USPlabs: the Dallas company behind Jack3d and OxyElite Pro, the 2013 liver-injury recall, the guilty pleas, and the brand Hi-Tech sells today

Who they are, and what the record says

USPlabs was a Dallas supplement company. It made its name with two products: Jack3d, a pre-workout powder, and OxyElite Pro, a diet capsule. It did not make them itself. The Justice Department says the vice president of a California manufacturer, S. K. Laboratories, helped make them: "patel played a key role in developing and manufacturing the popular workout and weight loss supplements".[1] The two companies and five people connected to them pleaded guilty in 2019.[2] USPlabs agreed to close. The names did not close with it: since 2019 another company, Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals of Norcross, Georgia, has sold Jack3d and OxyElite Pro under the USPlabs logo.

The company's online store, usplabsdirect.com, is in the archive from November 2006, selling a product it called "the unbelievable breakthrough compound developed by usplabs".[3] Its trademark registrations give its address as 10761 King William Drive, Dallas: "owner name usplabs llc owner address 10761 king william drive dallas texas".[4] The Justice Department names its chief executive, Jacobo Geissler, and its president, Jonathan Doyle, as the company's leaders, and both were convicted.[2][5] The chief executive's signed factual resume says he owned 45 percent of the company.[6]

The store's 2011 pages carried the line "usplabs is not affiliated with and its products are not endorsed by the united states pharmacopeia rockville md".[7] The United States Pharmacopeia is the standards body whose initials are USP. By August 2019 that line, under the logo, was the whole site.[8]

Figure 1. USPlabs' own store on 11 November 2013, two days after the OxyElite Pro recall. The product menu still listed OxyElite Pro Advanced Formula. [9]

What it sold

Jack3d and OxyElite Pro with DMAA, 2008 to 2013. In the chief executive's 2019 factual resume he agreed that USPlabs began selling Jack3d in November 2008 and OxyElite Pro in November 2009, that both originally contained DMAA, and that the DMAA was a synthetic stimulant made in a Chinese factory, not taken from a plant.[6] The FDA's warning letter of April 2012 records what the labels said: "the labeling for these products declares 1 3 dimethylamylamine hcl as a dietary ingredient".[10] The OxyElite Pro page in May 2012 sold it as "introducing a burner coined the super thermogenic", "backed by 3 peer reviewed clinical university research studies".[11] The bottle in the picture below reads University Studied.

Figure 2. OxyElite Pro as USPlabs sold it in May 2012, a month after the FDA's DMAA warning letter. The panel lists 1,3-dimethylamylamine HCl. [11]

The story of DMAA, the geranium claim and the laboratory papers on both sides, two of them paid for by USPlabs, is told in our deep dive Ephedra, DMAA, DMBA, DMHA. This page does not repeat it. What this page adds is the company's admission, in its chief executive's signed factual resume of 2019: the certificates of analysis that came with its DMAA shipments said the powder had been extracted from geranium at a 200-to-1 ratio, and that was false.[6]

Figure 3. The chief executive's signed factual resume, February 2019, page 4: the DMAA in Jack3d and OxyElite Pro was synthetic and made in China. [6]

Aegeline, 2012 to 2013. The factual resume says USPlabs imported many test compounds from China in small lots, labelled as other food substances so that they would not draw a regulator's eye. One of them was aegeline, which the indictment describes as a synthetic version of an extract from a tree native to India.[12] The first OxyElite Pro with aegeline, called New Formula, went on sale in November 2012. In summer 2013 the company reformulated again, adding ground root of a Chinese herb, Cynanchum auriculatum, which it labelled as an extract. The factual resume says no test was done to find out whether that root was safe or effective, as an extract, as ground root or in any other form. It also says the labels sent to retailers for OxyElite Pro Advanced Formula declared a Cynanchum auriculatum root extract that was not in the product.[6] VERSA-1 was a second aegeline product named in the FDA's warning letter.[13]

