IN THE UNITED STATES
DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
Case 1:03-cv-03904
FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION (Plaintiff)
v.
KEVIN TRUDEAU (Defendant)
The graphic above -- and of course you will probably need to click on it to enlarge it -- was taken from one of several interesting documents filed on July 13 of this year. (A link is provided at the end of this post.) Court documents related to this case are public record; many can be found on the FTC Web site, and other sites, by typing in the case number and state.
Here are just some of the things the document previewed above says about the "fearless whistle blower" that Trudeau's minions imagine him to be:
To date, he has refused to pay any [of his fines to the FTC], claiming poverty. But his claim is a charade, flatly contradicted by the facts. Trudeau is engaged in multiple, lucrative business ventures and lives a life of luxury. Trudeau, his wife Nataliya Babenko, and the many corporations he owns or controls have held more than eighty (80) bank accounts at five different banks over the past five years, through which $220 million has flowed. Indeed, rather than making any reasonable effort to pay the sanction, Trudeau has gone to extraordinary lengths to shelter or conceal significant assets by, inter alia: transferring them offshore or to his wife, Babenko; keeping his name off corporate records and bank accounts by using Babenko and his long-time confidant Suneil Sant as his nominees; and in the case of his corporate affiliates, by “layering” or transferring funds through multiple bank accounts to conceal their origin. In addition to using his companies as a means to conceal his assets, Trudeau also has used a casino to launder funds, purchasing hundreds of thousands of dollars in chips, mostly with corporate funds, and then cashing out almost the same amount of chips later after relatively minimal gambling.
Bottom line: The FTC wants to put Kevin Trudeau in jail until and unless he pays his more than $37 million fine (the "sanction" referred to above). They are on his case big time.
Of course, True-dough will no doubt continue to milk it for all it's worth, as he has been doing for several years. He'll whine about how the big bad gummit is suppressing him because he is trying to exercise his rights of free speech to tell the unwashed masses about how bad the gummit is, and how bad Big Pharma is, and how bad the food industry is. Sadly, some of the minions still believe his whiny story.
But others -- and not just the authorities -- see him, and his Ponzi-ish Global Information Network (GIN) differently. Some of us have been snarking about it for years. But snarking can only do so much. The FTC and no doubt other government agencies see GIN for the Ponzi-ish scheme it is. And they've had True-dough's number for a long time. As the above-quoted document notes:
The Court is very familiar with Trudeau’s long history of deception and contumacious conduct.Let me be clear. I don't think there is anything wrong with being contumacious. But there is a LOT wrong with being deceptive, particularly if you are using deception to bilk people out of millions of dollars. And all of the frantic efforts by the apologists to paint Trudeau as a hero and GIN as something good and true and pure will not, in the long run (or even the short run) make a difference. (Sorry, L.E. and friends. Y'all are just going to have to find another fearless leader and can't-miss moneymaking bidness op to glom onto.)
Trudeau has had other setbacks too; on October 5, the Supreme Court of the United States denied a petition to hear his case, despite the Libertarian Cato Institute asking them to do so. Here is a link to a Cato Institute blog post about this. I urge you to read it because it does illustrate that not all of these issues are black-and-white, good-versus-evil matters. But frankly, I think Cato is kind of missing the larger point.
It's been a year of setbacks for True-dough, beginning earlier when it became clear that his efforts to hide some assets via sweet wifey Natalie were an epic fail. Natalie, Natalie, what have you gotten yourself into? Do you ever long for those simpler times when you and your hubby were kissing up to Joe Vitale and other New-Wage superstars, grooming them for involvement in GIN?
Near as I can tell, all of the above does not mean Trudeau necessarily will be incarcerated. And even at this late hour, I am still not sure that caging him is the best solution. After all, unlike some of the people that my colleagues and I have written about, he hasn't killed anyone (that I know of), nor is he an alleged sexual predator, that I know of.
But someone needs to stop him from scamming people.
In any case, more FTC/court action is due later this month. According to this document...
Trudeau's failure to pay a penny of the $37.6 million he owes is the subject of the FTC's collection proceedings and a pending Motion to Hold Defendant Trudeau in Contempt (Doc. 481). The court had entered and continued that motion until it ruled on the instant Motion to Modify. Having decided to deny the instant motion, the court hereby sets the following schedule on the FTC's Motion to Hold Defendant in Contempt (Doc. 481): Trudeau's response shall be filed on or before September 24, 2012; the FTC's reply shall be filed on or before October 15, 2012. The court will hold a status hearing on October 24, 2012, at 1:30 p.m. to determine whether an evidentiary hearing is required in connection with the FTC's Motion to Hold Defendant Trudeau in Contempt. The status hearing previously set for August 30, 2012, is vacated.There's a lot more information available, but alas, I haven't had much time for blogging. Real work -- or, more accurately, paying work -- has taken up a lot of my time. So I apologize to those who may have been counting on me to keep up with this. Fortunately there are others now to take up the slack. (Hint: Keep your eye on GINtruth.com.)
