Final Years and Legacy

This is an IiHart podcast Guaranteed human. Living with a rare autoimmune condition brings uncertainty, but it can also create community. In season six of Untold Stories, Life with a severe autoimmune coondition, they go beyond MG and CIDP, as host Martine Hackett welcomes stories from other conditions like myositis and IGN into the conversation. Untold Stories is produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenics. Listen to Untold Stories, Life with a severe Autoimmune condition on the iHart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts Hey everybody, we are getting ready to go on a trip. We're not packed yet, but our brains definitely are because we have a trip to Bajamar on the horizon. and it's kind of all I can think about. I'm so excited about the food. There are amazing restaurants and lounges there that I'm gonna sample everything I possibly can. I'm going to gaze into the water and mostly I am gonna watch the daily fllamingo parade which might be the thing I'm most excited about. There's also an incredible spa and I know Tracy's going to be takaking advantage of that. There is excited and then there is Bahamar excited. Start planning at bahamar. comot Alienwar's Back to schoolchool event is the perfect time to score top gaming gear with incredible features and advanced engineering to go beyond performance Start your Alienware journey with the Alienware fifteen gaming laptop featuring Intel core processors, game, live stream and multitask for hours on end. Pair your incredibly smooth gaming experience with immersive visuals and sound by saving on sleek alienware monitors, headsets and more. This limited time sale awaits you now at alienware dot com slash deals Inoring, gasping for air during sleep, daytime sleepiness. I'm Shquil O'Neill and this shouldn't be anybody's experience. As a doctor about Zepbound to zepatye, the first NNi FDA approved prescription medicine from moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea in adults with obesity TZzbBound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and obesity to improve their OSA. Zbound is approved as a two point five, five, seven point five, ten, twelve point five, or fifteen milligram injection. Zbound contains trizepetide and should not be used with other trizepotide containing products or any GLP one receptor agonist medicines It is not known if ZPBound is safe and effective for use in children Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had Medulary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type two. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop step bound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia. If you're nursing, pregnant, plan to be or taking birth control pills, taking Z bound with a sulfonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar Side effects include nausea, diarrhea and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems Talk to your doctor. callall one eight hundred five four five five nine seven nine or visit zbound d. liily dot com Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of IHart Radio Podcast, I'm Holly Fry, and I'm Tracy V. Wilson This is part two of a two partarter and this is an instance where you really do have to listen to the first part before you jump into this one. It's not going to make any sense. becausecause we are picking up right in the middle of the fraud case against E Virtil Neils compomany, force of life for the completely bogus treatments that it advertised and sent consumers through the mail U We are also in this episode going to get to the company that finally shifted Neil into a position as a head of a pretty respected business in the beauty industry, although it too had some roots in its old Charlatan ways and its beginnings. So we left off in part one as the news was breaking that investigators on a joint task force headed up by the postmaster Genal had been digging into Neil's business dealings for about a year to put together a case against force of life. And that is where we are picking up So the investigation into force of life quickly revealed that not only Neil and his immediate associates, but also a number of prominent men were all part of this company A lot of them were high ranking officers at one or more banks. Others had invested heavily in a company called New York Food and Chemical Company which was a wholesaler that Force of Life purchased medications from. But the biggest The scandal was that the company was tied to General James R. O'Byne, sometimes reported incorrectly as John R. O'Burn James Rowan Oberurn was born in Ireland on september twenty fifth, eighteen thirty nine. His family moved to the US before he turned one to escape the great hunger, and O'Byurn grew up entirely in the US He attended Fordham University, was valedictorian of his graduating class, became a lawyer before enlisting at the start of the American Civil War She was part of the thirty seventh New York Regiment, which was known colloquially as the Irish Rifles He was a decorated soldier. He earned a medal of honor after being wounded in battle. He suffered three bullet wounds, one through the lung He was discharged and became the Pvost marshal of Washington, D.C He very famously was part of the manhunt that ended in John Wilkes' Both capture after President Abraham Lincoln was shot and then he guarded