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Friday, May 31, 2013

ABC has fun with Kevin Trudeau, and life goes on

Click on pic for direct link to read the ABC News story about KT and watch the video.

It's not that I didn't enjoy the latest ABC News report on serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, which aired on Wednesday night, May 29, 2013. I really did enjoy it. Thoroughly. The producers and reporters obviously put a lot of time and effort and expense into bringing us some rollicking good entertainment, and perhaps in the process they opened a few more eyes to the fact that... duh... Kevin Trudeau is a scammer, and his Ponzi-like Global Information Network (GIN) is a scam. I'm not trying to sell ABC short at all. ABC has had KT's number for years, as have numerous other mainstream and not-so-mainstream media outlets.

But some of the public has been slow to get the memo. Some never will, no matter how many good stories come out about KT. Even so, I have to believe that every critical story of a lifelong scammer like Kevin Trudeau does at least a little bit of good.

Trying in vain to get an interview with True-dough the normal way, the ABC News crew "ambushed" him (Kevin's words) in his new hometown of Zurich, Switzerland, one of the most expensive cities in the world. They also managed an interview at his "Dream Weekend" near Dallas this past April, although -- and this is no big surprise -- he wasn't very forthcoming with reporter Bill Weir. And on March 8, a little over a month before Dream Weekend, Bill Weir and crew picked up self-proclaimed GIN destroyer Abe Husein at the airport in Chicago in one of True-dough's leased Bentleys, and they all took a trip to the GIN offices in Chicagoland, as well as to KT's rented McMansion. (Abe got to drive the Bentley for a little while too.)

Immediately after the joyride, Abe was crowing about it all over Facebook, saying it was the best day of his life, and that it was sweet mother justice, and so on. Abe's mentor Loony Lenny Coldwell, former GIN speaker and ex-KT b.f.f., declared that on that momentous day, Abe had single-handedly destroyed GIN. Even the more reticent Peter Wink, former GIN marketing director and ex-KT b.f.f., sang the praises of a 27-year-old "kid" who had been able to accomplish what all of the big guys who'd been chasing KT for years had been unable to do. (About a month later, GIN sent an email out to its members about the upcoming ABC story as well. Here's Omri at Glancingweb, talking about that.)

So Abe had another moment of glory, and was, at the very least, a useful prop for the Chicago chapter of the story.
At the invitation of the ABC crew, Abe Husein climbs into the back seat of one of Kevin Trudeau's rented Bentleys,
armed with some GIN material (and, for some reason, a copy of Secret creator Rhonda Byrne's book, The Power).
Abe told the ABC reporters that at one time he believed
there really was a secret GIN Council,
and that it possibly included Will Smith and
Arnold Schwarzenegger, and perhaps Ron Paul as well.

But did that joyride in the Bentley really mark the end of GIN, as Loony Coldwell was saying? Did it mean that Kevin's scamming days are over for good? Probably not. That might make a good movie script someday, but the truth is much more complex, and as I have been saying nonstop for more than a year now, there will be no neat and tidy endings to this story. There rarely are, in Scamworld.

Still, the ABC show was good, and presented some pretty damning evidence against Kevin Trudeau, most of which those of us who have been following this story closely already knew. It was good to see it presented to a wider audience, even if it ultimately doesn't make much of a dent in Scamworld.

The story took a lighthearted, humorous approach -- a few have even said it was too lighthearted, to the point of being cartoonish. And some folks were disappointed because of that. Some think that this humorous, almost ridiculing approach may have actually worked in Kevin's favor. No doubt some KT fans fell even more in love with him after watching the show, and will continue to see him as the brave hero fighting the big bad government. (One diehard KT fan with whom I communicate on Facebook said she enjoyed the show a lot.)

Although there's been quite a lot of post-show buzz on Facebook and in the blogosphere so far (see links below), the net effects of the story remain to be seen. But keep in mind that this may not be the end of this cycle of KT coverage from ABC; I am sure they have many more hours of footage that they may roll out at some point.

