• New York health regulators say Tiger Medical smuggled alloClae into the state and lied about it.
• A court filing includes photos of boxes piled in the driveway of a New Jersey nurse who regulators allege drove the product to NYC.
• Tiger says only the FDA, not New York State, can regulate alloClae, and denied wrongdoing.

On a blustery December day, nine large white cardboard boxes sat stacked next to a garbage can in the driveway of a New Jersey nurse as a man packed them into the bed of a pickup truck.

Other than a manufacturer's label in the corner and a note that the contents were perishable and shouldn't be frozen, there was no indication they held thousands of dollars' worth of processed cadaver fat. Inside the boxes, state regulators allege, was alloClae, a hot new injectable filler derived from the fat of dead people and headed to high-end cosmetic surgeon practices in New York City.

Photos of the boxes were part of a recent court filing by New York State health officials, who have accused Tiger Medical Holdings, which manufactures and sells alloClae with its affiliates, of "smuggling" the product into New York.

Tiger has said only the Food and Drug Administration has the authority to regulate alloClae, and that FDA rules don't require premarket approval. New York is one of a handful of states that issues permission to store and distribute human tissue, and it claims that Tiger violated those rules by bringing alloClae to market without waiting for approval.

Recent court filings reveal that the state obtained FedEx records, including photos, in an attempt to prove that Tiger organized a scheme to smuggle hundreds of boxes of the product — possibly over $1 million worth — into New York.

The dispute could affect the availability of a product that lets busy C-suiters get a boob job during a lunch break or a butt lift between meetings. Doctors have said the injectable is flying off the shelves, and some have continued to administer it during the state investigation.

Tiger co-CEO Oliver Burckhardt said in a filing on Wednesday that 60 doctors have contacted the company about the fat spat with New York — some worried about the case, but most wanting to buy more alloClae.

Tiger hasn't disputed shipping alloClae through New Jersey, though it has called the state's evidence "unreliable" and "self-serving," and said the allegation of "smuggling" is baseless and inflammatory.

It said the health department kept asking for more information without signaling concerns until last month, and that the company submitted testing data as recently as January to show that alloClae was safe.

Tiger's lawyer, Larry Wood Jr., did not address specific questions from Business Insider, referring a reporter to Tiger's court filings.

Building buzz for alloClae while dealing with regulators

AlloClae hit the market in 2024. It didn't take long for plastic surgeons on Manhattan's Tribeca and Upper East Side to realize the appeal. Their patients wanted a quick touch-up and were willing to pay for the convenience. In small quantities, the product can be injected for under $10,000; in other cases, it can cost up to $100,000 per procedure.

The product is a good fit for "the CEOs, COOs, CCOs that don't want to be away from the boardroom," Douglas Steinbrech, who practices in New York City, Beverly Hills, and Chicago, told Business Insider last year. "They have to go to a lot of meetings that just pop up, and they cannot control when they're going to happen. They can't just clear their schedule to recover for a surgery."

AlloClae was advertised on social media and websites: "Revolutionary," said one clinic. "Pure Gold. On Demand," said another.

In a video posted by a Texas plastic surgery practice, audio of Oprah gifting cars to a screaming audience was dubbed over a man in scrubs pretending to dole out alloClae boxes to employees who wriggled with excitement.

Tiger, which is privately held, said this month that alloClae is experiencing "rapid growth" and the company plans to build a 200-person sales force by the end of 2027 to sell alloClae and a similar product in development, dermaClae, to surgeons, med spas, and other buyers.

When Business Insider spoke to Tiger Aesthetics at the end of last year, the company said it was struggling to keep up with demand. Behind the scenes, it was grappling with more than a shortage.

The company was engaged in a back-and-forth with New York's health department. Between October 2024 and May 2025, the agency sent three letters saying that it could not grant Tiger permission to distribute alloClae in the state.

