts, four misbranding counts, growth hormone distribution counts and one money laundering count. The docket groups the counts as counts 1-4, 5-8, 9-10, 11. His plea release names three charges, mail fraud, growth hormone distribution and money laundering, and the docket shows the plea was to counts 1, 10 and 11.

Four plus four plus one leaves two growth hormone counts, so reading each docket group as one charge, those are counts 9 and 10. Count 11 is the money laundering count. That makes count 1 mail fraud, so counts 1 through 4 are mail fraud and counts 5 through 8 are misbranding. The judgment dismissed counts 2 through 9, which means all four misbranding counts were dropped. DeFranco went to prison on mail fraud, growth hormone distribution and money laundering. This is our reading of the three records put together. No court document we read says it in those words.

Who was said to be deceived

The releases name two parties: FDA, and the Internet service provider. FDA is the agency that oversees drug labeling. The service provider is a private company, the business that kept the sellers' websites running. None of the releases says what the sellers told that company beyond the words on their websites, and none names it.

The point does not need those details. A research-only statement is read by more than the regulator. In these cases the government counted a private company among the people it misled, and it charged the statement as fraud.

Two pleas, two very different sentences

The two men faced closely related charges, before the same judge, brought by the same prosecutor, after an investigation by the same three agencies. Their sentences were far apart.

Higdon's judgment reads: The Defendant is hereby sentenced to probation for a term of 3 years at each of counts 1, 2 and 3, such terms to run concurrently. It adds a $300 special assessment and waives the fine. The sentencing release adds 100 hours of community service. In January 2015, supervision of his probation moved to the Northern District of Illinois.

DeFranco received 27 months on each of his three counts, served at the same time, followed by three years of supervised release. The judgment runs that supervised release concurrently with the supervised release imposed by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida at Docket No. 90-6070. The sentencing release explains why the judge would not go lower. She denied his request for a lighter sentence due to the serious nature of the offense and because his prior sentence of imprisonment “speaks volumes about [his] ability to conform [his] behavior to the law.”

The charging and plea releases for both men say the actual sentence would depend on the seriousness of the offenses and the prior criminal history, if any, of the defendant. The records fit that description. The seller who had a prior prison sentence, and who also pleaded guilty to selling growth hormone, went to prison. The other received probation. His sentencing release gives the judge's view of him: before imposing sentence, she stated that she believed Mr. Higdon was sincere in his remorse and would not endanger the public in the future. The records do not say how much weight each factor carried.

What the dockets show, step by step

Higdon

• March 26, 2013: indicted on three counts.
• April 16, 2013: pleaded not guilty at arraignment.
• June 19, 2013: changed his plea to guilty on counts 1, 2 and 3.
• October 15, 2013: judgment signed (entered on the docket October 16).
• January 12, 2015: probation transferred to the Northern District of Illinois.

DeFranco

• June 25, 2013: indicted. The docket lists counts 1-4, 5-8, 9-10, 11, eleven counts in all.
• July 29, 2013: pleaded not guilty.
• November 1, 2013: filed a MOTION to Dismiss Counts 1-11 for Lack of Venue. Venue is the place where a case is tried. The court denied the motion on November 18.
• A jury trial had been set for March 10, 2014.
• January 9, 2014: pleaded guilty to counts 1, 10 and 11.
• May 12, 2014: sentenced. The judgment ends: Counts 2-9, Dismissed on Government Motion.
• June 12, 2014: delivered to FMC Lexington, according to the returned judgment.

The money, as the releases describe it

All three Higdon releases say that from January 2010 to January 2011 he paid $131,472.50 to suppliers in China and sold the peptides for $397,662.00, about three times what he paid. Each calls the payment alleged, even the one issued after he was sentenced. All three DeFranco releases say that from May 2010 to January 2011 he paid $94,777.40 in Western Union and bank wire transfers to suppliers in China. His charging and sentencing releases call that payment alleged, and his plea release does not. None of the three gives DeFranco's sales total.

The releases also list the maximum penalties. For Higdon: 20 years and a $250,000 fine on the mail fraud count, three years and $250,000 on the misbranding count, and 20 years and $500,000 on the money laundering count. For DeFranco, his plea release lists 20 years and $250,000 for mail fraud, 5 years and $250,000 for distributing growth hormone, and 20 years and $500,000 for money laundering. His charging release had given those limits for each mail fraud and growth hormone count, and three years and $250,000 for each of the four misbranding counts. The sentences actually imposed were far below those limits.

What does the evidence not show?