In any case it is true that unlike ABC's relatively in-depth 2010 coverage of the James Arthur Ray debacle (with some side stories about some of Ray's fellow "stars" in The Secret), the ABC/KT segment Wednesday night was more "gotcha!" It was actually the kickoff for a new consumer-oriented ABC summer series, The Lookout, under the umbrella of Nightline/Primetime. Trudeau took up the first half of the hour-long premiere, and the second half was devoted to mold inspection scams. Next week: fat-burning machines and bedbugs. (Or locksmith scams and the truth about thread counts in sheets. ABC has run several different promos over the past few weeks so I imagine they're kind of making it up as they go along.) And so it goes.

The problems with Kevin Trudeau, of course, go far beyond consumer issues, and even beyond the white-collar crimes the FTC and probably several other government agencies have been trying to pin on him for years. There are also serious issues related to the selfish-help/New-Wage/McSpirituality industry and Scamworld -- issues such as manipulation, cult tactics, and just generally messing with people's minds and emotions (and little wonder, since KT has admitted being a fan of Scientology). But I wouldn't expect ABC to go into all of that regarding a scammer who, unlike James Ray, has so far not killed anyone (that I know of, anyway).

Despite the growing collection of evidence about Kevin's wrongdoings, he may, rightly or wrongly, still end up walking. Some have been speculating for months that this may be the case. Here's one guy, David Connelly, who, though far from the first to suggest such a scenario, does so in the context of responding to the ABC story. In his video Connelly purports to be an impartial observer, but later in one of the comments he says he is an unabashed Trudeau fan. Even so, and despite his apparent unwillingness to entertain any issues of morality or ethics, Connelly makes some good points about Kevin's clever maneuverings of funds (though I don't buy Connelly's (possibly tongue-in-cheek) suggestions of a "conspiracy" involving a GIN council).*

Despite his many fans and followers, Kevin Trudeau isn't out of hot water yet, legally or morally. Following his evidentiary hearing on May 21 -- a hearing in which he pleaded the Fifth Amendment nearly 400 times -- he is due back in Judge Robert Gettleman's court on June 26, when the court holds his former attorney and GIN co-founder Marc Lane's feet to the fire. At that point Judge Gettleman may or may not make a decision on whether or not to incarcerate Kevin, and for how long.

Then there is a related criminal case [1:10-cr-0086] with Judge Ronald Guzman. The fact that the hearings are being dragged out in the civil case has probably altered the docket of the criminal case, which was originally scheduled to go to trial this Monday (June 3). Again, there's no certainty that any of this will result in Trudeau's being thrown in jail.


* Addendum, 7 June 2013: David Connelly has since "switched sides" re Kevin Trudeau, as indicated in this more recent video. I think it's more accurate to say that he merely solidified a position towards which he'd been leaning for a while. My opinion is that Connelly, like so many others who are constantly making videos, likes the attention and likes to be controversial. But it also seems clear from the bit at the beginning of this latest video that he is revolted by some of Trudeau's ex-b.f.f.s -- namely Loony Coldwell -- whom he perceives to be worse than Trudeau (and many, many people agree with that).

Now, to me it's not an either-or situation. I can be anti-KT AND anti-Coldwell and other scammer/predators too. But then, I've learned over the years to "think big," because Scamworld is a big, big place.

More reactions to the ABC story about Kevin Trudeau:
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at 8 comments:

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

ABC tackles Kevin Trudeau -- again!

[Originally posted on Tuesday, May 28; updated Wednesday, May 29]

Here is a link to a page that has a good-quality promo * for the upcoming ABC story on Kevin Trudeau. The segment will air Wednesday night, May 29, at 10:00 PM Eastern, 9:00 Central. This will be the kickoff segment for a new ABC summer series, "The Lookout" (formerly called, "Two Truths and a Lie"), focusing on consumer issues. The new series is under the umbrella of ABC's long running investigative series, Nightline.

If all goes as scheduled, and no natural disasters or political scandals or dire world affairs throw it off course, the first half of the premiere episode will be devoted to the scammy Mr. Trudeau and his scammy Global Information Network (GIN), long a favorite topic of this blog. Then the ABC investigators will discuss fat-burning machines, bedbugs, and other vital consumer issues.

In contrast to previous lame attempts at grabbing and sharing a promo for the ABC story (you can see Peter Wink's reflection in the screen on this one)...
... the one I linked to in the first sentence of this post comes straight from the source.  Despite Loony Lenny Coldwell's predictions, this ABC story will almost certainly not mark the end of Trudeau's 20 year "rein" of fraud and deception. After all, Loony has been known to be wrong before. Such as last October (if you'll pardon my redundancy)...