In July 2025, a health inspector visited two Tiger tissue facilities in Pennsylvania and asked why New York doctors were advertising alloClae. Monica Garcia, the COO of Tiger Aesthetic's parent company, said she was unaware of any shipments to the state and asked what the consequences would be if there were, according to a sworn statement from Joseph Giovannetti, the agency's top investigator.

Garcia, in a sworn statement, said the exchange took place at a Tiger affiliate where employees familiar with alloClae weren't present. She said the inspector didn't ask for follow-up information about alloClae distribution to New York, disputing one of Giovannetti's claims.

Giovannetti said the inspection prompted Tiger to stop shipping alloClae directly to New York and start going through New Jersey and Connecticut.

Despite the letters and inspection, Caroline Van Hove, the president of Tiger Medical Holdings affiliate Tiger Aesthetics, provided reassurances about alloClae to at least one New York plastic surgeon. "We can confirm that the New York Department of Health has not reached out to us in connection with our alloClae product," she wrote in an April 2026 letter seen by Business Insider.

Boxes of alloClae were piled up in a New Jersey driveway

Every week or two, starting no later than September 2025, a new set of white boxes would appear at the clapboard, shuttered home of Robert McGee, a nurse who lived on a cul-de-sac in the central New Jersey town of Tinton Falls, according to FedEx records and a state investigator's statement.

The boxes of alloClae would be stacked next to duffle bags and trash cans in McGee's driveway or on his front porch, according to delivery photos and Giovannetti.

Between September 2025 and April 2026, the company sent over 330 boxes of alloClae to McGee, who loaded them in his pickup, drove them the 50 miles into Manhattan, and dropped them off at more than three dozen plastic surgeons and med spas, Giovannetti said.

McGee did not respond to requests for comment.

In January 2026, the state said in a filing that an unidentified "whistleblower" told regulators what was happening. Three months later, health investigators made an "unannounced inspection" at the office of Dr. Adam Schaffner, a Manhattan plastic surgeon.

Schaffner's paper trail laid out a shift in Tiger's shipping processes. Invoices from July 2025 showed Tiger had sent alloClae directly to his Fifth Avenue office. But starting in August, the month after the inspection, the products were mailed to homes and offices in New Jersey and Connecticut, and employees or Ubers would courier them across state lines, the health department said.

Schaffner, who declined to comment, received at least $95,000 worth of alloClae initially shipped to addresses outside of New York, according to invoices filed in court records.

Some boxes went to the New York City office of plastic surgeon Matthew Schulman, the FedEx records show. In a YouTube video posted last fall, he gleefully unpacked 287.5 cubic centimeters of alloClae as the Pointer Sisters' "I'm So Excited" played in the background. Schulman's name, with McGee's home address, was visible on a shipping label.

If Schulman's boxes were typical — as a review of more than a dozen plastic surgeons' unboxing videos on Instagram suggests — a total of 15,840 cubic centimeters of alloClae could have been sent via McGee's home. The prices on 11 of Schaffner's invoices filed in court average $86.29 per cubic centimeter; at that price, more than $1.3 million worth of alloClae could have been shipped through McGee.

Schulman did not respond to requests for comment.

Tiger has asked that the state's allegations be struck from the court record because, among other things, they argue, the health department could be cherry-picking from its investigative file to benefit their case.

Some New York surgeons are still using alloClae

Doctors who received alloClae say they ordered the product from Tiger and didn't know the route it took.

"He had no idea that this was a challenge, or how stuff was showing up, or any of that," said Ken Sterling, an attorney for Dr. Jason Emer. Sterling said Emer has not been contacted by medical authorities.

Samira Shamoon, a publicist for Dr. Darren Smith, said in an email that "when Dr. Smith was using AlloClae, he purchased it directly from the company and had no knowledge of irregularities." Smith is no longer offering the product, she said.

ME Plastic Surgery, which has locations on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue and in Queens, recently updated a blog post to say that it is not offering alloClae.

Several New York doctors said in early June that they're still using alloClae. Tiger has said it's suspending distribution to New York, but the product can still be "legally sold." In the meantime, doctors in the state continue to promote it.

