{"id":226558,"date":"2022-08-15T11:23:27","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T16:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=226558"},"modified":"2022-08-16T17:03:35","modified_gmt":"2022-08-16T22:03:35","slug":"zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"Zicam Inventor Swindled Investors in Lucille Ball Scam, Gambled Funds at Las Vegas Casinos"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A federal grand jury has indicted the inventor of cold remedy Zicam on fraud charges. He\u2019s accused of bilking investors in a sham TV production company which he claimed had links to the late Lucille Ball.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_226560\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-226560\" data-style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-226560 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/lucy.jpg\" alt=\"Desilu \" width=\"1600\" height=\"902\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/lucy.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/lucy-858x484.jpg 858w, https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/lucy-430x242.jpg 430w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\" \/><figcaption  id=\"caption-attachment-226560\"class=\"text-description\">Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, above, formed Desilu Productions, which was hugely successful in its day. It was not affiliated with Desilu Studios, a shell company controlled by Zicam inventor Charles Henlsey. (Image: <em>The List<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Charles Hensley, of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/californias-hustler-casino-heist-leads-to-two-injured-guards-one-critically-wounded\/\">Redondo Beach<\/a>, Calif., used at least $331,000 of almost $600,000 extracted from 21 investors for personal expenses. These included lavish trips to unnamed Las Vegas casinos and payments to pawn shops, according to the indictment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hensley claimed he had made millions from Zicam. He did coinvent the product in the mid-1990s. But he was broke when he began canvassing for investment in his shell production company, Desilu Studios Inc (DSI), in August 2017.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He borrowed the name from Desilu Productions Inc., the company formed by Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz, as a portmanteau of their first names. Desilu Productions was\u00a0once the second-biggest production company in the US, creating classic television shows like <em>I Love Lucy, Star Trek,<\/em> and <em>Mission Impossible<\/em>\u00a0before its demise in 1968.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Borrowed Name<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>At that time, Hensley had been \u201crepeatedly bouncing checks and overdrawing bank accounts to get cash and pay expenses,\u201d according to the indictment.<\/p>\n<p>Hensley \u201cfalsely and misleadingly represented that he was affiliated with the real Desilu and making new content using the Desilu name,\u201d reads the indictment.<\/p>\n<p>He further told investors he was backing the company with his non-existent fortune from Zicam. DSI company was worth $11 billion, he claimed.<\/p>\n<p>Hensley also pushed a phony pharmaceutical company, \u201cMigranade,\u201d which he said was valued at $50 million.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Phony IPO<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Meanwhile, Hensley told investors that Desilu Productions was about to go public and that its stock was worth more than its face value, which would increase significantly after the imminent IPO.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"main-blockquote\"><p><strong>DSI had few to no assets, no CFO, accountant, or auditor, no financial statements or any of the other requirements for an IPO, and the stock was not worth what was represented,\u201d <\/strong>the indictment read.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Hensley obtained a trademark on the Desilu name from the US Patent Office in 2018. That year, he sued CBS Studios for the exclusive use of the mark. He subsequently withdrew the case and was countersued by CBS, which had used it continually for decades in its television programming.<\/p>\n<p>Hensley has been charged with 11 counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft, according to the US attorney\u2019s office for the Central District of California. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A federal grand jury has indicted the inventor of cold remedy Zicam on fraud charges. He\u2019s accused of bilking investors in a sham TV production company which he claimed had links to the late Lucille Ball. Charles Hensley, of Redondo Beach, Calif., used at least $331,000 of almost $600,000 extracted from 21 investors for personal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":226560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Zicam Inventor Swindled Investors in Lucille Ball Scam<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Charles Hensley claims his company was affiliated with Lucille Ball\u2019s Desilu Productions and was backed by Zicam fortune.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Zicam Inventor Swindled Investors in Lucille Ball Scam\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Charles Hensley claims his company was affiliated with Lucille Ball\u2019s Desilu Productions and was backed by Zicam fortune.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-08-15T16:23:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-08-16T22:03:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/lucy.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"902\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@casinoorgphilc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/\",\"name\":\"Zicam Inventor Swindled Investors in Lucille Ball Scam\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/lucy.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-08-15T16:23:27+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-08-16T22:03:35+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"Charles Hensley claims his company was affiliated with Lucille Ball\u2019s Desilu Productions and was backed by Zicam fortune.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/lucy.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/lucy.jpg\",\"width\":1600,\"height\":902,\"caption\":\"Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, above, formed Desilu Productions, which was hugely successful in its day. It was not affiliated with Desilu Studios, a shell company controled by Charles Henlsey. 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He currently focuses his coverage on gaming law, white-collar crime, global money laundering, tribal gaming, politics, and regulation. Philip was the original features editor for poker\u2019s Bluff Magazine and editor for Bluff Europe, which he helped launch. His writing has also been featured in ESPN, Forbes, Time Out, The Sun, and The Daily Star, as well as iGaming Business, eGaming Review, and numerous other industry news and tech websites. His news stories for Casino.org\/news have been linked by The Washington Post, The Daily Mail, People Magazine, and Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show, among many others. Philip once won $20,000 with 7-2 off-suit. He has been reprimanded for unwittingly playing Elton John\u2019s piano on two separate occasions on both sides of the Atlantic. He became a writer because he is a lousy pianist. Philip lives outside London with his wife and children, where he spends his time agonizing about Arsenal FC. Contact Philip at philip.conneller@casino.org.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/muckrack.com\/philip-conneller\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/philip-conneller-1495a48\/?originalSubdomain=uk\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/casinoorgphilc\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/author\/phillip-conneller\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Zicam Inventor Swindled Investors in Lucille Ball Scam","description":"Charles Hensley claims his company was affiliated with Lucille Ball\u2019s Desilu Productions and was backed by Zicam fortune.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Zicam Inventor Swindled Investors in Lucille Ball Scam","og_description":"Charles Hensley claims his company was affiliated with Lucille Ball\u2019s Desilu Productions and was backed by Zicam fortune.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/","og_site_name":"Casino.org","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews","article_published_time":"2022-08-15T16:23:27+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-08-16T22:03:35+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1600,"height":902,"url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/lucy.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Philip Conneller","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@casinoorgphilc","twitter_site":"@Casino_Org","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Philip Conneller","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/","name":"Zicam Inventor Swindled Investors in Lucille Ball Scam","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/lucy.jpg","datePublished":"2022-08-15T16:23:27+00:00","dateModified":"2022-08-16T22:03:35+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b"},"description":"Charles Hensley claims his company was affiliated with Lucille Ball\u2019s Desilu Productions and was backed by Zicam fortune.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zicam-inventor-swindled-investors-in-lucille-ball-scam\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/lucy.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/lucy.jpg","width":1600,"height":902,"caption":"Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, above, formed Desilu Productions, which was hugely successful in its day. 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He currently focuses his coverage on gaming law, white-collar crime, global money laundering, tribal gaming, politics, and regulation. Philip was the original features editor for poker\u2019s Bluff Magazine and editor for Bluff Europe, which he helped launch. His writing has also been featured in ESPN, Forbes, Time Out, The Sun, and The Daily Star, as well as iGaming Business, eGaming Review, and numerous other industry news and tech websites. His news stories for Casino.org\/news have been linked by The Washington Post, The Daily Mail, People Magazine, and Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show, among many others. Philip once won $20,000 with 7-2 off-suit. He has been reprimanded for unwittingly playing Elton John\u2019s piano on two separate occasions on both sides of the Atlantic. He became a writer because he is a lousy pianist. Philip lives outside London with his wife and children, where he spends his time agonizing about Arsenal FC. 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