Posted on 03/17/2014 7:08:00 PM PDT by opentalk
CHICAGO (AP) - Best-selling author Kevin Trudeau, whose name became synonymous with late-night TV pitches, was sentenced to 10 years in prison Monday for bilking consumers through ubiquitous infomercials for his book, "The Weight Loss Cure 'They' Don't Want You to Know About."
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, the judge said, he once even used his own mother's Social Security number in a scheme.
... defense attorney Tom Kirsch said the harm Trudeau caused was minor compared to fraud in which some people are cheated out of their life savings. …"A 10-year sentence might be appropriate for a defendant who destroyed lives," Kirsch said. "(But) Trudeau - if he swindled anyone - swindled them out of $30 (the price of the book)."
(Excerpt) Read more at wset.com ...
There ya go.
The New York state Consumer Protection Board warns those who follow Kevin Trudeau’s advice to call a toll-free number for information that Trudeau is selling their name and contact information to telemarketers and junk mailers.
Some of Trudeau’s customers have also complained of unexpected charges for his newsletter and discount purchase programs. (10/28/05)
Trudeau’s troubles with the FTC continue. The FTC charges that Trudeau “deceptively claimed” in infomercials that the weight-loss plan outlined in his latest book is “easy to do, can be done at home, and ultimately allows readers to eat whatever they want.” The diet actually “requires severe dieting,” daily injections of a prescription drug not approved by the Food and Drug Administration for weight loss, and “lifelong dietary restrictions.”* Read the FTC press release of Sept. 14, 2007.
During the early 1990s, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Trudeau served nearly two years in prison. In 1990, he pled guilty to larceny in a Cambridge, Massachusetts, state court in connection with $80,000 in worthless checks he had deposited at a bank. The sentencing memorandum said that he had posed as a doctor to increase his credibility with bank officials. In 1991, he pled guilty to credit-card fraud in Boston federal district court. Among his misdeeds in the federal case, he misappropriated for his own use the credit-card numbers of customers of the memory-improvement courses that he offered at the time. (Barrett 2004)
In the credit card swindle, he defrauded American Express out of $122,735.68. He also swindled about five grand from several banks, including Chemical and Citibank. The Smoking Gun has posted a copy of the indictment.
Presumably, Nutrition for Life International Inc. (NFLI) knew about Trudeau’s past when it took him on as a business partner. NFLI, an MLM outfit specializing in such things as shark cartilage capsules and other equally beneficial nutritional supplies went into bankruptcy in 2003,* but not before making Trudeau and some other investors very rich.
http://www.skepdic.com/trudeau.html
Trudeau, that’s a French name isn’t it? Did he immediately surrender to the authorities?
Again, it’s completely irrelevant if I or anyone else on this thread has.
A court of law found him guilty.
Period.
And this wasn’t his first conviction.
Off to the slammer he goes.
I only wish Corzine and Al Gore and Oprah (for damaging beef sales with her slanted ‘reporting’) were following him.
I agree. Politics is the way to go if you want to commit crime and stay out of jail.
Ron Popeil is laughing.
There’s got to be more to this.
You can go to jail for promoting a book? What?
We don’t have enough room in the prisons.
Who was his lawyer? Is book promotion a contract or an invitation?
Damn skippy!
The perfect crime.
It’s relevant to me that I read one of this guy’s books. I was in a business a few years back that would often overlap with “alternative medicine”, and his book would come up fairly often. My father in law had it, so I took it home and put it in the “reading room”. He just threw together some alternative treatments and folk remedies at the end, after spending hundreds of pages on a conspiracy theory. None of it is sourced at all; the reader is to just take his word for all of it. Remarkable, but not anything a guy should do serious time over.
Just look at the fleecing Obama is doing.
Obama is Ron Popeil on steroids.
Obamacare is the biggest grift ever conceived.
http://watch32.com/movies-online/the-art-of-the-steal-308368/full.html
Kevin Trudeau
January 27
As you all know I am facing 20 years or more. I will be sentenced sometime on March 17th. When I get out of prison I will be penniless and homeless. They have taken everything! All I have left is a few suitcases and cloths. Many friends have said I could stay with them when/if I get out of prison. I am deeply thankful. I am excited about the adventure that awaits me! I might just “walk the earth, like Cain in Kung Fu”! I may actually consider traveling the world giving workshops, lectures and private sessions with people. If I do that it could be fun to stay with people as I travel. If you would be interested in hosting me for a week or longer, write me a letter and tell me more! I do not know if it will be anytime soon as I might be here for many years....but let’s dream and lets have some fun! Think about it…I could stay with you, and do some workshops or lectures in your community...we could have some fun! (I am a clean houseguest and a good cook!) Lets dream together about the future...and feel good when thinking about it...thus creating “deliberately” the future as WE want it...instead of by default!