Then there's this, from Wednesday, May 29 (take anything Lenny says with a grain of salt, particularly since he can't even spell "trial" or "Guzman")...

And by the way, here's a recent post about that Guzman criminal trial, originally scheduled for June 3, but now... um... maybe not.

At any rate, tonight's "Lookout" segment should be a good story. And ABC has done numerous other stories about Trudeau over the years -- such this 2006 story (and here is a video). Then there is this 2011 story. So this newest segment is in keeping with a fine network tradition. It probably wasn't very difficult to convince ABC it was high time to do another story about KT.

PS ~ While you are waiting for the ABC story, here again is a link to Kansas City NBC affiliate reporter Ryan Kath's story of the May 21 court hearing.

And here is a link to the story that aired on the Chicago NBC station. This is the story that was originally supposed to run last week, but was delayed due to coverage of the tragic tornado in Oklahoma.

View more videos at: http://nbcchicago.com.

* Note: The link to the ABC promo may not work on all mobile devices, but it loaded fine on my desktop computer.

More True-dough on this Whirled:

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at 4 comments:

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Kevie goes a-courtin': pleading the Fifth


Be sure to see updates below. There is also a link to the actual transcript of the hearing.
~ CC

Contrary to my predictions -- and I'm not afraid to admit when I am wrong -- notorious serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, a long-time favorite of this blog and the head of the notorious Ponzi-like Global Information Network (GIN), did indeed fly in from Switzerland and is now in court before the Honorable Judge Gettleman. Also in court to gloat over the proceedings: Peter Wink, former b.f.f. of Kevin and ex-GIN marketing director (among other things); and Abe Husein, former GIN member and now protege and loyal fan of the notorious Mocktor Leonard Coldwell. Not there in person but in spirit is Mocktor Lenny, former b.f.f. of Trudeau and former highly-paid GIN speaker.

Peter has already given interviews with Chicago's NBC station; expect more interviews from Peter and Lenny and Abe, as well as semi-literate updates from Coldwell. Abe is apparently giving live updates from the hallway -- a fact that has been duly noted by the court -- and Lenny is repeating the news on his Facebook page. Here's a pic Peter shared yesterday:

Today's hearing may or may not be the climactic event following years of legal paper shuffling and endless continuances. Trudeau has alternately said he refuses to pay the $37.6 plus million FTC fine on principle, and that he lacks the money to pay the fine. For the past year or so he's mostly been using the latter excuse.

Emmy Award winning investigative reporter Ryan Kath of Kansas City, Missouri's KSHB-TV (NBC affiliate), who led an investigation into GIN and KT and has already aired a couple of stories, did a brief followup last night. Click on the pic above to get to the video. And here's the link on the KSHB-TV web site.

I have and will continue to give all due credit to Abe Husein for getting this story rolling in the first place by approaching Ryan late last summer. (Peter Wink indicated to me that it was his idea, though.) While Abe may not have been the most sympathetic "victim," and in the eyes of many became less sympathetic as the months went by, he was one of the loudest and most persistent. He has declared again and again that his only goal is to take GIN and Kevin Trudeau down. And he's willing to do anything to achieve this goal, including an unholy alliance with Coldwell and Wink.

At any rate, Ryan took the ball and ran with it, and he and his investigative team went "undercover" to a GIN event in Nashville in the fall of 2012. His first story aired in November 2012. Even Salty Droid, who is more cynical than the average bear about "local" news stories (and TV journalism in general) admitted it was pretty darn good.

Ryan has continued to follow the developments and did a followup story in March 2013. As the May 21 court date approached he pitched the story to the NBC affiliate in Chicago, WMAQ, and helped them find a local former GIN member. He also took the initiative to call Abe and arrange for a last-minute interview before Abe flew off to Chicago for his front-row seat to "Kevin's Doomsday." So, good job, Ryan.

Now the big question is: What will happen? Will Kevin Trudeau be sentenced to prison? Will he pay his fine after all? Will there be some settlement for a smaller amount? Will Abe get his chance to confront Kevin "man to man," as he vowed in yesterday's video? Will Coldwell and Peter bluster their way in front of the cameras and try to paint themselves as heroes? (If the latter happens, I see that backfiring in a HUGE way. Good reporters have good instincts. Just sayin'.)

