Overview
- A Sacramento jury found Jia Bei Zhu guilty on 12 counts for selling faulty COVID-19 tests through Universal Meditech, with sentencing in August and co-defendant Zhaoyan Wang still at large in China.
- Prosecutors said the company distributed more than one million kits across the United States and took in nearly $4 million from the sales.
- Evidence showed Zhu imported low-cost tests from China and repackaged them with false claims that they were FDA approved and made in the United States.
- Buyers and former staff testified that kits often lacked swabs or reagents or failed to detect the virus, and that workers with little science training were told to lie to customers.
- Officials linked Zhu to a Reedley warehouse described as an illegal biolab and said materials found there posed no known human risk and were not the basis of the charges.