The FTC has been granted a motion requesting spoilation sanctions against Success by Health defendants Jay Noland, Lina Noland, Thomas Sacca and Scott Harris.

In May 2019 a bank subpoena was inadvertently passed on to Success by Health.

That lead to owner Jay Noland becoming aware of an FTC investigation into the company.

When the FTC learned its investigation was no longer a secret, they
‘specifically advised Noland and SBH to preserve relevant documents.’

What followed instead was the
systematic deletion, withholding and tampering of evidence
by individual Success by Health defendants.

On January 28th the FTC filed a motion for sanctions against the individual Success by Health defendants.

What we know is that the deletion and tampering of evidence pertained to Noland the individual defendants switching to encrypted communication platforms.

This occurred the day after Noland learned of the FTC’s investigation.

Throughout proceedings Noland then proceeded to hide his failure to preserve and efforts to withhold evidence from the FTC.

The FTC sought and obtained a temporary restraining order that … required the Individual Defendants to produce their electronic communications, and required the Individual Defendants to turn over the mobile devices they had used to operate the business.

Notwithstanding these orders, the Individual Defendants did not initially turn over their mobile devices and did not produce any Signal communications.

Additionally, during a post-TRO deposition, Noland failed to disclose the Signal and ProtonMail accounts in response to direct questioning about the existence of any encrypted communications platforms.

The court goes on to recount the series of events detailed in the FTC’s motion.

In its own words;

It gets worse. It has now come to light that, during the months following the issuance of the TRO, Noland used his ProtonMail account to provide third-party witnesses with what can be construed as a script to follow when drafting declarations the Individual Defendants wished to submit in support of their defense.

These communications only came to light by fortuity, when one of the recipients anonymously disclosed them to the FTC.

Finally, in August 2020, just as they were about to belatedly turn over their mobile devices for imaging, the Individual Defendants deleted the Signal app from their phones in coordinated fashion.

As a result, neither side’s forensic specialists have been able to recover any of the Signal communications the Individual Defendants sent and received between May 2019 and August 2020.

Although we knew of Noland’s email from the FTC’s motion, specifics are revealed by the court in its August 30th order.

Although the recipient’s name is blacked out in the copy of the email that has been provided to the Court, the FTC asserts (and the Individual Defendants do not deny) that the recipient was Robert Mehler, who previously served as SBH’s director of sales.

In the body of the email, Nol

🤖 Quick Answer

What sanctions did the FTC seek against Success by Health defendants?
The FTC filed a motion requesting spoliation sanctions against Success by Health defendants Jay Noland, Lina Noland, Thomas Sacca and Scott Harris for systematically deleting, withholding and tampering with evidence after being specifically advised to preserve relevant documents following disclosure of the FTC investigation in May 2019.

Why were Success by Health defendants ordered to preserve documents?
After a bank subpoena inadvertently revealed the FTC investigation's existence to owner Jay Noland in May 2019, federal regulators explicitly instructed Noland and Success by Health to preserve all relevant documents related to their inquiry into the company's business practices.

What evidence was destroyed by Success by Health defendants?
The FTC documented systematic deletion, withholding and tampering of evidence by individual Success by Health defendants following notification of the federal investigation, though

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