Jason Cardiff was a hands-on type of boss. The CEO of Redwood Scientific Technologies always seemed to be in the Upland, California, office, offering random compliments to staffers and sharing tips on how to sell the dissolvable oral film strips the company claimed were a remedy for smoking cessation, sexual dysfunction, and other health issues.

“He had a romantic view when it came to selling,” Ryan Henry, who worked for Cardiff for two years, told The Daily Beast. “He was a good salesperson and taught me how to appeal to emotion when making a sale.”

“Maybe that idealistic view is what got him in trouble,” he added.

Federal authorities take a different view. They say Cardiff, who is set to stand trial next month, overcharged customers for the homeopathic film strips that advertised on late-night infomercials. The Federal Trade Commission also alleges that he used the money to fund his luxury lifestyle, even after the company was in legal trouble.

“The Cardiffs are spending nearly $17,000 per month,” the FTC said in one 2020 court document. “On Bentley, Porsche, and Range Rover lease payments, private elementary school tuition, restaurants, phone and cable bills, salons and spas, pet grooming, a 5-star hotel in New York City, music lessons, taekwondo lessons, ride shares, movie theaters, and other lavish expenditures.”

In court documents reviewed by The Daily Beast, Cardiff is portrayed as a smooth-talking serial entrepreneur who tried to hide his money overseas and helped launch a new venture as the feds cracked down on Redwood—before he fled the country after the FTC civil probe concluded.

Cardiff, 48, pleaded not guilty to the four-count January indictment and is free on a $530,000 bond until the Jan. 23, 2024, trial. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California and the FTC declined to comment, citing the active investigation, and lawyers for Cardiff did not respond.

Meanwhile, Redwood Scientific still seems to be active. A press release issued 11 days before Cardiff’s Nov. 26 arrest said the company had secured conditional approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB)/Central Institutional Review Board (CIRB). The government approval is for the company’s “ongoing efforts toward clinical study work” on an oral strip for vape users.

“It has been a long road for us, and we are working around the clock to get these products on the market as fast as possible,” Cardiff said in the press release. “We understand the urgency for help when it comes to the addiction of nicotine in vapes.”

FTC

Cardiff founded at least seven companies before he launched Redwood Scientific Technologies in 2013, including a media company, a British TV network focused on “classic Hollywood movies,” and an electronic cigarette business, according to his website for his latest personal growth venture. Along the way, he got married, had two children, got divorced, got married again, and had another child.

In a company promotional video, Cardiff said he began Redwood Scientific with a desire to find an alternative to over-the-counter medication. “When we kept looking, searching, and doing research, everything led to an oral thin film delivery system,” he said.

The company promoted several types of homeopathic strips: TBX-Free, which it claimed had an “88 percent success rate” in curbing smoking; Eupepsia Thin, which claimed to help consumers lose 15 pounds in the first month without dieting; and Prolongz, which purported to prevent premature ejaculation for thousands of men. The strips were advertised on late-night infomercials, which boasted that the products were made in the United States and came with a money-back guarantee.

“I used Prolongz last night and this morning, if you know what I mean,” one man says in a testimonial in one 30-minute infomercial for Prolongz.

To further promote business, the FTC alleged that Redwood Scientific underwent name changes and launched a multi-level marketing scheme, Rengalife. Cardiff allegedly voiced robocalls to promote the product to prospective consumers.

Ryan Henry said he started working for Redwood Scientific in 2016 after his twin brother hooked him up with a job in the distribution center, where he would package the strips and other commercial goods. He soon moved into the main call center, where Cardiff had an office, and quickly moved up the ranks to become a sales and marketing representative.

“He was a naturally weird guy,” Henry said of Cardiff. “He would give me compliments— like he said, ‘God, that’s fucking amazing hair.’”

While angry customers would complain of ineffective products, Henry said he believed TBX-Free “kind of worked.” Then, one day in October 2018, Henry was told all employees were being let go.

“I couldn’t even take a phone call that day because I was crying so much,” he said.

