Source: SFGate.com, Blogspot.com
TV pitchman Kevin Trudeau…(has been) sentenced…to 10 years in prison for bilking consumers via infomercials for his best-selling weight loss book…
As he imposed the sentence prosecutors had requested, U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman portrayed the 50-year-old Trudeau as a habitual fraudster going back to his early adulthood. So brazen was Trudeau…he once even used his own mother’s Social Security number in a scheme. (The judge) called…Trudeau “deceitful to the core” and…(said) that for decades Trudeau had “steadfastly attempted to cheat others for his own personal gain.”
…(T)rudeau has been jailed since November (2014), when jurors convicted him of criminal contempt for defying a 2004 court order barring him from running false ads about the book. Despite the order, Trudeau aired the infomercials at least 32,000 times, according to prosecutors…
(He) touted his book, The Weight Loss Cure ‘They’ Don’t Want You to Know About, in commercials that often employed news-interview formats…He sold more than 850,000 copies…generating $39 million in revenue, prosecutors say…
(The) weight-loss book, which once topped best-seller lists, was the focus of the criminal conviction and a related civil case brought by the Federal Trade Commission, in which Trudeau was ordered to pay a $37 million judgment…
As legal scrutiny intensified over the years, Trudeau claimed the U.S. government was out to get him, and he accused agencies and other vested interests of conspiring to suppress low-cost, common remedies to diseases, including cancer… Among (Trudeaus’s) recommendations is:
– Never to take a prescription drug of any kind.
– Avoid sunscreen when in the sun, since it causes cancer (the sun, on the other hand, is the source of all health)
– That acid reflux disease is a myth, but still treatable by drinking vinegar.
– Dianetics
– Raw milk
– Daily injection of HCG (for weight loss)
– That pork and shellfish are poison.
– Never use the microwave; in fact, ready-made foot is unhealthy because it isn’t imbued with the love-energy imbued by home cooking.
– Sungazing (staring directly at the sun) as a cure for a range of diseases
– Colonics every other day.
…Trudeau said he couldn’t pay the civil judgment because he’s broke. But FTC lawyers balked at that claim, accusing him of hiding money in shell companies. Trudeau, they noted, has spent lavishly in recent years, including $359 on two haircuts.
(H)is lawyers have argued it can only be said 67 buyers were defrauded because that’s how many complained to consumer protection agencies.