the president's deathbed He held a number of posts in Washington, DC after the Civil War ended and eventually moved back to New York City. And this man frequently referred to as a hero understandably based on all that stuff I just read U apppparently ended up tangled with E. Virgil Neil. O'Byurn was listed as the president of Force of Life. And the New York Times, like other papers, followed this entire case closely By january seventeenth of nineteen oh six, the paper was reporting that the company's offices were being dismantled. And according to the Times, quote, E. Virgil Neil, the originator and first president of the Force of Life Chemical Company, for whom post office inspectors armed with warrants have been searching several days in this city, Washington and Syracuse, is still at large Neil is charged with conspiracy to defraud by use of the United States mails, jointly with Dr. William Wallace Hadley, chief medical director Mrs. Laura M. Wilson, Consulting medical director, and Arthur H. Williams, treasurer of the Force of Life Concern These three force of Lifers have already been arrested and are now out two thousand five hundred dollars bail each That write up also noted that O'Byne had made a statement through his attorney that he had no part in the company's day to day management Another article appearing in an Illinois paper noted, quote, General O'Byne was seen following the arrest but his counsel refused to allow him to be interviewed If it sounds like a lot had happened in the lead up to this story breaking publicly, That's because it had The investigation complete with those ongoing back and forth correspondences between the Force of Life compomany and federal agents posing as customers, which we talked about in some detail in part one had been quietly playing out for a full year before any warrants were issued or arrests were made. And as the investigation was made public, it was revealed that the whole thing had been a joint effort After Roosevelt had gotten the U. S. Post offffice involved, Assistant U. S. District attorney Clarence Haoton was also brought on, as well as two men who served as counsel for the New York County Medical Society, Champ S. Andrews and John S. Cooper. As investigators were working on collecting evidence, the legal team was building their case One of the documents that came to light in the investigation was a letter written by Dr. Hadley's colleague, Laura M. Wilson to E. Virgil Neil. It hinted that O'Byurn may have been either suspecting something was going on at force of life or just really wanted to be on top of the company's business activities and that Wilson and Neil were trying to figure out how to keep some aspects of the business away from him by preventing the company's secretary from taking down everything that was said in a meeting. That letter was printed in part in the New York Times, and it read, quote, You do not state why General O'Byurn wanted you to take the minutes of the meeting I do not believe he realizes fully what you have to do I hope you will read my letters to the committee Miss. Nykirk is trusted with a good, many confidential things It seems to me she might be safely trusted to do this Should anything, if any private nature come up, she could be excused from the room And you can take this part of the report and mail it as a supplementary report But if Ms. Nykirk cannot be trusted to take work of this kind, it will be necessary to get someone who can be trusted Because even if you had time, There are too many things of greater importance that you should do. Yeah basasically like just tell the secretary to leave the room sometimes. It's fine. She just won't take that down and he'll never know. He doesn't need to know. So it does seem like they were trading on O'Byne's good name while they knew they were doing really nefarious stuff and keeping him from knowing about the nefariousness. What the New York Times described as quote reams of lurid force of life pamphlets, circulars and correspondence had been turned over or seized as those various members of the Force of Life staff had been arrested, and it enabled investigators to piece together the way that the whole operation functioned Some of the pills the company provided and I'm using the word pills very loosely as you'll see in a moment were touted in this seized material as life ray capsules, and the literature claimed They contained radium and suggested that they could prolong human life two hundred years On the upside, they did not actually contain any radium at all. They were found to have phosphorus in them when they were tested. But these were also capsules that you were not supposed to take orally. It was claimed that they just gave off emanations of quote wonderful revitalizing power that would cure disease and improve health Customers were sent these capsules for free. uh on loan after signing a pledge that they would return them once their treatment was complete. Other courses of treatment laid out in correspondence with patient customers ranged from folk remedies to the reading of poetry There was also, among the acquired documents, a letter from a person who was very angry They had not been paid for the fictional testimonials they had provided force of life And it came to light that those many blood samples that people sent them after they were requested Those had been going