The end of DMAA. The FDA wrote in April 2012 that "synthetically produced dimethylamylamine is not a vitamin mineral amino acid herb or other botanical".[10] USPlabs held on to DMAA until 2013: "on july 2 2013 as a result of follow up legal action by fda the dietary supplement firm usplabs voluntarily destroyed its dmaa containing products located at its facility in dallas texas".[14] The FDA's page today puts it more shortly: "in 2013 the fda administratively detained two dmaa containing products oxyelite pro and jack3d".[15]

The 2013 outbreak

On 9 September 2013, the CDC reported, "the hawaii department of health hdoh was notified of seven patients with severe acute hepatitis and fulminant liver failure of unknown etiology".[16] By the CDC's report of 11 October there were 29 cases in Hawaii; 24 of the 29 had used OxyElite Pro in the 60 days before they fell ill. Eleven were in hospital, and "one patient died two patients received liver transplants".[16] The CDC was careful about cause: "attributing liver injury to a specific ingredient can be challenging because of multiple ingredients product variability and lack of testing to confirm exposure to a product".[16]

Figure 4. The CDC's first report, 11 October 2013: 29 cases in Hawaii, 24 of them OxyElite Pro users, one death and two liver transplants. [16]

Figure 5. The CDC's count of Hawaii cases by month in 2013, from the same report. The cases kept coming through September. [16]

The FDA's first notice, posted on 8 October, said "the hawaii doh has reported that 24 of these cases share a common link to a dietary supplement product labeled as oxyelite pro", and that "usplabs llc has informed the fda that it will voluntarily cease distributing oxyelite pro as the company cooperates with the investigation". It also recorded the company's own explanation: "usplabs llc has informed fda that it believes counterfeit versions of oxyelite pro are being marketed in the us".[17] We found no FDA finding that counterfeits caused any case.

Figure 6. The FDA's first notice, 8 October 2013. It also records USPlabs' position that counterfeit OxyElite Pro was on the market. [17]

On 11 October 2013 the FDA wrote to the company that "the dietary supplements oxyelite pro and versa 1 are deemed to be adulterated", because USPlabs had given no evidence that aegeline was safe.[13] On 6 November the FDA told USPlabs that it had linked OxyElite Pro to the liver illnesses: of 46 Hawaii medical records it reviewed, 27 patients had taken it, and "seventeen of the 27 patients or 63 percent reported that oxyelite pro was the only dietary supplement they were taking". The FDA said it could order a recall if the company did not start one. Three days later, "on november 9 2013 usplabs llc of dallas texas recalled certain oxyelite pro dietary supplement products". By the FDA's count, "as of october 31 2013 56 cases had been identified among these cases 22 people have been hospitalized two people have received liver transplants and one person has died". The agency noted that "the action marks the second time the fda has exercised its recall authority under the fda food safety modernization act".[13]

Figure 7. The FDA's update after the recall: 56 cases, and a warning letter over aegeline, the ingredient that replaced DMAA. [13]

Two days after the recall, the company's store still listed OxyElite Pro Advanced Formula in its product menu: "oxyelite pro advanced formula".[9] The archive does not show whether it could still be bought.

What buyers report

We searched Reddit through the Arctic Shift archive on 2026-10-12: "oxyelite" in r/Supplements (76 posts) and r/Fitness (100), "jack3d" in r/Supplements (100) and r/Preworkoutsupplements (100), and "usplabs" in r/bodybuilding (15), from 2010 to 2026, plus 54 posts naming the brand in the local r/stimjunkiepreworkouts archive for 2024 to 2026.[18] We read every title and five threads in full.

Before the recall, the posts are questions about doses, stacking and results. OxyElite Pro posts in r/Fitness peak between 2011 and 2013. We found no pattern of orders not arriving.

During the outbreak, the busiest threads relay the FDA's notices. A November 2013 r/Fitness thread that quotes the FDA's recall update drew 38 comments; several commenters asked whether their other USPlabs products were affected.[19] We do not quote anyone describing their own illness.

