--- title: LITIGATION: Selling to Beat The Devil description: Selling to Beat The Devil canonical: https://time.com/archive/6715621/litigation-selling-to-beat-the-devil/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 1990-08-13T04:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-27T21:22:30.640Z article:section: U.S. og:title: LITIGATION: Selling to Beat The Devil og:description: Selling to Beat The Devil og:url: https://time.com/archive/6715621/litigation-selling-to-beat-the-devil/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: LITIGATION: Selling to Beat The Devil twitter:description: Selling to Beat The Devil twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # LITIGATION: Selling to Beat The Devil by [TIME](/author/time/) Aug 13, 1990 4:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) Aug 13, 1990 4:00 AM CUT Bareknuckle competition is the credo of American business, but James and Linda Newton may have taken things too far. In a lawsuit filed last week, Procter & Gamble accuses the Parsons, Kans., couple of promoting their independent Amway distributorship by linking P&G to satanism. The Newtons allegedly circulated a flyer claiming that the president of P&G “gave Satan all the credit for his riches” and offering information on “alternative products.” For more than a decade, P&G has been bedeviled by the satanism charge. Tales that its 108-year-old moon-and-stars logo was demonic forced the symbol off company packaging. Three previous rumors were traced to Amway distributors, who were repudiated by Amway officials. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6715621/litigation-selling-to-beat-the-devil/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6715621/litigation-selling-to-beat-the-devil/"},"headline":"LITIGATION: Selling to Beat The Devil","datePublished":"1990-08-13T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-27T21:22:30.640Z","description":"Selling to Beat The Devil","url":"https://time.com/archive/6715621/litigation-selling-to-beat-the-devil/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6715621/litigation-selling-to-beat-the-devil/","name":"LITIGATION: Selling to Beat The Devil"}}]}] ```