According to eyewitness accounts, Kevin has repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment rights throughout this hearing. Ryan Kath's colleague in Chicago is keeping him updated.

And of course Abe and Lenny are doing their own updates. I cannot give a blow-by-blow update myself because (1) I am not in the courtroom; and (2) Ron and I got a flood of small writing projects in yesterday that need to be completed ASAP. I have to focus on the work that pays the bills, and this ain't it. But I'll be back to update this story as needed, and to provide links to new news stories, but I trust that Kevin Trudeau's fate is in the hands of the judicial system -- the very system that Loony Coldwell so loves to hate, unless it can be used to help him get revenge (even if vicariously) for being out-scammed by someone who is much smarter, much more successful, and much more charismatic than he.

No matter what happens, today's hearing will be on Kevin Trudeau's "permanent record," thus planting more huge red flags for any potential scam victims who care to do a little research. But it will also add to his martyr points, and there will be those who continue to love and defend him, against all reason. And if his lawyers play their cards right, they may still succeed in making Kevin look like the poor put-upon victim who has been bullied by the big bad government.

For now, Kevin apparently continues to plead the Fifth (or "pleat" the Fifth, as Little Loony Coldwell put it in a recent Facebook post), and I imagine that Loony is looking forward to guzzling a fifth of his favorite elixir in celebration of.... well, whatever... as soon as he can.

But I'm still thinking that this hearing is not going to end with Kevin being led away in handcuffs.

PS ~ The above-mentioned Chicago NBC station was going to run a story about Trudeau last night, but pulled the story due to a more pressing one: the horrific tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma. The Trudeau story is expected to run some time this week. Meanwhile, if you want to help the tornado victims -- many of whom have lost everything -- here is how.

Update: I know this will come as a huge shock -- HUGE! -- but Kevin Trudeau did not go to jail today. GIN did not end today. However, the FTC apparently laid their case out very well, and since they've had more than ten years to work on it I am not surprised. Trudeau apparently has to be back in court on May 30 for another hearing, and then the judge will probably make some sort of ruling in mid-June. This may very well affect the timing of the criminal contempt trial -- a real, honest to goodness jury trial, I believe -- which had been scheduled for June 3 (more info and speculation about that here, though of course some of that post is now outdated).

Another update, 22 May: In my brief update yesterday, I originally posted a direct link to a video Abe Husein made while he was driving back to the airport to fly back to Kansas City. Since he was a witness to most of the proceedings in the court room, I felt that his video contained some actual information in between all of the boasting, self-back-patting and bragging about how Abe, "a 27-year-old kid," had created a ruckus in the court room. (I am pretty sure that Abe originally got that "27-year-old kid" theme from Peter Wink, who had his own reasons for "edifying" Abe.) But the more I thought about it the more I decided that I would rather wait until I can find other sources for information about the proceedings. So I have removed the direct link to that video. I'm not trying to "censor" Abe, merely to protect my own credibility, such as it is. You can, however, still find the video by following the "Abe Husein" link in the first paragraph of this post.

(Meanwhile, here's my pal Omri at the Glancingweb blog, weighing in on yesterday's hearing. I tend to agree with Omri: I don't think KT will be in an orange jumpsuit any time soon, if ever.)

One thing I couldn't help noticing was that Abe spent a great deal of time -- both in the video and on Facebook -- taunting the attorney who was in court with Kevin, Kimball Anderson. Although whenever he mentioned Mr. Anderson's "worthlessness" in the video he added, "in my opinion" (he must have learned that from Loony Coldwell, who thinks adding "in my opinion" allows all sorts of actionable speech), Abe still may be leaving himself open for actions from Mr. Anderson. Worse, his actions in the court yesterday may have helped Trudeau's case more than hurt it. I hope not. It remains to be seen.

I was, however, amused by the fact that Abe wrote this post on Facebook, slamming the 60-year-old Mr. Anderson for his physical appearance (this article was published last year, when Mr. Anderson was 59). It seems kind of hypocritical when Abe's own mentor and sugar daddy, Mocktor Loony, doesn't exactly look as if he takes care of his "#1 asset," his body. Maybe Mocktor L needs to hit the gym and do some of that Bepure colon blow himself. Ya think?