right in the trash. No one analyzed them onlyn scientific equipment found at the offices was a single microscope and a handful of test tubes Based on what I read, it didn't sound like those had ever been in use But all of this theater was part of luring clients into the idea that they were working with a benevolent company that truly wanted to help them And then once that trust was established with people who were gullible or desperate, it was really easy to transition to selling them treatments E Virgginil Neil was also running a food manufacturing business at the same time that Force of life was operating This one was called Neil Biscuit Company. and it manufactured foods that were marketed as digestion aids This company didn't ever get rolled into any of Neil's legal issues, though. it did have ties to the New York Food and Chemical Comany, so that was there The same company that prominent New Yorkers had invested in as the manufacturer of medications purchased for use by force of life. So these things were kind of did No legal fallout from that one. No, u This man was so good at shell companies and like obscuring the truth by having twenty two different legal entities brouting off of one another, none of which could be easily traced. We'll talk more about that, but Here's the thing in all of this. Everyone wanted to hear, of course, from E. Virgil Neil, but nobody could find him A thorough search of the company's Syracuse office where he was rumored to be hiding Turned up nothing The janitor of the building was questioned and he told investigators that Neil had last been there late Saturday afternoon But that information was a little problematic because it contradicted a statement that his mother had made that he had left Syracuse for Manhattan on Friday, the day before the janitor claims to have seen him last No one seemed to know where he was, but there were a lot of rumors circulating about him Various accounts placed him in hiding right there in Syracuse. Others said that he was at a sanitarium because he was very ill and getting treatment Other accounts, including his mother, said that he had left the country entirely Coming up, we'll talk about why federal authorities were so eager to pursue the force of life case. how it played out first we will pause for a sponsor break. Living with a rare autoimmune condition can bring a lot of uncertainty, but it can also bring people together in powerful ways. Tune in for season six of Untold Stories, Life with a severe autoimmune condition, a Ruby Studio production in partartnership with Arenics. This season, host Martine Hackett brings you fresh stories from people living with MG and CIDP and expands the conversation to people living with other rare conditions like myositis and IGAN Through their stories, you'll learn what it's like to participate in clinical trials seeking new treatments, how connection fuels hope, and how people can support one another along the way. Because living with a rare disease isn't about getting through it, it's about moving forward together. Listen to Untold stories, life with a severe autoimmune condition on the IiHart radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts I have friends who own rental properties. They're not real estate moguls. They're regular people who found a smarter way in. Every month the rent comes in, covers their mortgage, and they keep adding more. I found out how they got started True Who financial. smmart investors know the biggest obstacle to rental property is qualifying. Traditional lenders put your personal income and debt to income ratio under a microscope. True Whole Financial is different. They qualify you. Get this, based on the rental property income the property is expected to generate. And unlike online lenders that simply tell you yes or no, True Whole Financial takes a concierge style approach. So the question stops being, do I earn enough and becomes, what's the smartest way to grow my portfolio Truehold Fancial doesn't just hold open the rental property door. They help you decide which door to walk through. Call one eight eight eight five two one for thousand seven eighty seven or visit trueholdfinancial. com to get started. Truehold Financial NMLS number twenty seven fourzer five forty one. equal housing lender subject to approval details at truehold d. com My name is Jessa. One of the things I love the most about working for United Healthcare is that everybody matters. Every moment matters. There's a person behind every problem. I care because it's what I was put on this earth to do. I'm Ben and I work at United Healthcaare. I am just one piece of a larger puzzle, but every piece matters. It's more than just work. We want to make the healthcare system better for everyone. I care because I want to make a difference. That's what committed to care means to me Join me, Cindy Luber, with Chef Michelle Bernstein and Dr. Pinico to talk about psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis potential connection and risk of developing permanent joint damage Cocentic secuinumab is prescribed for adults with moderate to severe plaqu psoriasis three hundred milligram dose and adults with activesoriatic arthritis one hundred fifty milligam. Don't use if you're allergic to G centes. Before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. An increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur, like