Shutdown, schmutdown: Kevin Trudeau case still provides plenty of entertainment

Kevin Trudeau may not be so lucky, if the government has its way.
Shutdown or not, the cases against him seem to be proceeding.

The shutdown of the U.S. government is making many people furious, and rightly so, but for many folks, particularly those of us who have been following serial scammer Kevin Trudeau's courtroom dramas, the governmental glitch offers plenty of entertainment bang for the buck (or for the government's lack of bucks, as the case may be).

But before we get to the entertainment part, let's recap the recent developments with the civil and criminal court cases. First off, as noted on this Whirled yesterday, the FTC has petitioned the court for an indefinite delay in the next (civil case) hearing for Katie. This is a change from their earlier granted motion to move the October 1 hearing to October 4 [see update below, though]. As they wrote on Document 761, filed October 1, 2013:

As the Court is aware, on September 30, 2013, appropriations to the FTC lapsed. The FTC does not know when Congress will restore funding. Without appropriations, FTC attorneys are legally prohibited from working except in limited circumstances. Accordingly, the FTC requests that the Court reset the proceeding scheduled for Friday, October 4 to three days after the Commission resumes operation, or to the earliest available time thereafter.

So that means that in the matter involving that hefty $37.6 million FTC fine -- the matter which brought all of his assets under receivership -- Kevin is free for now, though not off the hook, unless Judge Gettleman decides otherwise. (And at this point, nothing would surprise me, although Judge Gettleman seems to have been growing sterner with Katie in recent hearings.) The second part of Document 761 is the part where it looks as if the FTC lawyers are throwing their hands up in despair, or at the very least giving themselves an out should the case collapse:

Over the past year, the FTC has done everything it reasonably could to move this proceeding forward as rapidly as possible, because moving quickly best serves consumers interests. As we have argued before, significant redress becomes less likely as more time elapses. Accordingly, the FTC is disappointed that it must seek this relief, and the FTC respectfully requests that the Court reset the next proceeding to three days after the Commission resumes operation, or to the earliest available time thereafter.

Translation: "We've done everything we can do to help the consumers, but OTHER people keep these delays going, so what's a girl to do?"

Now, the entertaining part is that even though I haven't yet seen any official statement from Katie, some of his followers, having heard the news of the indefinite postponement, are high-fiving it on Facebook and saying, "Yessssss! This is it! We won!" Some are dead certain that Katie will even show up for the GIN Family Reunion in Washington D.C. later this month (it's scheduled for October 18-20). If so, there may be that hero's welcome after all -- the Return of the King scenario I envisioned others envisioning on this recent blog post. 

And this comes as no surprise whatsoever, but some are even saying that Katie used the power of his mighty mind to shut down the government, and that he can do it whenever he wants to.


It won't be the first time that true believers have ascribed supernatural or magical powers to their hero/idol. I expect we'll see more of the same re Katie as time goes by and delays continue. He will somehow manage to milk each seemingly good turn of fortune for all it's worth, putting his own spin on it and pandering to the true believers. Even if he remains silent, there's plenty of adulation to go around, and the believers themselves will fill in the gaps.

That's what people do, particularly when one of their heroes is in obvious trouble.

But the wrench in the works, which I've mentioned here a few times previously, is that no matter what happens with the civil case, which is far from over anyway, there's still that criminal contempt case. Though anything could conceivably happen to delay or even vacate that case, at this point it appears to be going forth as scheduled (as also noted here yesterday). A status hearing was held on September 30, and another one is set for October 10. And the government shutdown does not seem to be affecting any of it.

Indeed, as this September 30 Reuters article indicates, it's pretty much going to be business as usual in many of the courts across our great land, including (for now, at least) in the Northern District of Illinois, where Trudeau's criminal as well as civil case is being heard.

Thomas Bruton, the court clerk for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, said officials there would not make any determination regarding essential staff until they know for certain that the shutdown will last more than two weeks.

The Reuters piece goes on to say...

The memo from the courts' central administrative office said judges should not prioritize between criminal and civil cases. During a shutdown, courts would eschew non-essential expenses, such as training, purchasing equipment and supplies and paying for travel.
While judges would continue to hear cases, the Justice Department said it would ask to postpone appearances in civil and bankruptcy cases as long as it did not compromise the safety of human life or the protection of property under the terms of the Anti-Deficiency Act.
The courts' administrative office instructed judges to "be sympathetic" to such requests. In the event that a judge orders a government attorney to appear, the Justice Department said it would comply and provide the minimum staffing needed to do so.
Criminal cases would continue to be heard without delay or interruption, the Justice Department said.