Here is Ryan Kath's summary of the May 21 court proceedings.
http://www.kshb.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/infomercial-king-at-the-center-of-41-action-news-investigation-takes-the-fifth-almost-400-times
 
And.... the transcript!
Here is a link to a transcript of the May 21, 2013 hearing. It was filed on July 22, 2013 as part of a larger attachment and a much larger group of exhibits, which supported a document filed by the FTC as part of their campaign to get the court to forbid Kevin from traveling.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/159206461/Trudeau-Civil-Case-Document-723-Attachment-6-of-9-07-22-13-Transcript-of-05-21-13-Hearing

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at 1 comment:

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Kevin Trudeau: Justice...or just more paper shuffling?

[Also see update to this post, dated 20 May 2013. ~CC]

This is the weekend that serial scammer Kevin Trudeau is scheduled to give depositions regarding his civil case with the FTC (case number 1:03-cv-03904, United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, the Honorable Robert W. Gettleman presiding). As you probably know, there is an evidentiary hearing scheduled for this coming Tuesday, May 21, which I mentioned on this post a few days ago. (If you haven't done so already, read that post for more context for this one.) Unless things change, a brief status hearing on this case is set for Monday, May 20 at 1:30 PM. Though motions were made for yet more continuances of the May 21 evidentiary hearing, the judge finally put his gavel down on May 16, and said no more delays. Unless, of course, something happens at the eleventh hour.

So let's assume that the May 21 hearing really, really does go on as scheduled. Will Kevin show up in court in person? Is he even required to physically show up in that Illinois courtroom, or will he be able to phone it in? I have been asking these questions repeatedly, but so far can't find the answer, so I'll just keep on talking to myself till I get bored with it. Anyhow, while some of his ex-fans and current nemeses are claiming that May 21 will be Doomsday for Kevin and GIN, and that "sweet justice" will finally be served, I am withholding an opinion, except to state my usual mantra, which is that more than likely, there will be no neat and tidy endings to this saga. If there are, I will certainly blog about it, and I will be appropriately conciliatory. If there aren't, I will blog about that too. I will try not to be too obnoxious about it.

Meanwhile, I have been poking around on PACER.gov again, looking at some of the documents in the related criminal contempt case (number 1:10-cr-0086, with the Honorable Ronald A. Guzman). My understanding was that a jury trial had been set for June 3. This seems to be the basis of ex-KT b.f.f. Mocktor Loony Coldwell's declaration that Kevin will be arrested June at the latest, if not on May 21. (Actually Mocktor Lenny has been predicting Kevin's imminent arrest for more than seven months.)
This has been up on Little Loony Lenny's blog since October 2012.
I always wondered if Abe Husein was a bit insulted that his buddy
couldn't even be bothered to spell Abe's last name correctly.

Anyway, when I was looking at one of the criminal case documents I was puzzled, because, unless I was reading a sentence incorrectly, the document appeared to be saying that the June 3 jury trial will not happen. Here is the document in question, which was filed on April 9.



A couple of days after that document was filed, the U.S. government filed a document explaining what the penalties should be, should KT be found guilty of criminal contempt. The government recommended a range of 188-225 months in prison -- or between 15.66666666 and 18.75 years. They used a specific formula for determining this recommendation. Here are screen shots of that six-page document. (By the way, I apologize for doing it this way again, but Blogger apparently will not let me upload PDFs, and I don't have a Dropbox or similar account for you to go grab 'em. Anyway, as usual, click on pics to enlarge.)









Naturally, Kevin's lawyers had an answer to that, titled "KEVIN TRUDEAU'S MEMORANDUM REGARDING SENTENCING ANALYSIS OF CRIMINAL CONTEMPT CASE." (It's nine pages, but the last two pages are just the lawyers' signatures and the Certificate of Service, so to save space I am only publishing the first seven pages.) The upshot is that the lawyers were trying to get the judge to re-impose a six-month cap on any potential sentence for criminal contempt.






Re the footnote on page 6, above:
Nice try, Kevin's lawyers, but since Kevin's books
are self-published, that $37.6 million still went to him.



