A Cedar Rapids man has been charged with making false claims about the contamination of a product. The charges against 39-year-old Luke Truesdell were filed in the district court in Cedar Rapids and allege that he falsely told the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that a worker with Hepatitis B had bled into batches of what is described as a “consumer product.”

The charges also say Truesdell made the same claim about the product at his former Linn County employer on his Facebook page. Truesdell is charged with four counts of communicating false information that a consumer product was tainted and three counts of making false statements.

The Assistant U.S. Attorney working on the case says they cannot release any other information on the case at this point in the process. The maximum penalty on the charges could reach 35 years in prison and nearly two-million dollars in fines.