Much love!
Kevin Trudeau - 18046036
MCC CHICAGO
METROPOLITAN CORRECTIONAL CENTER
71 WEST VAN BUREN STREET
CHICAGO, IL 60605
https://www.facebook.com/TheKevinTrudeau
Trudeau is under no travel restrictions and has appeared at court hearings in the United States whenever his presence has been required. But it does appear that Trudeau has made himself comfortable in Zurich, at least judging by his credit card records subpoenaed by the FTC. Late last year, he dropped more than $30,000 on an oriental carpet and more than $110,000 at furniture boutiques.
The FTC cites those credit card bills in its allegations that Trudeau is burning through cash while paying almost nothing toward the court-ordered judgment. According to those records, Trudeau has been averaging about $1 million a year in new charges, and the bills, the FTC says, are being paid mainly by the very corporations the government says Trudeau effectively controls. Trudeau “continues to spend money at a remarkable pace … with complete disregard” for the court’s orders, the FTC wrote in a February court filing.
http://abcnews.go.com/images/US/ht_nataliya_trudeau_kb_130529_wblog.jpg
“Trudeau has gone to extraordinary lengths to shelter or conceal significant assets,” the FTC writes in court documents, by “transferring them offshore…keeping his name off corporate records and bank accounts” and “transferring funds through multiple bank accounts to conceal their origin.”
THE INFOMERCIAL KING TAKES A BRIDE
One of the keys to Trudeau’s alleged asset-protection plan, according to the government, is his wife, Nataliya Babenko, a native of the Ukraine currently studying film at New York University. They were married when she was 22, in June 2008, just five months before Trudeau was first hit with the $37 million penalty. The government alleges that Trudeau then proceeded to install her as an owner or executive of several companies.
Among the companies that Babenko directly or indirectly owns, the FTC alleges, is a multi-layered marketing foundation called the Global Information Network, known by the acronym GIN. It is billed as private wealth, health and success- building club, boasting of thousands of members in more than 150 countries. The foundation was created in the Caribbean nation of St. Kitts and Nevis in 2009.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2013/05/kevin-trudeau-chasing-the-dream-seller/
For someone who says he’s broke, Kevin Trudeau sure owns some fancy cuff links, the feds say.
The white-gold, diamond cuff links from swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe cost the silver-tongued infomercial king and convicted fraudster $12,500, they say.
Then there’s the overseas bookie’s account containing 73,000 Swiss francs; the Australian bank account containing $141,000; $100,000 worth of gold bars; his wife’s new apartment in Ukraine, and the unaccounted-for millions passing through businesses he controls, they say.
For five years, Trudeau has failed to pay a single cent of a $38 million fine U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman imposed on him for flouting a court-ordered ban on making false claims in his diet book infomercials.
Though he was until recently driving a $340,000 Bentley, employing two chefs and was caught spending on luxuries including $180 Vidal Sassoon haircuts and $1,000 worth of fine meats, he continues to insist he is “penniless and homeless” and can’t pay the fine. His lawyers say he’s being unfairly targeted by the “shrill” complaints of the Federal Trade Commission.
One of his commercials was on early this morning.
The severity of his sentence was for ignoring prior court orders not for the fraud, I think it would have been fine to put him in jail just for the fraud, though.
“You come in and you’ve got a bad sore throat, or your child has a bad sore throat or has repeated sore throats,” President Obama explained at Wednesday’s press conference. “The doctor may look at the reimbursement system and say to himself, ‘You know what? I make a lot more money if I take this kid’s tonsils out.’”
I mean, there's charlatans, and there's charlatans.
In other news Barry Obama was elected president.
He had been sued many times in the past for fraud and was banned from tv. I was surprised recently when going thru the tv channels and seeing him on a Mexican tv station selling books on how to get money from the US gov’t. Had Spanish being spoken over his English.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