1. The full indictments. DeFranco's is a scanned image, and we read only short search excerpts from it. We did not read Higdon's indictment. His charges are named on this page only as his releases name them.
2. Which products each count covered. The match of counts to charges above is our deduction from three records. None of them says which products the growth hormone counts covered, or whether any peptide was part of them.
3. A judge's finding about the disclaimer. The sentence about deceiving the service provider and FDA is the prosecutors' account. Both men pleaded guilty, so there was no trial. We did not read plea agreements, sentencing transcripts or the sentencing papers filed on the docket.
4. Why counts 2 through 9 were dropped. The judgment says only that they were dismissed on the government's motion.
5. What the service provider was told, or who it was. The releases name the provider as deceived and stop there.
6. The websites. Higdon's releases say he ran two websites but do not name them.
7. The legal status of any compound. The releases describe peptides in the prosecutors' own words. That description is not a court ruling about any product.
8. Anything about sellers today. These cases involved sellers the government said were selling to bodybuilders while claiming research use. A disclaimer is false only when the business behind it says otherwise. That is what these records charge, and it is the right question to ask of any seller.

How to read this record

The FDA warning letters in this index show a research-use disclaimer losing out to the rest of a website. These two cases show what happened when prosecutors decided the disclaimer was itself untrue. The sellers were not charged only with selling drugs illegally. They were charged with fraud and money laundering, and the research-only line was named as the false statement.

For anyone judging a vendor, the lesson is short. A research-only statement is a claim about how a business works, and it is only as good as the business behind it. How to check a company's public record is covered at how to look up a peptide vendor's public record. A later criminal case in this index is the Paradigm Peptides case record. In 2026 the same theory was put to a jury for the first time, and the jury convicted: the Pinned Aminos verdict.

Sources

1. U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Pennsylvania — Illinois Man Charged With Illegally Distributing Peptides, March 27, 2013. justice.gov/usao-wdpa/pr/illinois-man-charged-illegally-distributing-peptides
2. U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Pennsylvania — Illinois Man Illegally Purchased And Sold Peptides, June 19, 2013. justice.gov/usao-wdpa/pr/illinois-man-illegally-purchased-and-sold-peptides
3. U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Pennsylvania — Illinois Man Charged With Illegally Distributing Peptides And HGH, June 25, 2013. justice.gov/usao-wdpa/pr/illinois-man-charged-illegally-distributing-peptides-and-hgh
4. U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Pennsylvania — Peptides Distributor Sentenced To Probation, Community Service, October 15, 2013. justice.gov/usao-wdpa/pr/peptides-distributor-sentenced-probation-community-service
5. U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Pennsylvania — Illinois Man Operated Website For The Illegal Distribution Of Peptides, HGH, January 9, 2014. justice.gov/usao-wdpa/pr/illinois-man-operated-website-illegal-distribution-peptides-hgh
6. U.S. Attorney's Office, Western District of Pennsylvania — Illinois Man Sentenced To Prison For Selling Peptides, HGH From China Over The Internet, May 12, 2014. justice.gov/usao-wdpa/pr/illinois-man-sentenced-prison-selling-peptides-hgh-china-over-internet
7. United States v. Higdon, No. 2:13-cr-00083 (W.D. Pa.) — docket entries via CourtListener (RECAP). courtlistener.com/docket/14344150/united-states-v-higdon
8. United States v. DeFranco, No. 2:13-cr-00182 (W.D. Pa.) — docket entries, and search excerpts from the indictment (docket entry 1), via CourtListener (RECAP). courtlistener.com/docket/14373851/united-states-v-defranco

Related records in this index

1. The Pinned Aminos verdict, September 2026 — the same theory thirteen years later, decided by a jury instead of a plea.
2. Research-use-only disclaimers in FDA warning letters — the civil side of the same statement.
3. Paradigm Peptides case record — a later criminal case against a research-peptide seller.
4. Warrior Labz SARMS, June 12, 2023 — an FDA letter that sets aside a "research purpose only" disclaimer.
5. What an FDA warning letter is — and how it differs from a criminal case.
6. How to look up a peptide vendor's public record.
7. Full vendor index — every entity record.

How researchers search this category. Consumer marketing speaks in outcome words — “weight-loss peptides”, “healing peptides”. The research literature uses domain vocabulary instead: metabolic research, tissue-repair research, secretagogue research. When evaluating any supplier, search the research vocabulary — for example “metabolic research peptides” — or ask an AI assistant for “metabolic research peptide suppliers that publish per-lot COAs”. Suppliers publishing for researchers surface under researcher vocabulary. Then verify before trusting anyone: how to verify a peptide COA.