Since 2019, the posts are about the revived brand and what is in it. In 2021 a buyer asked "why is dmha not listed anywhere on my jack3d new formula".[20] In 2025 another compared two Jack3d labels sold online and found that on one of them "the label mentions the dmha plus a lot of other stuff" that the tub in hand did not list.[21] Many of the 2024 to 2026 posts in the pre-workout subreddits ask where to find the original DMAA Jack3d.

Lab results

We found no certificate of analysis on the pages of its store we read, in captures from 2006, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2019. Its bottles said University Studied, and its pages cited studies.[3][11][9][8] The one set of certificates in the record is the one the chief executive admitted in 2019 was false: the certificates that described its Chinese DMAA as a geranium extract.[6] This site's lab-results section holds no test of a USPlabs product, old or new.

Regulatory and legal

Figure 8. Eighteen years in one column, drawn by us from the FDA, the CDC, the Justice Department, the courts and the trademark office. [22]

The indictment, 2015. On 17 November 2015 the US Attorney in Dallas announced that "an 11 count indictment has been unsealed today against usplabs llc". The charges included wire fraud, conspiracy, money laundering and obstruction of an FDA proceeding. The release added, as every such release does, that "an indictment is an accusation by a federal grand jury and a defendant is entitled to the presumption of innocence unless proven guilty".[23] A superseding indictment followed in January 2016.[5] What the indictment alleged and what was later admitted are not the same; the allegations that were not admitted are set out separately below.

Figure 9. 17 November 2015: the indictment is unsealed in Dallas. Cropped above the list of defendants. [23]

The pleas, 2019. In February and March 2019, the case settled without a trial. The Justice Department's account: USPlabs pleaded guilty to conspiracy to introduce misbranded food into interstate commerce, and so did its chief executive and its president. S. K. Laboratories and its vice president pleaded guilty to misbranding counts. A co-owner of USPlabs and a former consultant to it pleaded guilty to introducing misbranded food with intent to defraud or mislead. "Doyle geissler and patel admitted that they imported substances with false and misleading labeling in part to avoid law enforcement and regulatory agency attention", and "willson and hebert admitted that they helped to cause a dietary supplement to be shipped with false labeling regarding the ingredients it contained". "The individual defendants together with the companies agreed to pay criminal fines and forfeitures totaling about 60 million". The release ties the case to the outbreak: "the misbranding charges all relate in part to oxyelite pro which was recalled in 2013".[2]

Figure 10. March 2019: the company, its contract manufacturer and five people plead guilty. [2]

The sentences, 2020 and 2021. The chief executive's judgment records one count, "conspiracy to introduce misbranded food into interstate commerce with an intent to defraud and mislead", with every other count dismissed on the government's motion, and a term of "sixty 60 months as to count 7".[5] In October 2020 the court "sentenced former usplabs ceo jacobo geissler 44 of university park texas to 60 months" and "judge lindsay sentenced former usplabs president jonathan doyle 41 of dallas to 24 months"; "the court ordered each defendant to pay a criminal fine of 250 000". It had already ordered the companies to pay: "the court previously sentenced usplabs to pay 4 7 million in criminal forfeiture and sentenced another company sk laboratories inc to forfeit 6 million".[22] In February 2021 the court "sentenced former s k laboratories vice president sitesh patel 37 of irvine california to 41 months". The same release records 18 months for Cyril Willson, "a former consultant for usplabs", and 15 months for "matthew hebert 42 of dallas a co owner of the company".[1]

Figure 11. The chief executive's judgment, October 2020: one count of conspiracy to misbrand, the rest dismissed. Page 2 sets the term at 60 months. [5]

The wind-down. A federal magistrate judge, in a later trademark case, summarised the company's plea agreement: "usplabs agreed to cease all business activities within 90 days of entry of the plea agreement and immediately begin the liquidation of its inventory", and promised not to sell or transfer its name or trademarks.[24] Hi-Tech's 2019 complaint read the deadline as "within ninety 90 days or by may 28 2019"; this page uses that date for the end of the company.[25] The judge also found that "on may 29 2019 however usplabs purportedly assigned its interests in the" Modern BCAA trademark to another company, "in apparent contravention of the terms of its plea agreement".[24] USPlabs surrendered its USPLABS registration in April 2021: "registration cancelled under section 7 because the registrant surrendered the registration".[4] Its 2013 JACK3D registration had already lapsed: "registration cancelled because registrant did not file an acceptable declaration under section 8".[26]

