The Northeast Ohio Correctional Center (NEOCC). Inset left: David Lettieri (via WROC/DOJ). Inset right: An image of the defendant’s mustard packet (via Four-In-One Co., Inc.)
A convicted sex offender currently behind bars in Ohio has sued a condiment company over its labeling practices, saying that it’s keeping crucial information from consumers.
David Lettieri, 36, of Harpursville, New York, was convicted in June of enticement of a minor. According to the Department of Justice, Lettieri traveled in October 2020 to western New York to meet a 13-year-old victim “in a park in Wyoming County with the intent of having sexual intercourse.” According to the DOJ, “sexual contact did not occur,” but the investigation revealed communications between Lettieri and the girl “which were sexual in nature.”
He is currently awaiting sentencing behind bars in a privately run prison in northeast Ohio, where he apparently feels he is being misled as to the contents of a particular condiment.
“This complaint is in regards to a product that Four In One makes. It is called Salad Fresh Four in One Mustard,” Lettieri says in a federal complaint filed Friday against the Four-In-One, the company behind the allegedly offending product. “There are no Nutrition Facts on the package.”
Lettieri notes the listed ingredients: distilled vinegar, mustard seed, salt, turmeric, paprika, spices and flavoring.
“The plaintiff under belief that mustard seed has a type of carbohydrate that has calories in it,” he writes in the complaint, which he filed on his own behalf and without an attorney, according to the federal docket. “The plaintiff knows salt is in sodium which has nutrition facts for a proper diet.”
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Lettier says that he doesn’t know what turmeric is and that due to the labeling, he doesn’t know what spices or flavorings are contained in the mustard. He notes that because he has been incarcerated in multiple locations, he has been “unable to Research such matters.”
He alleges neglect on the part of Four-In-One, and demands at least $450,000 in damages.
Lettieri is awaiting sentencing, according to the DOJ and court records. According to the DOJ, the enticement charge carries a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 10 years.
Court records indicate that Lettieri appears to have filed at least two dozen lawsuits against federal agents during his incarceration.
Read Lettieri’s complaint, below.
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