So there's that. The point to remember is that the plaintiff in the civil case is the FTC. The criminal case, however, is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's office.

But wait, there's more! That is, there's more entertainment to be squeezed out of this latest turn of events. With the civil case on hold indefinitely for now, it appears as if some of the anti-GIN contingent have jumped on the "Kevin Trudeau is old news" bandwagon with Kevin's ex-marketing guy Peter Wink. Over the past few months Peter has vacillated between mouthing off about the scandalous scandals that may be going on behind the scenes with the KT court cases, and declaring that KT is old news and not important any more. In between these outbursts he's mostly silent (and, I imagine, seething). Now it seems that his fellow Supreme Founder of the IBMS Master's Society scam, Loony Coldwell, has also taken up the call, as have the Supreme Founders' little bruppet (brother/puppet), Abe Husein.

Whatever happened to those lawsuits Loony was talking about just last week? If GIN didn't get shut down at the September 26 hearing, and if Katie didn't get thrown in jail, why, Loony was going to sic his entire legal team at Merritt Webb on to the court-appointed receiver, the receiver's attorney, the FTC, and possibly the judge. But this week he has uttered not a peep about it, just a comment that Katie is unimportant in the big picture (see pics below).

My take on the seeming turnaround is that since the very latest developments make it more apparent that -- AHEM! -- there will be no neat and tidy endings, Loony and his bruppet have changed their tune about the significance of the court cases in order to save face. But they and some of the toadies say KT is ruined thanks to Abe, anyway. (There's even a funny comment on one of Salty Droid's old blog posts. I don't think the guy was being sarcastic, either.)

Below is a Facebook exchange that started yesterday and has continued today. Hmmm. It looks like that Kalea person is cruising for a good blocking... the fate of so many before her. Maybe it's because, as my friend Tim likes to say, truth is like Kryptonite for Loony and his pals. But what do they need with truth? Truth is boring, when it comes right down to it. They have more exciting things on their plate, such as an upcoming "Hollywood movie," with Abe as the script consultant and possibly as assistant screenwriter. As I've noted before, if it even gets into production, much less release, it may not be at all truthful, but it should be rollicking good entertainment. (Click on pics to enlarge.)

There's even greater entertainment afoot. Abe hinted at it in his opening salvo in the exchange above, and numerous others have mentioned it too. They're saying that the US government shutdown isn't even real -- that it's a New World Order scam, and is the first step towards enslaving the citizenry. A few examples...

And then there's this.

Break out the tinfoil hats, kids!

So if this gummit shutdown has you worried because you're an employee on forced furlough and you have a family to support and a mortgage to pay... or because you're not getting desperately needed benefits or services... or even because you just had your long-awaited, all-planned-out-and-paid-for family vacation blown all to hell -- yeah, that's right, the vacation where you were going to take the kids to the Smithsonian or one of the national parks for the experience of a lifetime... stop that worrying. All of you! Right this instant. The government may not be functioning, but as long as the Interwebz continue to function, there will be plenty of entertainment. Look for the gold, Dear Ones. Look for the gold.

Update: This just in...notwithstanding the government shutdown and the FTC's expression of seeming despair on October 1, the agency appears to be going ahead with the civil case. The status hearing that was continued from September 26 to October 1, and then changed to October 4, and then moved again due to uncertainty regarding the government shutdown, is now set for Wednesday, October 16 at 1:30 PM.

Update 4 October, 2013: More court documents came in today. Blair Zanzig, the attorney for the court-appointed receiver, Robb Evans and Associates, has issued a statement about why coercive sanctions -- jail, in other words -- is the only way to get Trudeau to FINALLY come clean about his finances. This is Document 764 with five exhibits,filed on 10-04-13. 

The exhibits are as noteworthy as the statement, and they include Katie explaining that he is just a hard-working boy who, for the past ten years, has worked his a$$ off and didn't have time to bother his head with finances. He spent his time traveling and researching and speaking and writing copy and writing books and doing his radio show and oh, so many other things that had nothing -- nothing! -- to do with keeping track of where all his money is. He had Neil Sant and Marc Lane and Michael Dow to do all of that boring stuff.

The US government shutdown is still hampering the case, of course, and if the government shutdown is not resolved, there could be further delays. I'm thinking that Judge Gettleman could probably choose to incarcerate Trudeau now, as it seems he has heard more than enough evidence to incarcerate him for violating the terms of the court's recent orders. But according to two other documents, 763 and 765, also filed on 10-04-13, Trudeau has until 10-11-13 to reply both to the receiver's statement and the FTC's previous statement (Document 759 and exhibit, filed 09/30/13) regarding the need for coercive sanctions.

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