Kevin Trudeau is back in court while "GIN Action" figures stand by with lawsuit threats

Big day in court for Kevin Trudeau!
An end to two CENTURIES of crime!
So says Loony Coldwell, ex Trudeau buddy (click to enlarge).

As I am posting this, serial scammer Kevin Trudeau is back in Judge Robert Gettleman's court room to work out some issues and determine, among other things, whether or not he will have to go back to jail for another lesson in being not-scared straight.

This is presumably a Big Day In Court for Kevin, and Kevin's ex-b.f.f., Mocktor Loony Coldwell, is so excited he is about to wet himself. Today, he says, will be the end of two centuries of crime (it's right there in the pic above). My, Kevin must be much older than I thought.

Continued from last week, today's hearing will determine several things, according to the judge's order of September 19, which I shared last week on this post. (Here is the direct link.) One big point that will determine whether or not Judge Gettleman tosses Katie back in the clink is "whether he has taken sufficient steps to purge himself of the various contempt orders of this court." If Katie and his lawyers can convince the court that he's really being a good boy and trying to cooperate, he more than likely won't go back to jail. (There's still a possible long prison sentence looming re his criminal contempt case, but that doesn't go to trial until November 4.)

The bourbon drinkers and champagne poppers are waiting with baited breath and juicy visions of Bubba and Katie for another excuse to celebrate (they do seem overly obsessed with homosexual jailhouse rapes). There was apparently quite a lot of celebration last week when Kevin was sent for an overnight stay at a Federal facility in Chicago, and there were probably lots of hangovers the next day as he was being released.

Also on tap for today is the issue of the plaintiff's (FTC's) motion to modify the receivership agreement (Doc. 744) so that Katie can't receive his modest monthly allowance unless he gets a real job and contributes to the receivership estate.

And then there are "the other matters raised [at the September 19] hearings." Those "other matters" include some issues -- potentially explosive issues, but I'm not getting excited yet -- that have caused such a ruckus for the past week among the ignorant and the arrogant, and have also caused some buzz among some actual smart people, such as some of the news reporters who were in the courtroom. (It's only because of the buzz from the smart people that I'm giving this any more attention right now.) Towards the end of the hearings last week, the FTC reportedly brought up the question of whether or not the receiver, Robb Evans & Associates, might be running an illegal operation by continuing to keep Trudeau's big scam the Global Information Network (GIN) open while they complete their investigations. This question is so unsurprising as to be yawn-inducing, unless something actually comes of it.

The FTC will of course make any point to build their case, but as I've noted before, the receiver has an obligation to keep all Trudeau entities operational for the time being until and unless it can be proven that an entity is illegal and unprofitable. Then the receiver has to notify the court and the court will decide.

The receiver, also as noted before, has expressed serious doubts about the legality of the GIN MLM but said that further investigation was necessary. The receiver can investigate, report, and make recommendations, and the FTC can make recommendations, and the plaintiff and defendant can file motions until the cows come home -- but it is ultimately up to Judge Gettleman to make the call. Does GIN stay operational for now, or does it go? That's up to the judge.

Loony Coldwell and his band of toadies are making a big deal of this now and are making many hilarious threats to start the lawsuits flying if things don't go their way in court today. They've actually been on this kick since earlier this month (also see Bernie O's commentary on this), but they are now fairly frothing at the mouth with righteous indignation and demands for "truth" and "justice."

This means that if Judge Gettleman doesn't shut down GIN on the 26th or, at the very least, incarcerate Katie again, Loony is going to stamp his little foot and sue the receiver, the receiver's attorney (Blair Zanzig), the judge... and maybe the FTC, just for good measure. Look, he says so right here, in several Facebook posts from earlier today.

Coldwell seems to be afraid to use the "b" word: BRIBERY.
But that is precisely the accusation he is making.

It's amusing that Loony was so impressed with that Daily Beast article (which, as it happens, I had linked to on last Saturday's blog post), that he even used it in a separate Facebook post to express his righteous indignation. What's so entertaining is that The Beast piece quotes extensively from Dr. Stephen Barrett, who utterly loathes alt-med quacks. In fact it is Trudeau's alt-health "advice" that has most infuriated Dr. Barrett, and has led him to label Trudeau as a con artist.