tuberculosis, or other serious bacterial, fungal, or viral infections. someome are fatal Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms like fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches, or cough. had a vaccine or plan to orr if inflammatory bowel disease symptoms develop or worsen. Serious allergic reactions and severe eczema like skin reactions may occur Learn more at one eight four four Cosentics or cosentix. com slash Cindy fervor around force of life and the official charges against its officers That was conspiracy to obtain money under false pretenses by the use of the United States mail was fueled by the same concerns that led to the creation of the first consumer prrotection law in the United States The Pure Food and Drug Act of nineteen oh six. A piece of legislation, which was also known as the Wiley Act after the chief chemist of the U. S. Department of Agriculture was for its own description An act for preventing the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods drugs, medicines, and liquors and for regulation thererein and for other purposes This was obviously not an effort that sprung up out of nowhere. According to Food Dug Administration, almost one hundred pieces of proposed legislation related to food and drug regulation had been introduced into Congress between eighteen seventy nine and the passing of the nineteen oh six law in June that year. This was a time before drugs had to be approved by the FDA to go to market medicines were common and they were often. very dangerous. Like if it was benign but just got your money, that was the best possible outcome. A lot of these had really, really scary stuff in them. Th life ray capsules had been a focus of concern Because of all of this as this whole cause got underway But the case against force of life sputtered. Among other things, one official testified that he had learned that Neil had been offered consultation fromr the brother of a Chicago attorney general that would ensure force of life's literature was written and edited in a way that they would be able to avoid mail fraud charges In return for b, of course And Neil apparently refused this deal From there, the case really unraveled and then it fell apart The charges were dismissed on april twenty fourth, nineteen oh four. There's an alternate version of this story, as told by the American Medical Association in its nineteen fifteen publication Medical Mail order Frauds That version states that, quote, when it was found that an influential New York politician, General James R. O'Byurn was president of it The investigation ceased The newspaper publicity, however, killed the business While the stories in the newspapers certainly didn't help, Neil would later say that the legal costs of defending the company were what had wiped it out E. Virgil Neil emerged from hiding after the case had ended, and he did not publicly disclose where he had been At the end of April, the Syracuse post standard ran the story, Neil returns for business The article noted, quote, When asked last night as to his plans and in regards to his whereabouts and doings for the past few months, he answered, Absolutely nothing to say To every question, he gave the same reply This article also commented on the rumors that Neil had been in a sanitarium for his ill health, noting, quote, Neil does not look as if he had been ill Now obviously, you cannot tell by looking at a person if they are sick That is a huge issue in disability rights. But all of the write ups about Neil during this time noted how very healthy he looked and acted, pointing out that the rumor of illness seemed to have simply been a ruse of some sort. to help wiggle out of appearing in court He still had the Neil Biscuit compomany, and for a brief period went back to his same old claims about improving people's health with his products He set up multiple other business ventures that operated in similar ways to those we've already discussed advertising free services and then offering items for sale using the advertorial style of placement in newspapers that made ads look like articles and offering up testimonials that weren't easily traced to actual clients These other ventures all struggled, and in nineteen oh seven, E Virgil Neil declared bankruptcy One aspect of Neil's life that is very, very fuzzy in all of these years around the scandal is his marriage? His wife, Molly, we mentioned briefly in part one China vanishes from his story. acccording to biographer Mary Schafer Conroy, She doesn't get mentioned in the public record again until her death in nineteen forty four, at which point she was living in Arizona away from EVirgil Neil It is unclear if she left when the force of life scandal and the hearing were playing out or if the couple had been estranged in some way before that There are even rumors and speculation that he left her for another woman She was still listed as married to Neil in her obituary It's unclear if there ever was a divorce. but in any case, by then, Neil had remarried twice. In fact, there is so much haze around EVveril Neil's romantic partners and marriages that it is almost impossible to put together a clear picture U this is a problem that stems from a couple of things, right? There is the fact that Neil was a very messy man in a lot of ways and particularly in his relationships