None of this is new news, of course, and since those documents were filed, Kevin Trudeau filed bankruptcy (case number 13-764, filed on April 22, 2013). And I have no doubt that numerous other machinations have been going on behind the scenes that aren't reflected in the documents that have so far been made publicly available.

But I doubt that Kevin Trudeau will end up in jail any time soon -- at least not as a result of these cases. And maybe never. Here again is Salty Droid's take on the matter -- and I don't think things have changed much in the six months since he wrote this post.

By the way, I think I've also linked to this article before, but here is a 2010 piece discussing the issue of criminal and civil contempt, with the focal point being Judge Gettleman's original sentencing of Trudeau for that email-deluge incident in early 2010.

Oh, and here is input from two of our top legal experts on what will probably happen on May 21. This was posted on Facebook this past Wednesday (15 May):

TV or not TV? Scamworld will prolly go on...
Apparently a major ABC News investigative story about Kevin Trudeau and GIN -- a story that Abe Husein has been talking excitedly about on Facebook for the past couple of months, due to his part in it -- is going to be part of a new Primetime/Nightline series, which will premiere on May 29. As I mentioned on a couple of Facebook forums last night, I watched ABC 20/20 on Friday night, May 17, and at the end of the broadcast they ran a promo that featured Kevin Trudeau, mentioning that they'd tracked him down in Switzerland, and mentioning his $37-plus million fine. A longer version of the same promo was run a little later, after Friday night's edition of Nightline.

Although Trudeau was the first one featured on the promo, it was in the context of announcing a brand new Primetime/Nightline show called Two Truths and a Lie. If the promo is any indication, Kevin will not be the only subject, though more than likely he will be the first one in what is obviously intended to be a series. As I noted, the series is set to premiere on Wednesday night, May 29, at 10:00 PM Eastern, 9:00 PM Central. Presumably the Trudeau expose will be part of that premiere broadcast. I haven't been able to find a link to the promo clip yet, not even on the ABC News web site, but here is a link to a May 3 press release:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/05/nightline-two-truths-and-a-lie-premieres-wednesday-may-29-at-10-pm-on-abc/

Here is a mediabistro.com piece that has more detail and commentary:
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/primetime-nightline-two-truths-and-a-lie-to-launch-may-29-with-consumer-focus_b177880

Of course, schedules are always subject to change, due to world disasters and other inconvenient things, such as network politics. But anyway, May 29 looks to be the big day. Too bad it will be AFTER the Charlotte NC Winkwell Militia Boot Camp.

So, will this investigative news story, and any related stories ABC News runs on some of its other regular broadcasts and/or on its web site -- be the final nail(s) in the coffin, the thing that will finally put an end to Kevin Trudeau's scamming career once and for all? Don't count on it. I have a sneaking feeling that the ABC stations, and stations on most of the other major and minor networks,* will still continue to run KT's and other scammers' infomercials. The big sick machine that is Scamworld will hum on, with or without Kevin Trudeau, with or without his infomercials. Even so, it is good that KT will be getting some much needed national exposure again, because it will wake some more people up -- if only for a little while.
* According to Abe, there will be several other media stories running about KT/GIN, beginning on Monday, May 20. Fine. But my point remains valid. See the update, just below.


Update 20 May 2013
The excitement deepens. In another shining example of echolalia (this time declaring, in his most professional Mocktor manner, GINtruth's Bernie O'Mahony to be loony-bin-worthy), Loony Lenny Coldwell has committed another Facebook neener-neener. He has pronounced that he, Peter Wink, and Abe Husein are really the ONLY ones who know what is going on with both the court cases and the media. Loony says that he and Peter will be live in the courtroom tomorrow, and either he, Peter, or Abe will be on the national newses and stuff tonight and/or tomorrow. There will be a "summery" [sic] on national news with Peter and Abe on Tuesday, according to Coldwell.


I have no "inside information" myself, of course, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that some of the immediate action -- maybe tonight -- will be seen on Chicago's ABC7 station, which boasts one Ben Bradley, who has done numerous stories about Kevin Trudeau in the past. Particularly if his bosses in NYC are doing a big story (see "TV or not TV" section above), it doesn't seem illogical that Mr. Bradley would be up for another one. Boston and Denver are also markets I've heard in conjunction with upcoming media coverage.

