Siskind testified that his firm, Mark Nutritionals Inc., had made $80 million in 2001 selling Body Solutions products, including its staple — Body Solutions Evening Weight Loss Formula — for $40 to $60 a bottle.

Body Solutions was touted by disc jockeys around the country, telling their personal stories of success using the product. Even such luminaries as CBS Radio's Charles Osgood convinced hundreds of thousands of listeners that a concoction of 20 ingredients mixed with aloe vera was the answer to their weight-loss woes.

And it was easy; the promise to users was "lose weight while you sleep."

In 2001, the company advertised on 755 radio stations. But by mid-2002, on-air testimonials had plummeted to about 50 stations and the phone calls made to the company's sprawling headquarters and call center at Highway 281 and Bitters Road had slowed to a trickle.

By summer 2002, Siskind told the FTC lawyers, things weren't going so well. Sales for the first half of the year were only about $30 million and his $1 million salary from 2001 wasn't likely to be repeated.

Just three months after Siskind met with FTC investigators, Mark Nutritionals filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization and the reins of the firm were pulled from Siskind and New Jersey partner Edward D'Alessandro Jr.

In December 2002, the Federal Trade Commission and the Texas attorney general filed a lawsuit against the company and Siskind and D'Alessandro.

By the time it all unraveled, 600 San Antonians were out of jobs, radio disc jockeys across the nation were out their commissions and a host of companies still are hoping to get some of the $37 million they are owed.

Today, the FTC — which once sought $155 million from Mark Nutritionals — has reached a settlement with Siskind, but the details won't be made public until FTC commissioners vote on the agreement, which likely will occur in December.

Tom Carter, a Dallas-based FTC lawyer who led the investigation, said the federal government has made it a priority to keep Siskind and D'Alessandro from restarting the firm or selling diet products again.

"We're backing out of seeking money there," Carter said. "We don't feel like there's a whole lot there."

Siskind declined to comment. He consistently has declined interviews for stories about the company in the last 21/2 years, even during the firm's heyday in 2001.

As the FTC prepares to settle, other parties are prepared to fight over whatever scraps of the company's assets can be found.

In Texas, the state attorney general is after millions on claims the company wasn't putting what it claimed into the product and continued to use labels that had the words "weight loss" even after an injunction stopping the practice. The attorneys general of Illinois and Pennsylvania filed actions of their own against the company early this year.

And a national class-action lawsuit by Body Solutions users wants $190 million that was spent long ago.

When it comes to where the money is or where it went, answers are hard to come by.

By government estimations, the company took in $155 million to $190 million from 1999 through its final days in early 2003. Many millions were spent on employee wages, paying the overhead and buying radio advertisements and endorsements across the nation.

Federal bankruptcy judge Leif Clark is concerned that all the money hasn't been accounted for. And creditors wonder what went to finance Siskind's lavish lifestyle.

A corporate jet, which Siskind used for family trips and entertaining friends, along with three houses in the same neighborhood and a nightclub on the River Walk were some possessions that raised eyebrows even when the company was flying high.

The jet ultimately was returned to Clear Channel Communications Inc., the San Antonio-based radio giant, after Mark Nutritionals could no longer make the payments. Clear Channel stations and related companies are owed about $10 million by Mark Nutritionals.

How Mark Nutritionals drew the notice of the FTC is revealed through dozens of interviews by the Express-News during the last three years, public documents, legal depositions and transcripts of investigation interviews obtained from the commission.

Less than a decade ago, Siskind was a sought-after tabloid news photographer. He spent days and even weeks at a time on the road following celebrities around the nation, hiding out in swamps and bushes and shivering at the bottom of the ski slopes of Aspen, Colo., to get pictures no one else could.

Siskind, in June 2002, explained to FTC investigators that he wanted to travel less and spend more time with his family. So he and his wife, Patti, launched a network marketing business, but he said they soon abandoned it because of the bad rap that business model had with consumers.

Siskind came to San Antonio to rescue diet cookie company Texas D'Lites. The company failed when a partner in the venture went to Alabama with key investors and salespeople to launch a competing product.

Siskind reinvented himself in San Antonio. He made a fortune, not with his camera, but with a single promise: "Lose weight while you sleep."

Mark Nutritionals was an effort to get away from multilevel marketing, which uses an independent sales force that gets incentives for recruiting more salespeople.

Instead, Siskind contacted a few San Antonio talk show hosts and DJs to use the Body Solutions product. If they lost weight, they'd be paid to tell their story on air.

Siskind said he doesn't know if they actually lost weight, but told the FTC that the product worked for him and that the on-air personalities ran the risk of losing their licenses if they lied on the air.