with women. He was involved allegedly with a lot of women The other problem is that official accounts and records listing the women he was seen with often just call them Mrs. E. Virgil Neil rather than specifying their nes. So Aside from the fact that People who are married to other people are still humans with their own names and should be recognized as such The historical record, like the practice of calling women misses their their husband's name makes things like this very, very difficult to figure out Additionally, he also sometimes traveled with women from his family, like his mother and his sisters. So it's unclear if the women that were sometimes with him, which were sometimes called Ms or Mrs. Neil We're actually you know, benign relatives or actually paramores. Some versions of his life list a woman named Emma as his first wife. There was a woman named Emma with him at one point on a ship manifest But it is unclear who that woman was to him His first wife's name was Molly. The nature of his relationships with the other women that he married also causes some confusion His second wife, Harriet Meta Meister, had been called his wife for quite a while before they actually got legally married And she seems to have been in the picture with perhaps a little bit of overlap with his first wife, Molly Harriet and Neil were consistently together by nineteen oh seven So there's just so much confusion to try to untangle here And we will get into his third wife later, which has its own set of rumors As we mentioned a moment ago, Neil started up a handful of ventures in the aftermath of the Force of life scandal most of which came and wet at a pretty rapid pace, but One that he founded in nineteen oh seven after his bankruptcy actually had some lasting power. and that was Tualon, manufacturing company Like many of his other businesses at that time, it started in Syracuse and it would become a very lucrative international brand We will talk a lot more about Tualon after we hear from the sponsors that keep the show going Living with a rare autoimmune condition can bring a lot of uncertainty, but it can also bring people together in powerful ways. Tune in for season six of Untold stories, Life withith a severe Autoimmune condition, a Ruby Studio production in partnership with Argenics. This season, host Martine Hackett brings you fresh stories from people living with MG and CIDP and expands the conversation to people living with other rare conditions, like myositis and IGN Through their stories, you'll learn what it's like to participate in clinical trials seeking new treatments, how connection fuels hope, and how people can support one another along the way. Because living with a rare disease isn't about getting through it, it's about moving forward together. Listen to Untold stories, life with a severe autoimmune condition on the IiHart radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I have friends who own rental properties. They're not real estate moguls. They're regular people who found a smarter way in. Every month the rent comes in, covers their mortgage, and they keep adding more. I found out how they got started. True Who financial. smmart investors know the biggest obstacle to rental property is qualifying Traditional lenders put your personal income and debt to income ratio under a microscope. True Whole Financial is different. They qualify you. Get this, based on the rental property income the property is expected to generate. And unlike online lenders that simply tell you yes or no, True Whole Financial takes a concierge style approach. So the question stops being, do I earn enough and becomes, what's the smartest way to grow my portfolio Truehold Financial doesn't just hold open the rental property door. They help you decide which door to walk through. Call one eight eight eight five two one four thousand seven eighty seven or visit trueholdfinancial. com to get started. Truehold Financial N MLS number twenty seven four zero five forty one. equal housing lender subject to approval details at trruehold d. com My name is Jessa. One of the things I love the most about working for United Healthcare is that everybody matters. E moment matters. There's a person behind every problem. I care because it's what I was put on this earth to do. I'm Ben, and I work at United Healthcaarere I am just one piece of a larger puzzle, but every piece matters. It's more than just work. We want to make the healthcare system better for everyone. I care because I want to make a difference. That's what committed to care means to me Join me, Cindy Lauber, with Chef Michelle Bernstein and Dr. Piniko to talk about psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis the potential connection and risk of developing permanent joint damage. Cocentic secukineinumab is prescribed for adults with moderate to severe plaque poriasis three hundred milligram dose and adults with active psoriatic arthritis one hundred fifty milligrams Don't use if you're allergic to goentics, before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. An increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur, like tuberculosis, or other serious bacterial, fungal or viral infections, someome are fatal Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms like fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches, or cough A a vaccine or