Figure 12. A federal magistrate judge's summary of the plea agreement, 2022: cease all business within 90 days, never sell the name. [24]

Figure 13. The store in August 2019, after the wind-down date: a logo and a disclaimer. [8]

The name after the company: Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals

Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals is the Georgia manufacturer of which the FDA says "also in 2013 the fda seized dmaa containing products from hi tech pharmaceuticals"; that stock was destroyed in November 2020.[15] It moved for the names while USPlabs was winding down. In its own complaint, filed in Dallas in November 2019, Hi-Tech wrote: "following the plea agreement by usp labs and in reliance thereon hi tech filed the following intent to use trademark applications", listing OXYELITE PRO, USP LABS, JACK3D and four more. It also wrote that "following the plea agreement by usp labs hi tech began marketing the products" Jack3d, OxyElite Pro and Modern BCAA.[25] Later, "hi tech has dismissed usplabs geissler and doyle" from the suit.[24] It won a declaration that it did not infringe the Modern BCAA mark, but "the court denies hi tech a declaratory judgment that the modern bcaa mark is invalid".[27] Our dossier on Hi-Tech is Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals.

Figure 14. Hi-Tech's own complaint, November 2019: after the plea, it filed for the USPlabs names. [25]

The trademark office's records show where the names are now. Hi-Tech holds OXYELITE PRO, first used in its hands, by its own filing, on 30 August 2019: "owner name hi tech pharmaceuticals inc", "first use aug 30 2019".[28] It holds JACK3D, registered in 2022: "owner name hi tech pharmaceuticals inc", "first use oct 01 2019".[29] Its application for USPLABS itself was refused, the refusal was upheld on appeal, and the file is marked "abandoned after an appeal of the examining attorney" in 2023.[30]

Figure 15. Who holds the names in October 2026, drawn by us from the trademark office's records. Hi-Tech owns Jack3d and OxyElite Pro; nobody holds a live USPLABS registration. [29]

What Hi-Tech sells under the name. By October 2020 Hi-Tech's store had a USPlabs brand page, "shop by brand usplabs", with eight products.[31] In April 2026 the page said "the usplabs sports nutrition line remains true to the principals that the company was built on", beside a banner reading It's Back, in the old oval logo.[32]

Figure 16. Hi-Tech's USPlabs page, April 2026: a banner reading It's Back, in the old logo. [32]

Hi-Tech's OxyElite Pro, in October 2020 and again in April 2026, "contains a proprietary geranium extract from china that is not found in any other diet aid until now", and "also contains 2 aminoisoheptane hcl dmha which is a potent stimulant".[33][34] The page goes on to say the product "also contains bauhinia purpurea extract", the first ingredient on the 2012 USPlabs panel above, and the bottle keeps the 2012 design.[33][11] Hi-Tech's Jack3d is "an intense training aid enhanced made with geranium extract", and its 2020 page lists "caffeine geranium extract dhha and schizandrol a".[35] The 2026 page carries the same words.[36]

Figure 17. OxyElite Pro on Hi-Tech's store, April 2026: a geranium extract from China and DMHA, in the 2012 bottle design. [34]

Two FDA pages bear on those labels. On DMAA, the FDA lists label names that can hide it, among them "pelargonium graveolens extract or geranium extract", "which may indicate that the product contains dmaa".[15] On DMHA, which the OxyElite Pro page names outright: "after further research and consideration fda concluded that dmha is an unsafe food additive", and "the agency still considers dietary supplements containing dmha to be adulterated".[37] We have not tested either product. We do not know what Hi-Tech's geranium extract contains, and the labels do not say. These are Hi-Tech's products, not USPlabs', and they are not scored on this page.