The practice eventually spread to hundreds of stations and nearly 700 radio personalities in 110 markets. Thousands of people ordered the product every month and followed the directions: they took the Body Solutions formula before going to bed and didn't eat anything for at least three hours before going to sleep.

Most tried it because they trusted the testimony of the radio personalities, some of whom claimed they could eat anything they wanted and still shed pounds without exercise.

To differentiate the products from competitors, Siskind hired San Antonio researcher Gil Kaats to conduct studies on the formula. Armed with the studies, DJs began telling their weight-loss stories and citing the research.

Several class-action lawsuits in Florida, Michigan and other states — now combined into one national class action — grew out of users saying they bought the product on the word of the testimonials but didn't get results.

The class-action lawsuits, Siskind acknowledged to the FTC, had a chilling effect on sales, as did television news programs doing negative stories during sweeps months — a time stations focus intensely on gaining higher ratings.

By fall of 2001 — when the company spent more than $45 million on radio ads and marketing — the FTC began looking closely at the company and the advertising. In June 2002, investigators were interviewing Mark Nutritionals officials and others associated with the firm.

The FTC decided the company couldn't back up its claims.

Carter, the Dallas-based FTC lawyer who led the investigation, said the government didn't go after the radio stations or the on-air staff touting Body Solutions because it is trying instead to send a message about what kind of advertising is appropriate and what is deceptive.

"It is inappropriate at this juncture to go off and sue them (radio stations and DJs). We're trying to partner with them," Carter said.

But even as the FTC was circling Body Solutions in 2001 and early 2002, things were beginning to change.

The call-center staff was reduced; Siskind began the risky move away from radio to get his products on store shelves.

It was a strategy that had worked well for other diet product companies such as SlimFast and MetaboLife. By the time Body Solutions tried to break in, however, the market had become crowded. Retailers could charge millions for shelf space in thousands of stores, such as Eckerd and Walgreen's.

A Mark Nutritionals spokesman said the company had high hopes for the retail market. That same week, Cox Radio Inc. sued the company for unpaid bills. It was the first of several firms to sue even as bankruptcy loomed.

As advertising bills went unpaid and radio ads were cut off, orders slowed down too. That sent Siskind to New Orleans-based Hibernia National Bank Factoring Services in May 2002.

The loan Mark Nutritionals took out put future sales up as collateral to raise money. Borrowing money through "factoring" usually is considered a last resort because it is expensive.

Soon, the slowing business and the outstanding debts became a crushing weight that no amount of job cuts could ease and the company collapsed in September 2002 — only months before regulators made their move in court.

The FTC went after the company owners.

D'Alessandro recently settled with the federal government and the states for about $140,000 and an agreement to never work in the diet-products business again without scientific evidence to back any claims made. The states of Texas, Pennsylvania and Illinois split another $40,000 in a separate agreement.

The New Jersey and New York lawyer said he doesn't have any more money to go after and just wants to run his law practice. The settlement was paid for out of $150,000 he received for relinquishing his hold on the ownership of the former Body Solutions building so it could be sold to Goodwill without a prolonged legal fight.

According to documents provided by the company to the FTC, D'Alessandro received more than $3 million from Mark Nutritionals and D&A Equipment from the company's inception through mid-2002.

D'Alessandro said he was never involved in the day-to-day operations of the firm — something Siskind backs up in his testimony — but said he regrets that it didn't work out and that 600 people lost their jobs.

He said some bad management decisions and other factors ultimately killed what he believed could have been an ongoing company.

In his interview with FTC lawyers, D'Alessandro expressed concern that his name was on papers he'd never seen. And he said he wasn't aware of Harry and Patti Siskind's salaries in 2001, which far exceeded what the partners had agreed upon.

After the bankruptcy, the company struggled to stay alive under watch of turnaround specialist Larry Cochran.

One move was to try to provide the government with proof that the products actually helped people shed pounds.

But a January 31, 2003, report from Midwest Research Inc. dashed any such hopes. The study funded by Mark Nutrionals found no statistically significant difference in weight loss experienced by people who took Body Solutions and those that received a placebo.

Bankruptcy Judge Clark pulled the plug on the company in April when he agreed with the attorney general that without the ability to make any weight-loss claims, the company couldn't sell products and recover. The firm was converted to Chapter 7 liquidation and put into the hands of a trustee.

It isn't known whether there will be any money left to pay creditors such as San Antonio-based radio and billboard giant Clear Channel Communications Inc., Infinity Broadcasting and other radio firms and suppliers.

Although Siskind didn't agree to comment for this story, he did respond to written questions from the Express-News via e-mail in August 2001. In those responses, he defended the Body Solutions product and its effectiveness.

Asked where he saw the company in five years, Siskind said, "No one really knows what the future holds. But Patti and I are confident Mark Nutritionals will be very much alive and well and providing rewarding careers for hundreds of people who work in our company."