A 68-year-old Chandler man has been sentenced to a year of probation and ordered to pay restitution for importing and selling counterfeit COVID protection masks.

Mark Forrest Cohn was sentenced Dec. 21 by U.S. District Judge David G. Campbell. The restitution includes $8,028 in unpaid taxes and tariffs to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Cohn pleaded guilty to one felony count of entry of goods by means of false statements.

On Oct. 29, 2020, Cohn fraudulently imported counterfeit 3M manufactured N95 masks into the United States from China using shipping labels and papers that falsely represented the merchandise, according to the U.S Attorney’s Office in Arizona.

“The false representations disguised the merchandise as goods not subject to duties and inspection by the United States Food and Drug Administration,” officials said in a release.

“Once the shipment arrived at a Phoenix mail facility, a box imported by Custom Glass and Synthetic was targeted for inspection as part of an enforcement operation conducted by Homeland Security Investigations and CBP.”

When authorities opened the box, officers found masks branded as 3M with pixelated photos on the packaging, and it was later determined they were counterfeit.

“Counterfeits create risks to the user because the seals can be ill-fitting and the masks less effective,” the release stated.

In November 2020, the masks were found at a Veterans Affairs Medical Center warehouse in Minneapolis, officials said, adding they were seized before they made their way to front-line workers. 

Cohn sold more 20,000 masks to a third-party vendor that supplied equipment to the VAMC warehouse in Minnesota. The third-party vendor did not know that the masks were counterfeit, officials said.