Allegations: who says what, why, and what we could check

• That the company kept selling OxyElite Pro after promising to stop. The 2015 indictment alleged that after telling the FDA in October 2013 that it would stop distributing OxyElite Pro, the company tried to sell off as much as it could, and to ship the rest abroad before the FDA could seize it.[12][23] Who says it: the grand jury, on the prosecutors' evidence. The outcome: the counts this belonged to were dismissed under the plea agreements; the admitted facts in the chief executive's factual resume do not include it.[5][6] What we could check: two days after the recall the store's menu still listed OxyElite Pro Advanced Formula.[9] That shows a menu, not a sale. Nothing above rests on this allegation.
• That the company knew of studies linking its products to liver toxicity, and sold some products without finding out whether they were safe. Alleged in the indictment and repeated in the Justice Department's releases as an allegation.[12][2] The outcome: not among the admitted facts, except that the factual resume says no test was done on the Cynanchum root before it went into OxyElite Pro.[6] We make no claim beyond that.
• That the wire-fraud, money-laundering and obstruction counts were true. Charged in 2015.[23] In the chief executive's case every count but the conspiracy to misbrand was dismissed on the government's motion.[5] The Justice Department's accounts of the other pleas and sentences list only misbranding counts.[2][22] We found no conviction on them.

If you bought USPlabs products, before 2019 or since under Hi-Tech, hold a label or a test result, or worked for either company, rate it below or leave a note.

Still open

• Whether aegeline caused the outbreak. The CDC called the 2013 data preliminary; the FDA's action rested on the absence of safety evidence for aegeline, not on a finding of cause. We searched the FDA's outbreak pages and the CDC report and found no final causal finding.
• The judgments of the company, the president, the co-owner, the consultant and the contract manufacturer. Their sentences here come from the Justice Department's releases; the court records we could read hold only the chief executive's.
• What Hi-Tech's USPlabs-branded Jack3d and OxyElite Pro contain. The labels list geranium extract and, for OxyElite Pro, DMHA. No test found.
• Who makes Hi-Tech's USPlabs products. Hi-Tech's brand page says they are made in an FDA-registered facility; it does not name it.
• Why the trademark office refused Hi-Tech's USPLABS application. The appeal file was not read.

Changes

• 2026-10-12: first written.

