A Durham man well known in health food circles has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison on drug charges, United States Attorney Thomas E. Delahanty II announced Monday.

Seth Leaf Pruzansky, 36, was sentenced by the U.S. District Court in Portland following a conviction on a charge of conspiracy to distribute marijuana, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice. After his release from prison, he must have four years of supervised release.

Pruzansky co-owned Living Nutz, a raw food vendor specializing in organic snack foods, with his brother, Davy Pruzansky, at the time of his arrest.

“Pruzansky was also ordered to forfeit $147,500, a BMW, a Ford F-150, a silver collection, and a residence under construction in Oxford County that was financed with approximately $500,000 in drug proceeds,” the release said.

Pruzansky has been involved in trafficking large quantities of marijuana since 2006, the release said.

He was arrested last year when Drug Enforcement Agency officers found him loading 64 pounds of marijuana into his vehicle in Portland.

Living Nutz has been featured in the Sun Journal and other news outlets after growing from a startup established in 2001 to a notable player in the raw foods movement. Its products were included in gift bags given out at the Screen Actors Guild awards ceremony in 2008.

The Pruzansky brothers also operate Intellihemp, a company that produces hemp-based lip balm, and Seth Pruzansky has been described as an advocate for the legalization of industrial hemp production.