But oops... it looks like I was wrong, at least about the pieces airing tonight. A couple of hours after I posted the above, Abe finally revealed that two stories will be aired tonight by NBC affiliates in Chicago and in Kansas City, Missouri. That makes sense, since Emmy Award winning investigative reporter Ryan Kath, who has aired two KT/GIN stories since last November, is with the KC NBC affiliate, KSHB-TV.

Here is the web site for the Chicago NBC affiliate, though presently it doesn't appear that Kevin Trudeau is exactly going to be the top story tonight, not even on the 5 Investigates section. Darn those tornadoes and stuff. (For that matter, there's been some really horrid weather around the KC area, so there may be other matters that take priority tonight. We'll just have to see, I guess.) [Latest word is that Chicago pulled the KT story for tonight, due to the Oklahoma tornado. But the story is tentatively scheduled to run Tuesday or later this week.]

Anyway, here's Abe's Facebook post:

Abe also posted a quick vid saying he is Chicago-bound to face Trudeau "man to man" at his Tuesday court hearing. But that assumes a lot, the biggest assumption being that Kevin will actually be at the hearing.

It remains to be seen if, or how, any local or national stations will portray Peter, Lenny, or Abe. But I have a feeling that the journos are all professionals and they have already figured out Lenny and Peter's agendas, and have done all due diligence on these guys. I'm thinking that they're not going to throw their sources under the bus, but neither are they going to portray them as heroes.

I know I have mentioned this before, but does anyone else see any irony in the fact that both Lenny and Peter have often dissed the mainstream media, and Lenny in particular is always talking smack about the US court system -- and yet they are trying to use both the media and the judicial system to make themselves look like heroic fighters for truth and justice? As a friend of mine noted, professional journalists know when they are being used, and let's just say that they don't take very kindly to it.
Meanwhile I continue to be amused that LennyPeterAbe are playing the "we know something you don't know" card. Peter even made a lame attempt at grabbing an "exclusive" recording of the ABC promo for the upcoming show, Two Truths and a Lie, and sharing it on Abe's Facebook page. That didn't work. But you can watch this poor-quality recording that Peter apparently did (you can see his reflection in the TV screen) and that Loony Coldwell uploaded to YouTube today (May 20). Here is Lenny's commentary on the vid:
ABC found Kevin in Switzerland! Listen to him scramble!! The End Of Kevin Trudeau Televised on the 29th 10pm CST on ABC. Also tomorrow night a huge start at 10pm also and on Tuesday we are reporting live from the Court Case ( expected incarceration of Trudeau and the confiscation of Gin assets ) and some follow up interviews after trail [sic] and summery's [sic] on Tuesday. And that does not even include the 5 years jail time that is expected for him to get in his criminal trail [sic] in june. Bye Bye KT the end of a 20 year rein [sic] of Fraud, Deception and crimes.

See the first part of this post for some perspective on that criminal case.

And I just got a couple of screen shots of Lenny crowing about court tomorrow -- and sharing a little revisionist history. It was actually Kevin who created Lenny's success, not vice versa. And even Lenny has said as much. I have it on very good authority that Lenny was pretty much continually scrambling for money before KT first started promoting him in his first Natural Cures book. That really turned the tide for Lenny. Although certainly Kevin benefited from Lenny's body of misinformation, Kevin was "successful" -- at least he was a successful scam artist -- long before he started promoting Lenny.

As Salty Droid wrote about Lenny in his first Lenny post last August:
Totally :: but seriously … nobody had ever heard of this stupid little f----r.

Then came Kevin Trudeau circa 2005. Trudeau was using a popular lead gen book :: infomercials … and every other trick in the Scamworld book “they” don’t want you to know about to separate people from their money … writ large. Trudeau made fake doctor Lenny Coldwell his B-team bitch :: that changed things for Coldwell … and they’ve been together unhappily ever after.
Well, until the great divorce, that is. Anyway, heeeere's Lenny:


Ya know, I wish I could be more excited about tomorrow -- I really do, because I've been blogging about Trudeau for YEARS -- but I am actually getting ready for a whole lot of nothing in the court room. But at least the news stories should be good. Ryan Kath always does a good job.

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