PS ~ Here is the link to the specific GINtruth post, just published, that provides links to some of the FTC documents referred to above.
And here is a link to the document from which I snipped the graphic above.
It is 22 pages long, but very well worth reading -- more concrete evidence of what some of us were saying years before we knew the particulars: Kevin Trudeau is a con artist, and GIN was one of the biggest scams of his life. And even if he does capitulate and pay that $37.6 million FTC fine, there are scads of other potential charges that can and probably will be piled upon his lying head. So stay tuned...
PPS ~ As per usual, the former Bernd Klein of the Republic of Germany is crowing on Facebook about his former B.F.F. He's taking another opportunity to flash his faux-creds and, more importantly, to mine the disgruntled GIN base for his own purposes. He's going to charge $28 just for that Life After GIN phone call on the 14th -- "to cover expenses." But hurry, because space is limited! If you attend, be sure to tell me what you find out about that $220 "money Laundry."
More True-dough on this Whirled:
- September 2012: Leonard Coldwell and Fred Van Liew: Pot, meet kettle
- August 2012: Truth is better than GIN any day
- July 2012: Drunk on GIN, and you can too!
- July 2012: Kevin Trudeau's GIN: part of the big sick machine
- July 2012: Independence Daze
- May 2012 (updated September 2012): Paging Dr. C: Bernd bridges in Deutschland?
- May 2012: Can alien DNA save Kevin Trudeau's GIN?
- May 2012: Does a canary with a GIN hangover sing as sweetly?
- April 2012: Viva Lost Wages: Sin City Become GIN City for a weekend
- February 2012: A. Rose by any other name would shill as sweet
- December 2011: True-dough updates: Bad poetry for KT, hate mail for CC
- November 2011: A jumpsuit for Jimmy
- August 2011: First Amendment Stuporhero
- August 2011: Calling all lazy men: let's build a pyramid together!
- August 2011: Everything old is Nouveau again (or, Neo-scam by any other name), Part 1 of 2
- June 2011: Holy Guacamole! True-dough's racist rants
- June 2011: For he's a jolly good felon: True-dough speaks out for Death Ray
- December 2009: Illuminutty: the secret brotherhood of the chronically gullible
- November 2009: How to take over the world
- July 2009: Horse farts and related matters
- January 2009: Mr. Fire meets up with true dough
* * * * *
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2 comments:
Virtually every conference call company offers a free service. Anyone can set up a conference call for no cost whatsoever. Leonard's $28 request per person to cover expenses of a conference call is transparently a lie. How could it not ruin whatever credibility he had remaining? Whew!
Lenny a liar? Goodness, what a shocker. :-)
Even some of Coldwell's remaining fans were looking askance at that $28 cost. I've heard early reports from some who were in on the call. The first hour was devoted to rehashing info about the latest developments re GIN, and there were some suggestions for more actions ex-GIN members could take to get their money back. Some people said they thought the info was good and was worth their time (but I have yet to see any mention of whether or not it was worth $28).
Apparently some time was also devoted to defending other GIN speakers, presumably such as Peter Ragnar and Ron Ball, who are still benefiting from GIN but whom the hosts of the phone call apparently still consider to be friends and money ops. The defense of the opportunistic GIN speakers did not sit well with some of the listeners.
After about the first hour there was a "surprise" guest. Guess who it was! Barb Pitfall! I mean Pitcock! Trying to suck more people into the MLM scheme in which Lenny et al. are involved. No. Big. Surprise. The smart people left the call when that crap started.
I've also heard that the peeps who actually ponied up for the call were promised a bonus: a copy of Lenny's "The Only Answer to Tyranny," which I am sure is a literary masterpiece. After all, look what it's currently going for on Amazon!
1 new from $1,148.35
5 used from $700.00
http://www.amazon.com/The-Only-Answer-Tyranny-Americas/dp/0982761686
I have to wonder how many people who were in on that call actually paid for it, and how the proceeds, if any, were split up. Maybe the whole $28 thing was just one of those "perceived value" ruses, drawing upon the traditional marketing wisdom that people will value something more if they have to pay for it. Certainly they would feel more internal pressure to stay for the sales pitch if they actually DID pay for it -- even if it WAS "only" $28.
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