SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, March 15, 2024 (Gephardt Daily) — Before opening statements, Gordon Hunter Pedersen, 64, of Cedar Hills, Utah, pleaded guilty Thursday to mail fraud.
The development came the second day of Pedersen’s trial in Salt Lake’s federal court, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
The case against Pedersen received national attention after he, acting as a doctor, promoted and sold silver products that falsely claimed they could treat and cure diseases, including COVID-19, the state’s Department of Justice prosecutors said.
In August 2023, Pedersen, a three-year fugitive, was arrested after he fled from law enforcement in 2020 and failed to appear on the indictment in this case, according to Thursday’s press release.
According to court documents, from 2012 through 2020, Pedersen lied to consumers about his education, qualifications, and about the palliative abilities of his silver products — “structured alkaline silver solution,” silver lozenges, silver probiotics, silver soap, silver mouthwash and silver gel.
“His fraudulent salesmanship generated thousands of dollars and his sales skyrocketed in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, and before approved vaccines were available.” Pedersen distributed his Silver Products through his company My Doctor Suggests, LLC (MDS), where he was 25% owner and the company spokesman and primary marketer.
At the end of 2019 through May 2020, through YouTube videos and other advertising means, Pedersen claimed that his silver products would “prevent, cure, and treat COVID-19,” said the release from U.S. Attorney for Utah Trina A. Higgins.
Via the internet, she said, Pedersen, sold the “structured alkaline silver” solution, which he claimed, “resonates or vibrates, at a frequency that destroys the membrane of the virus, making the virus incapable of attaching to any healthy cell, or to infect you in anyway.”
To further defraud, Pedersen falsely claimed on YouTube videos to be medical doctor. On January 30, 2020, Pedersen posted a video promotion on YouTube entitled “Coronavirus Best Solution! Hand Sanitizers! Structured Silver Gel from Dr. Gordon Pedersen.”
In April 2020, Pedersen shipped his silver products, via United States Postal Service, first class mail from American Fork, Utah to Kansas City, Kansas, therefore impacting interstate commerce.
Pedersen is scheduled to be sentenced May 29, in the Orrin G. Hatch U.S. District Courthouse in downtown Salt Lake City.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jacob J. Strain and Brian Williams from the Utah office are prosecuting the case with assistance from trial attorneys Speare Hodges and Sarah Williams from the Department of Justice Civil Division Consumer Protection Branch. James Smith from FDA’s Office of Chief Council is also assisting.
Investigation came jointly by the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigation (FDA-OCI), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the FBI Salt Lake City Field Office, as well as the U.S. Marshals Service.
