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Yaoi Press Founder Arrested for Alleged Drug Sales (Updated)
posted on by Egan Loo
The Las Vegas Sun newspaper and the KVVU and KLAS television stations are reporting that Yaoi Press founder Yamila Abraham was arrested on Monday morning for allegedly selling a controlled over-the-counter stimulant as an herbal remedy on the inactive PleasureHerbs.com website in 2005 and 2006. She was charged with seven counts of mail fraud, one count of misbranding a drug, one count of introducing goods into U.S. commerce by means of false statements, and criminal forfeiture. Abraham pleaded not guilty in court later that day, and the case will go to trial in November.
In her Twitter account, Abraham described the local media reports as "sloppy & inaccurate" on Tuesday. She added in a Wednesday blog entry on the Yaoi Press website that she is "not allowed to discuss this matter while it's still pending," but "this situation is not going to end Yaoi Press." Abraham said that she will attend New Mexico's Animeland Otaku Mex convention this weekend, Southern California's West Hollywood Book Fair on October 4, Utah's Anime St. George on October 10, and Northern California's Yaoi-Con on October 30. Yaoi Press sells English-language boys-love materials at conventions.
From 2004 to 2006, the Pleasureherbs.com website offered Snurf, which it described as "the long awaited pill form of 10X extractions of Fevizia, Palenzia, and De la Amazon. Each tablet contains 500mg of these herbal extractions per pill." Greg Brower, U.S. attorney for the district of Nevada, alleges that the tablets actually contained dextromethorphan hydrobromide (DXM), the active ingredient in over-the-counter cough suppressants. According to her indictment, Abraham initially had 20,000 tablets of DXM which were labelled as tablets of vitamin B-12. The indictment alleges that Abraham mailed seven packages of Snurf between November 22, 2005 and May 1, 2006 to California, Illinois, and Indiana.
[Via Bleeding Cool and Icarus Publishing]
Update: Corrected description of DXM. Thanks, Dargonxtc and Tofusensei.
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