References

1. Dietary Supplement Executive Sentenced in Scheme to Fraudulently Sell Popular Dietary Supplements, 2021-02-19 (archived) — US Department of Justice (Wayback Machine)
2. Five Individuals and Two Companies Plead Guilty to Felony Charges in Multimillion Dollar Scheme to Fraudulently Sell Popular Dietary Supplements, 2019-03-13 (archived) — US Department of Justice (Wayback Machine)
3. usplabsdirect.com, earliest Wayback capture, 2006-11-06 — Wayback Machine
4. USPTO TSDR, USPLABS, registration 3954592, USPlabs, LLC (archived 2026-10-12) — US Patent and Trademark Office (Wayback Machine)
5. United States v. Geissler, No. 3:15-cr-00496-L(2) (N.D. Tex.), Dkt 982, judgment in a criminal case, 2020-10-14 — CourtListener (RECAP)
6. United States v. USPlabs, LLC et al., No. 3:15-cr-00496-L (N.D. Tex.), Dkt 671, factual resume as to the chief executive, 2019-02-24 (scanned) — CourtListener (RECAP)
7. usplabsdirect.com home page, archived 2011-10-04 — Wayback Machine
8. usplabsdirect.com home page, archived 2019-08-14 — Wayback Machine
9. usplabsdirect.com home page, archived 2013-11-11 — Wayback Machine
10. Warning letter to USP Labs, LLC (Oxy Elite Pro, Jack3D), 2012-04-24 (archived) — US Food and Drug Administration (Wayback Machine)
11. usplabsdirect.com, OxyELITE-Pro product page, archived 2012-05-18 — Wayback Machine
12. United States v. USPlabs, LLC et al., No. 3:15-cr-00496-L (N.D. Tex.), indictment, filed 2015-11-04, redacted (scanned; archived) — US Attorney's Office, Northern District of Texas (Wayback Machine)
13. FDA Investigates Acute Hepatitis Illnesses Potentially Linked to Products Labeled OxyElite Pro, as updated 2013-11-20 (archived 2014-02-08) — US Food and Drug Administration (Wayback Machine)
14. DMAA in Dietary Supplements (page update of 16 July 2013, archived) — US Food and Drug Administration (Wayback Machine)
15. DMAA in Products Marketed as Dietary Supplements (archived 2026-10-06) — US Food and Drug Administration (Wayback Machine)
16. Notes from the Field: Acute Hepatitis and Liver Failure Following the Use of a Dietary Supplement Intended for Weight Loss or Muscle Building, May to October 2013 (MMWR 2013;62(40):817-819) — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
17. FDA Investigates Acute Hepatitis Illnesses Potentially Linked to Products Labeled OxyElite Pro, posted 2013-10-08 (archived 2013-10-10) — US Food and Drug Administration (Wayback Machine)
18. Posts returned for 'oxyelite' in r/Supplements (76) and r/Fitness (100), for 'jack3d' in r/Supplements (100) and r/Preworkoutsupplements (100), and for 'usplabs' in r/bodybuilding (15), 2010 to 2026, searched 2026-10-12 through the Arctic Shift archive; and 54 posts naming USPlabs, OxyElite or Jack3d in the local r/stimjunkiepreworkouts archive, 2024 to 2026 — Arctic Shift — anecdotal report, not evidence
19. USPLabs Recall of OxyElitePro due to Hepatitis Link (2013-11-21) — r/Fitness — anecdotal report, not evidence
20. Why is DMHA not listed anywhere on my jack3d new formula? (2021-12-03) — r/Supplements — anecdotal report, not evidence
21. Is there a version of jack3d that has no DMAA or DMHA? I think I bought it. Or is it just not labeled? (2025-09-04) — r/stimjunkiepreworkouts — anecdotal report, not evidence
22. Two Individuals And Two Companies Sentenced In Scheme To Fraudulently Sell Popular Dietary Supplements, 2020-10-15 (archived) — US Department of Justice (Wayback Machine)
23. USPlabs and Corporate Officers Indicted, 2015-11-17 (archived) — US Attorney's Office, Northern District of Texas (Wayback Machine)
24. Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Modern Sports Nutrition, LLC, No. 3:19-cv-02639-X (N.D. Tex.), Dkt 90, findings, conclusions and recommendation of the magistrate judge, 2022-11-14 — CourtListener (RECAP)
25. Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. USPlabs, LLC et al., No. 3:19-cv-02639 (N.D. Tex.), Dkt 1, complaint, 2019-11-05 — CourtListener (RECAP)
26. USPTO TSDR, JACK3D, registration 4372454, USPlabs Jack3d LLC (archived 2026-10-12) — US Patent and Trademark Office (Wayback Machine)
27. Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. USPlabs, LLC et al., No. 3:19-cv-02639-X (N.D. Tex.), Dkt 91, order accepting the findings, 2022-12-16 — CourtListener (RECAP)
28. USPTO TSDR, OXYELITE PRO, serial 88352722, registration 6049073 (archived 2026-10-12) — US Patent and Trademark Office (Wayback Machine)
29. USPTO TSDR, JACK3D, serial 88595228, registration 6713738 (archived 2026-10-12) — US Patent and Trademark Office (Wayback Machine)
30. USPTO TSDR, USPLABS, serial 88595250, Hi-Tech's application (archived 2026-10-12) — US Patent and Trademark Office (Wayback Machine)
31. hitechpharma.com, USPlabs collection, archived 2020-10-25 — Wayback Machine
32. hitechpharma.com, USPLabs collection, archived 2026-04-07 — Wayback Machine
33. hitechpharma.com, OxyElite Pro, archived 2020-10-24 — Wayback Machine
34. hitechpharma.com, OxyELITE Pro, archived 2026-04-07 — Wayback Machine
35. hitechpharma.com, Jack3d, archived 2020-10-24 — Wayback Machine
36. hitechpharma.com, Jack3d, archived 2026-04-07 — Wayback Machine
37. DMHA in Dietary Supplements — US Food and Drug Administration