Emer posted an Instagram video on June 12 showing himself injecting alloClae into a patient's buttocks.

"Don't be left behind," the caption reads, along with a peach emoji. The geotag: New York City.

• Sam Altman showed up in court as jury selection began in a civil trial between him and Elon Musk.
• Some potential jurors offered unfavorable views about AI — and Musk.
• Musk sued OpenAI, Altman, and OpenAI president Greg Brockman two years ago.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman made an unexpected appearance in a California courtroom Monday as jury selection in his high-stakes legal feud with Elon Musk kicked off.

Altman, who wore a dark-colored suit and white shirt, was spotted inside the Oakland courtroom, where some potential jurors in the federal civil trial shared unfavorable views about artificial intelligence — and Musk, the world's richest man.

"Elon doesn't care about people, just like our president," one prospective juror told US District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.

The man, who works in construction and described himself as a "meme junky" and a "dying breed" who still gets print newspaper subscriptions, added that he thinks Musk only cares about money.

Another prospective juror who works for the city of Oakland said he has a strong opinion about Musk. He said that he would do his "best" to approach the case without bias, even though he called Musk a "jerk" in a pre-trial jury questionnaire.

Musk was not in attendance for day one of the trial between two of the tech industry's most powerful billionaires. Since it is a civil trial, the parties are not required to appear unless they are testifying. Up until now, Musk and Altman have largely left the matter to their lawyers, aside from the occasional online jab.

The Tesla CEO sued OpenAI, Altman, and OpenAI president Greg Brockman two years ago, alleging that they intentionally "deceived" him into cofounding the company with them in 2015.

Musk alleges in his lawsuit that he poured tens of millions into OpenAI to support its founding mission as a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI for the public's benefit, only for that mission to later be abandoned, in part, through the company's partnership with Microsoft. Microsoft is also named as a defendant in Musk's lawsuit.

The lawsuit seeks more than $100 billion in damages, along with sweeping changes to the structure of the $850 billion company behind ChatGPT. The case comes as OpenAI is reportedly preparing for an initial public offering.

Earlier Monday, Musk and OpenAI traded barbs on Musk's X platform about the case, with Musk referring to Altman as "Scam Altman" and OpenAI ripping Musk's lawsuit as a "baseless and jealous bid to derail a competitor."

Musk is expected to testify in the weeks-long trial, along with Altman and other tech execs like Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Some potential jurors questioned on Monday told the court that they had reservations surrounding AI.

A registered nurse said she doesn't trust AI and isn't a fan of how the rapidly advancing technology is being used in the workplace.

"It's just giving me more work to do," said the woman who explained that her employer uses AI tools to process patient records that she still has to review for errors.

One woman who works in the psychiatric patient care unit at Stanford University said she had some concerns about AI but could approach the case with an open mind.

"I personally don't use it much because I do find that I have to double check everything, and at this point, I might as well do it myself," said the woman, who was ultimately chosen to sit on the jury.

A different juror prospect, a PhD student in genetics, said she has a ChatGPT subscription and uses it, along with Anthropic's Claude, to write code and emails.

Concerns of the juror prospects were also reflected outside the courthouse, where protesters gathered to demonstrate against AI. A person in a robot suit wore a sign that said, "Altman's AI enslaver." A giant inflatable tube figure read: "Elon sucks."

By the end of Monday, nine jurors were selected for the trial. Opening arguments are set to begin Tuesday.

At one point, Musk's attorney, Steven Molo, asked the judge to dismiss a juror prospect who called Musk a "greedy, racist, homophobic piece of garbage" in her questionnaire and another who wrote that Musk is a "world-class jerk."

"Look, the reality is that people don't like him," the judge told Musk's legal team about their client. "But that doesn't mean that Americans, nevertheless, can't have integrity for the judicial process."

• Meta and YouTube were found negligent in a landmark social media addiction trial.
• The case centered on a woman who said social media harmed her mental health from a young age.
• The case is viewed as a key test of how juries may see dozens of similar pending lawsuits.