As for Loony's continual threats that he is going to get some RICO case going against the receiver and the Feds, using the mighty law firm of Merritt Webb, I think my pal Tim hit it on the head again with this comment on one of the Facebook forums:

To be pedantic, the only thing any private lawyers are capable of (nobody is actually good at it) would be DEFENDING against RICO charges. There isn't a lawyer in the US who could or would risk their reputations [or lives] trying to PROVE a RICO case.

That's probably about right.

Please don't get me wrong. I sympathize with the ex-GIN members who are still owed money or are demanding refunds. Their chance of getting the money owed to them is probably nil by now. Some of them, following bad advice perhaps, have reportedly written to the receiver and asked for their money, and the receiver has referred them to GIN customer service (it seems that this is all the receiver can legally do at this point). Some have duly written to GIN and are passed back to the receiver. If the buck is really being passed back and forth like this, that's truly lame... and shame on the buck-passers, but again, at this point it may be inevitable.

My friend Julie was thoughtful enough to provide this link on one of the Facebook forums. It describes what a receiver really does. As Julie noted:

This is the part Lenny and company don't get:

4. Outstanding sales and purchase orders are not binding on the receiver unless he elects to accept them. As a result, in operating environments, incoming goods should be segregated. This will ensure appropriate treatment of pre- and post-receivership obligations.

For the time being -- and perhaps for the duration -- the ex-GIN wanting their money back may really be SOL. The really pathetic thing is that little lunatics with big promises of big lawsuits aren't the answer either.

Remember, folks, Coldwell pulled this trick last year with the "class action lawsuit" he was going to file back in June of 2012. I wrote about that here. I also wrote about a lawsuit he had initiated in Germany -- and apparently lost.

Nothing came of that 2012 class-action lawsuit. But Loony did apparently get a lot of names and information for his mailing list, and even now is aggressively recruiting GIN victims for his own scam du jour. And that's the way it works in Scamworld.

If you haven't been victimized enough by GIN and KT,
here's another chance for you!

In another conversation, my buddy Tim had something else to say that made me think:

I wonder what it would take for the receiver to start trying to begin clawbacks from Mark Hamilton and Brian Baschnagel. If they could get 5 million from each of them, then maybe another million from people like Lenny Coldwell and Peter Ragnar they might find an easier way to collect 37 million than their current tactic of trying to run GIN

That's not a bad idea. In light of the fact that Neo-stinker Mark Hamilton (aka Wallace Ward), and most certainly another top GIN commission earner, Brian B, were responsible for so many thousands of people signing up for GIN and forking over their hard-earned money, it seems to me that hitting these clowns up for some of the money would constitute true justice. There's probably no legal precedent for that, though.

Ragnar had a big downline and lots of influence too. And Loony is one of those who by rights should be forking over as well, since he has boasted that he was responsible for signing up more than 10,000 folks -- and yet has also said that he knew for a very long time that Kevin was dishonest in many ways. Even though he wasn't listed on the receiver report as being one of the top commission earners in GIN -- at least not listed as one individual under his own name (he could have had multiple accounts, for all I know) -- he is still morally if not legally culpable. He seems to think he is fulfilling his moral obligation by grandstanding and posturing about fighting the good fight. But I don't buy it, and anyone who does needs to do some more research.

Anyway, I'll post an update, or perhaps even a separate post, when I hear what happens in court today. Stay tuned...

PS ~ There's also been buzz, as you may have heard, about FBI agents visiting the homes of ex-GIN members who complained about GIN last year. Whether anything comes of that or not remains to be seen. The FBI is always investigating someone or something, and most of the time nothing does come of it. 

PPS ~ Regarding the other court case, there was only one small entry on the criminal docket yesterday...

MINUTE entry before the Honorable Ronald A. Guzman as to Kevin Trudeau:
Status hearing regarding jury selection set for 9/30/2013 at 10:30 AM. 

That's all it said, so I didn't think it was worth uploading a PDF. September 30 is the same day that the replies to the pre-trial motion responses are due.

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