plan to or if inflammatory bowel disease symptoms develop or worsen. Serious allergic reactions and severe eczema like skin reactions may occur Learn more at one eight four four Cosentics orr cosentix d. com slash Cindy to note about E Virgil Neil and we've alluded to it already, and it also would be obvious even if we hadn't was how adept he had become at obfuscating the details of any given business's ownership and leadership structure. He would register the addresses of businesses sometimes at his home address other times at offices, but rarely was he listing them where they were actually operating.. Similarly, his executives associated with the business often included people who were only minimally connected to it, or he would sometimes list himself as an owner, president, etc in one filing, but list someone else on another In instances where he was required to list out a group of executives, they were often mentioned only with a last name, making it difficult to impossible to try to verify or track those people down There were almost certainly some fictitious employees among them This was all done to create a muddled paper trail that made things like legal actions and tax tracking more difficult. And with Tklon, he also made a new choice in marketing only to women. and often making his wife Harriet the front and center in the advertising, which made it less obviously associated with him Toulon was also a different path for Neil because it was a beauty brand and it may have existed as a venture of Harriet's before Neil got involved with it The name Touulon was supposedly coming from Greek, meaning the beautiful. although This is a whole concept in the ancient Greek world. It doesn't just mean physical beauty It's a broader concept than that The company's advertising followed the same exact playbook and sales tactics that he had been using for years, placing advertorials in newspapers These would once again include testimonials of people helped by Touulan's products and would offer information and beauty advice at no charge In some cases, write upps would include recipes so people could make the products themselves at home However, they always included an ingredient that needed to be ordered directly from Touulon These were touted as proprietary ingredients, but analysis later showed that they were usually common things like rose water that had been kind of doctored up with other ingredients like colorantths and glycerin. If a customer didn't want to make the concoction herself and risk making errors with that, she could also just order the premade version from Touulon. One ad that ran in numerous papers in nineteen oh nine was written according to a splashy graphic at the top by the Countess de Kergamo not a real person. And it described how she had been born into nobility but was alas, sadly Beautiful Now she had sought help from many beauty experts, but they all came up short until She found Tlon products, including Salong complexion powder rem tuclon, Tuclon perfume, toulon dentocrem, and Toulon talalcum powder, as well as various preparations that made use of these in other products This very lengthy write up concludes with a note that a local supplier has plenty of these products in stock to meet the growing demand and that consumers should call and reserve them. The Countess de Kergumaot was just one of a long line of fictitious women ub by Neil to promote Touglon The same year those ads were running, Neil set up a production facility in France. It appeared the beauty business was going really well. As France and specifically the village of Gras on the Riviera was known as the place for quality perfume being made Neil got a home there to oversee the factory workings He still maintained a home in New York Although E Virgil Neil continued to run a variety of quick money businesses, including corset manufacturing concern that was also under the Toulon branding umbrella It seemed as though his cosmetics business and especially the perfume line was becoming legitimate and somewhat respected As it gained reputation, Neil pivoted away from some of his shadier advertising practices and more toward what you'd expect from a legitimate perfume and cosmetics brand still used testimonials, but they almost all featured his wife Harriet, and the practice of giving something away for free and then offering a tie in for purchase slowly disappeared He also started expanding into offices in London as well as France and started to more carefully ensure that Touclon didn't have any crossover associations with his more dubious business ventures In some cases, this meant founding new companies to handle things like patent medicines so that they could be removed from Toualon's factories. As part of this reorg, Touon, which had always had a hyphen after its first syllable. so it was t o dash K A L O M became one non hyphenated word just took along. And beauty products were all under that company Some of the product line at that point was retired, some of them were renamed and eventually makeup products like eyebrow and lip pencils, Rouge, face powders, and a skin beautifier that sounds like a foundation or a concealer were all added to the line One aspect of this new setup that Neil was able to really manipulate was the multinational identity of the business in the U. S. advertisements to talk about Touulan's European identity. and