Meta and Google were found negligent in a social media addiction trial in Los Angeles on Wednesday, potentially setting the stage for dozens of similar lawsuits that have been brought against Big Tech companies.

The case centered on a 20-year-old woman, identified as KGM, who said her use of social media from a young age was detrimental to her mental health and accused the companies of knowingly engineering their products to addict kids.

After nine days of deliberation, the jury found Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and Google, which owns YouTube, negligent. In a 10-to-2 vote, the jury also ruled that the two companies knew their design was "dangerous" but failed to warn the plaintiffs.

The jury awarded the plaintiff $6 million. That's $3 million in compensatory damages and an additional $3 million in punitive damages.

The jury determined Meta was responsible for 70% of the harm, while YouTube was responsible for 30%. That means the total damages owed by Meta is $4.2 million, while YouTube owes $1.8 million.

The plaintiff's lead counsel, the Lanier Law Firm, called the verdict "a referendum" in a statement. "For years, social media companies have profited from targeting children while concealing their addictive and dangerous design features," the statement said.

Spokespeople for Meta and Google both said the companies disagreed with the verdicts and plan to appeal.

"Teen mental health is profoundly complex and cannot be linked to a single app," a Meta spokesperson said. "We will continue to defend ourselves vigorously as every case is different, and we remain confident in our record of protecting teens online."

"This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site," the Google spokesperson said.

The Los Angeles state court trial has been viewed as a bellwether, offering a key test of how juries may see similar personal injury lawsuits brought by over 2,000 individuals. Meta has said potential damages in certain cases could reach into the "high tens of billions of dollars."

TikTok and Snapchat were also defendants, but settled the lawsuit before the trial began.

Meta executives testified at the trial last month, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri, drawing large crowds of media and concerned parents, including some involved in other social media addiction lawsuits. YouTube's VP of engineering, Cristos Goodrow, also testified.

The companies have argued that plaintiffs' struggles are due to myriad reasons and can't necessarily be linked to social media.

During Meta's closing argument at the Los Angeles trial, Paul Schmidt, one of the company's attorneys, said the plaintiff needed to prove that if Instagram were taken away from KGM, her "life would be meaningfully different."

"The evidence has shown just the opposite," Schmidt said.

In January, Meta warned investors that its mounting legal battles related to youth safety could "significantly impact" its 2026 financial results. Attorneys for more than 100,000 individual arbitration claimants have "sent mass arbitration demands relating to 'social media addiction'" since late 2024, the company said in a 2026 10-K, specifically noting the case in Los Angeles, as well as a separate case in New Mexico.

The New Mexico case, which occurred at the same time as the Los Angeles trial, addressed different legal and technical issues.

On Tuesday, a jury in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $375 million after a verdict came down in the state's lawsuit against the company about sexual exploitation.

Meta said it would appeal the case.

• A competency hearing is set to begin Tuesday in the sex trafficking case against Michael Jeffries.
• His lawyers hope to prove the ex-CEO of retail giant Abercrombie & Fitch is mentally unfit for trial.
• They say he has dementia and could "blurt out self-incriminating statements" in front of a jury.

As CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch some 20 years ago, Michael Jeffries helmed an international retail giant whose advertising was steeped in racy images of beachside adventure and shirtless young men.

On Tuesday, Jeffries, 81, must appear in a Long Island courtroom for a sex trafficking case that alleges he used his power and wealth to abuse dozens of aspiring male models.

Jeffries' lawyers are set to argue during three days of hearings this week that their client, now 81, is mentally incompetent to be tried on those charges.

The ex-CEO, who pleaded not guilty to the charges in 2024, has Alzheimer's and Lewy body dementia, a neurodegenerative disease, his lawyers say. Jeffries also suffers continuing effects from a traumatic brain injury, they say; three defense experts are poised to testify.

Should he be required to stand trial — jury selection is scheduled to start October 26 — Jeffries would not understand the proceedings or be able to assist in his defense, his lawyers have said.