The abrupt shutdown came at the request of the FTC, which also asked a federal court to temporarily halt Redwood’s advertising for deceptive marketing. The court also barred the company from enrolling consumers in any auto-ship plan without formal consent.

“According to one employee, Jason directed a group of employees to initiate these charges, telling them they had to successfully charge at least $10,000 per day, and threatening to fire at least one of them if she did not comply,” the FTC said in one court document.

As Cardiff battled the FTC, the court kept accusing him and his wife of contempt. The FTC states that Cardiff, who has dual Irish-U.S. citizenship, obtained a second Irish passport after an order to surrender his passport and was caught hiding CA$1.5 million in assets. In 2020, he was also found in contempt of court for refusing to pay his mortgage while still living the luxe life. (On his Instagram and TikTok, he posted photos of himself wearing expensive watches, exiting private jets, and traveling around Europe.)

“I would say of the 16 years I've been on the federal court, I've never presided over a matter where the fraud committed by the defendants was so clear, the deception so extreme,” then-U.S. District Judge James Otero said during a July 2019 hearing about the hidden overseas cash. “I’m astounded.”

As the FTC probe dragged on in 2020, Cardiff had already set his sights on his next venture: VPL Medical LLC, a mask factory in South California. “I am not going to lose another company,” Cardiff told his lawyer in an April 5 email about VPL.

California business filings show that the Department of Health and Human Services awarded a no-bid contract for up to $14.5 million to VPL Medical in mid-April 2020. The Department of Veterans Affairs also awarded VPL a contract worth up to $6.5 million for surgical masks.

(Both contracts have since been canceled.)

“It’s easy for you to go, ‘Oh, well, Cardiff is a fraud with the FTC, but we’re delivering masks. No one is absconding with anything,’” Cardiff said in a 2020 interview, according to ProPublica.

He insisted that the FTC was unfairly targeting him and hindering the dissemination of vital PPE during a deadly pandemic. “The bigger story here is—why would you intervene in that?” he asked.

In June 2020, the court granted the FTC’s second temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against Cardiff, this time putting VPL Medical under receivership. The court alleged that Cardiff hid his new earnings from VPL Medical by keeping his name off the business records, even though he was on the company’s organizational chart. (VPL no longer appears to be active.)

On March 1, 2022, a court ruled on the FTC’s case against Redwood Scientific, finding that Cardiff and his wife violated 16 FTC rules. They avoided a monetary judgment, but the judge permanently banned them from engaging in another multi-level marketing scheme, robocalls, or selling thin film strips directly to consumers.

But by then, Cardiff had sold his California home and moved his second wife and daughter to Ireland. They had been living overseas for about 10 months when prosecutors filed an indictment that accused him of charging customers for products they never ordered and directing his employees to destroy documents. Unable to arrest Cardiff in Ireland, the case remained under seal until prosecutors caught a break just days after Thanksgiving 2023.

Carrying $7,000 in cash and two pieces of luggage, Cardiff flew to Los Angeles on Nov. 26 to visit his ailing 96-year-old father. When he arrived, he was immediately detained by Customs and Border Protection agents, who read him his Miranda rights and informed him of the charges, according to a prosecution motion for pretrial detention.

He told agents the FTC had shut down his business years prior, “so the five-year statute of limitations would have passed for any charges,” prosecutors wrote. He added that he “won a hearing against the FTC, so he was now being charged criminally because the FTC is mad about losing.”

Cardiff is now living at a friend’s home in Texas, with an ankle monitor and a strict curfew. This week, his lawyers asked permission for him to spend New Year’s Eve in Kansas City to “engage in two days of meetings and engagements with Redwood shareholders and directions.”

Prosecutors balked, arguing that he had not provided an itinerary to show why he needed to travel over the holiday weekend, just two weeks after he was released on bail.

For Henry, the news that the CEO who taught him the art of the sale is facing criminal charges is still astounding. What is also surprising, he said, is that he is still trying to keep Redwood Scientific afloat.

“I think he truly believed in what we were selling,” Henry said. “It always seemed a little too good to be true.”