then in Europe, he sometimes introduced new products or renamed old products as being the latest development from America Also in Europe, he was able to parlay his relative anonymity into a rewritten image for himself He started to tell versions of his life story and education weren't entirely accurate or left out things like his various accusations of fraud And these strategies worked really well. Tklon started bringing in massive profits, and E Virgil Neil became incredibly wealthy in the process. He was able to expand sales of the Tklon product line into a lot more countries around the world. He basically had a beauty empire. Yeah, when we say a lot more countries, I'm not going into all of it because it gets really big, but like we're talking like into Russia and the Soviet Union eventually, into Australia, into Asia. Like he was kind of all of the continents but Antarctica. he was hitting them with product at that point. In Europe, all of the scandal of the early nineteen hundreds was kind of left behind and Neil, who is now a rich and respected businessman, moved in very heady circles In September of nineteen ten, the New York Times reported that Neil was given an audience with Pope Pius I along with the former president of the Force of lifeife company, O'Byrne It read, quote, James R. O.Byrne, with Mr. and Mrs. E. Virgil Neil of New York, came this week from Monte Carlo to Rome, where an introduction from Archbishop Ireland obtained for them the honor of private audience of the Holy Father to whom they were presented by Monsignor Hermano Stranero Pont was extremely kind and had the whole party sit next him at his desk as the audience took place in the Pontiff's private library He gave Mrs. Neil a photograph of himself with a long autograph inscription, which he wrote in the visitor's presence When they went, he insisted on accompanying them to the door of the room What's interesting is that during all this, he did still have a number of shady businesses and related lawsuits back in the United States During World War O, Neil and his wife Harriet were back in the U.S on a number of occasions. And during that time, a product of his called Nooksated Iiron 's the focus of a fresh accusation of fraud. The product was manufactured by Day Health Laboratories of Detroit, at least on paper In reality, it was produced in offices Neil had in New York The claim of Nixated Iiron was that it would quote increase vigor, snap and staying power Copy talked about how it would enrich the blood and bring color back to the face Its listed ingredients were quote, organic iron in the form of iron peptinate Nux vomica and glycerol phosphate of calcium. U Nuxvomica sounds very gross. and there was not much Nuxvomica in it, just one five hundredth of a grain in each tablet, but that was actually stict nine The biggest issue for critics bigger than that anyway, was that it claimed to be a wonder drug when its main ingredient, which was iron was commonplace and readily available That wasn't the only problem, though. One of the drug's medical endorsers, Dr. Howard James, was convicted for dispensing drugs illegally and admitted that he had a drug misuse problem of his own O doctors that endorsed Nooksated Iiron had similarly problematic backstories, including faked work histories and fake credentials In April of nineteen eighteen, Neil was arraigned on a fraud charge in New York He entered a not guilty plea and was detained with bail set at five thousand dollars. Neil's behavior in this case was very different from his previous charges with force of life He did not go into hiding. He showed up for his arraignment with his lawyer. He paid his bail, and then he sued the New York Tbune for libel over callalling him a quack and their coverage over it This is conjecture on my part, but all of this seems a little bit as though his took along business was legitimizing and he wanted this nooksated iron problem to be handled swiftly and in a way that cleared his name as much as possible He was at the same time named in a lawsuit for mail fraud related to another company he was associated with cartilage company which sold a harness by mail that it claimed could stretch a user's vertebrae and increase their height In these cases, as before, Neil's lawyer also worked to distance EVirgil Neil from the products, claiming that really they were the work of someone else. Thus Get him out from under any responsibility for them I was not able to find any sort of clear indicator of how these few cases we've just been talking about resolved, but Nooks Aated Iiron was sold for years after this. So it seems to have been resolved in favor of the company in some way After World War I, Neil appears to have spent almost all of his time in Europe, including building a new sprawling mansion called Chateau Dzour in a village north of Nice. This was also a time when his second marriage ended that' similarly nebulous the way his first marriage did although we do know that he and Harriet legally divorced and that he almost immediately remarried to a much younger woman named Renee Baudier There were rumors that Neil had become obsessed with Renee after meeting her when she was still a teenager and that she may have lived at his house as a sort of adopted daughter before his marriage to Harriet ended That's one of many things in these episodes that's not substantiated