His dementia may even disrupt the trial, they argue.

Jeffries is prone to memory lapses and "inappropriate behavior" that could spill over into the courtroom, his lawyers warned in a court filing last year.

"He may blurt out self-incriminating statements or engage in erratic behavior, which would undermine his credibility and risk prejudicing the judge or jury against him," they wrote.

Prosecutors counter that Jeffries's condition has improved after more than four months of mental health treatment and evaluation at a federal correctional institution in Butner, North Carolina.

They plan to present testimony from three experts during the three-day hearing to prove he is now competent to stand trial.

They may also present some of more than 100 audio recordings of phone calls between Jeffries and his romantic partner, Matthew Smith — a co-defendant in the case — from Jeffries' time at Butner.

Prosecutors allege that Jeffries, Smith, and their employee, co-defendant James Jacobson, ran an international sex trafficking and prostitution business that targeted men who were young, financially insolvent, and eager to become models for the top brand.

The alleged victims were abused between 2008 and 2015 in a series of attacks at drug-fueled "sex events" across the US and at luxury hotels in Europe, Morocco, and Saint Barthelemy, according to a 2024 indictment.

Smith and Jacobson have also pleaded not guilty to the charges. All three are currently free on bail.

Jeffries earned "tens of millions of dollars per year" at the height of his career, prior to his retirement in 2014, according to prosecutors. He has posted $10 million bail.

Prosecutors have seized more than $11 million in cash from a trust fund controlled by Jeffries, according to court records.

All three defendants face a mandatory minimum 15-year sentence and as much as life in prison if convicted.

• Jeffrey Epstein victims and Bank of America reached a settlement in a class-action lawsuit.
• The terms haven't yet been publicly disclosed.
• JPMorgan paid $290 million and Deutsche Bank paid $75 million for similar lawsuit settlements.

Bank of America settled a proposed class-action lawsuit from Jeffrey Epstein accusers who alleged the bank facilitated the now-dead pedophile's sex-trafficking operation, court records show.

Lawyers for the bank and a group of Epstein accusers told the judge overseeing the case during a pretrial conference last week that they "reached a settlement in principle," according to a Monday update to the case's docket.

The terms of the settlement were not made public.

US District Judge Jed Rakoff, who is overseeing the case, gave a March 27 deadline for the parties to file public documents laying out the settlement's terms, and an April 2 hearing to decide whether to approve them.

"The women entrapped and abused by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell started a monumental reckoning with their brave voices and fearlessness," Sigrid McCawley, an attorney at Boies Schiller Flexner representing the Epstein accusers, said in a comment. "The road to justice for these women has been long and trying. Today's resolution of the case against Bank of America is one more step on the road to much deserved justice."

A representative for Bank of America declined to comment. In previous public statements and court filings, the bank denied wrongdoing.

The settlement scuttles a scheduled deposition for Leon Black, the billionaire ex-CEO of Apollo Global Management, which was set for March 26.

The accusers' lawsuit had alleged that Black's more than $150 million in transfers to Epstein — which Black has said was for financial and estate-planning services — facilitated Epstein's sex-trafficking. Bank of America should have paid closer attention to Black's accounts and any transactions related to Epstein, the lawsuit said.

Black has separately been asked to testify before the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating Epstein, on May 13.

JPMorgan agreed to pay $290 million, and Deutsche Bank agreed to a $75 million payout, to settle similar lawsuits brought by the same group of lawyers representing Epstein victims.

Rakoff previously tossed a parallel lawsuit the attorneys brought against BNY — formerly Bank of New York Mellon Corp. — but allowed portions of the case against Bank of America to move forward.

In an earlier court hearing, Rakoff said he would be disappointed if the cases against BNY and Bank of America didn't go to trial.

"I don't want to discourage you from settling," the judge said. "There are some of my colleagues that think settling is always the way to go. But I'm much more selfish and I would love to see two very good trials."