Anti-caffeine activist who lobbied FDA pled guilty to scam involving a false-filing felony

[Emily]

http://online.wsj.com/article/AP621b73cc758a4327bd6c793fa450e0b7.html

Updated August 7, 2014, 2:46 p.m. ET

Caffeine group admits community-service scam
Associated Press

NEW YORK ? An anti-caffeine activist pleaded guilty Thursday in a scheme to make court-ordered community service as easy as taking an online quiz.

Marina Kushner and the Caffeine Awareness Association, a group she founded, each pleaded guilty to a false-filing felony. Kushner's promised sentence includes a $5,000 fine ? and 300 hours of legitimate community service.

"A community service sentence is a public and personal responsibility," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said last week in unveiling the case. Kushner's lawyer, Peter Schaffer, declined to comment Thursday.

Kushner, 47, was arrested recently in Delray Beach, Florida. While Manhattan prosecutors became suspicious after a local defendant filed a letter from the caffeine association to satisfy a community service sentence, questions also had arisen in Washington state and Oregon about a "fast community service" website linked to the group.

Kushner has written various anti-caffeine e-books, and the Seattle-based association's website echoes her message...

She originally pleaded not guilty:

Author who wrote about her caffeine addiction arrested on charges of helping thief avoid community service: authorities

BY Shayna Jacobs
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, July 28, 2014, 6:33 PM
...
According to prosecutors, Kushner hawked a phony proof of completion document to Danielle Anderson, who was convicted of grand larceny, identity theft and computer trespass ? and whose sentence included 100 hours of community service.

Kushner, who had $200,000 in a Paypal account, pleaded not guilty to charges of offering a false instrument for filing, attempted offering of a false instrument for filing and criminal facilitation...

More background on the anti-caffeine activist:

xhttp://www.scrbooks.com/confessions.htm

Marina Kushner was born in the Soviet Union and raised in Moscow. Kushner received her education at Moscow University, majoring in journalism, and worked for a major Russian newspaper Izvestia. Working under the pressure of daily deadlines, Kushner, as her colleagues, made it through the day on a diet of coffee and cigarettes. In 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kushner decided to take a long-awaited trip to New York City...
...
Marina Kushner continues her efforts regarding caffeine awareness. She has contacted the FDA to request that it require manufacturers to list the exact amount of caffeine on products offered to consumers....

And indeed caffeine is the unregulated menace of the moment at the FDA.

http://www.foodpolitics.com/tag/caffeine/