DURHAM, N.C. (AP) -- North Carolina officials have charged a bread-company owner with wrongly marketing bread as gluten-free, leading to customer illnesses.
The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Wednesday that officers with the Agriculture Department arrested 47-year-old Paul Evan Seelig of Durham after a judge ordered his company to stop selling food products.
Seelig is charged with six counts of obtaining property by false pretenses. He is accused of selling bread to six people as gluten-free despite knowing the bread contained the protein found in wheat and other grains.
People who suffer from celiac disease suffer intestinal damage if they eat gluten. About two dozen people say they got sick after eating bread marketed by Great Specialty Products.
Seelig says his company never claimed to sell only gluten-free products.
