Kevin Trudeau found guilty of criminal contempt

After less than 45 minutes of deliberation in a Federal courtroom in Chicago today, a six-man, six-woman jury found serial scammer Kevin Trudeau guilty of criminal contempt for misleading claims he made on infomercials about his book, The Weight Loss Cure "They" Don't Want You To Know About. He was ordered taken into custody immediately, and his bond revoked. There's no word at the moment on the sentence, which Judge Ronald Guzman will decide.

UPDATE:
Case: 1:10-cr-00886 Document #: 144 Filed: 11/12/13:

Jury trial held. Jury deliberation. Jury returns verdict of guilty. Jury trial ends. Post-trial motions to be filed by 12/3/2013. Response due 12/17/2013. Reply due 1/3/2014. Sentencing set for 2/6/2014 at 10:30 a.m. It is hereby ordered that defendant’s bond is revoked and he is taken into custody by the U.S. Marshal. It is further ordered that defendant may keep his contact lenses.

February 6 is Trudeau's birthday. The court must have a perverse sense of humor. Though his bond is revoked for now, there's still no telling if he will stay "in custody" from now until his sentencing next year. We'll just have to see.

From what I have seen, the prosecution made a strong case about Trudeau's lies and the fact that he lied because of greed. (Those are the same things I've been saying on my blog for years, but of course that had no legal weight.) From what I saw, based on a few media reports, the defense presented a not-so-strong case and they made a few goofs. Pissing the judge off this past Friday was not such a good move.

Even so, I thought until this afternoon that it could go either way, and I even thought there was at least a slim chance of acquittal. Of course I was ambivalent about that because even though I don't think Katie belongs in a cage, he is, after all, a lifelong scammer. I wonder how cognizant the jury was of that potential life sentence. If they were aware of it and they handed down the guilty verdict anyway, then they were, after all, doing exactly as they were instructed to do -- that is, reach their verdict without consideration for the potential punishment.

So sometimes the system works the way it is "supposed" to work, on paper. Even so, throwing Trudeau in a cage for an extended period or for life doesn't feel like justice.

But this isn't the end of the story. Kevin being the "Appeals King," as his brother Bob describes him, there will surely be an appeal. And as noted, we don't yet know what sort of sentence Judge Guzman will impose.

If you think that I'm getting ready to pop open a bottle of Shampagne (I can't drink the real stuff, but Fre Brut is really a very good nonalcoholic bubbly), you haven't been reading my more recent blog posts and Facebook comments very carefully. I think that in the wake of this verdict, and looking at the bigger picture, we should all be asking some serious questions.

For instance: Who really "won" today, apart from a cadre of lawyers? Consumers? If so, which consumers? Those who actually got screwed out of hundreds or thousands of dollars because of Trudeau's manipulative, deceptive, aggressive sales tactics? Will they ever get any of their money back because of today's verdict? (There's still the matter of that $37.6 million civil judgment, but that money, if it is ever collected, will presumably only go to purchasers of the weight-loss book, not to anyone else who may have invested hundreds or thousands of dollars in, say, Trudeau's biggest scam to date, the Global Information Network (GIN).)

On the one hand there's one less scammer on active duty -- for now -- but again, that could change. And on the other hand... it's that old game of Whack-a-Mole. Hundreds of scams and scammers are still active in Scamworld, including some that were until fairly recently under Trudeau's wing. Kevin Trudeau, through GIN, provided a huge platform for some hucksters who never would have achieved success remotely approaching the scale they reached without Trudeau's influence. Though some of these people are in my informed opinion far worse than he, they may never see a criminal charge or a conviction, much less any jail time. So there's that. And some of those scoundrels who are no longer his buds will no doubt be drinking themselves into oblivion tonight, celebrating "their" victory. (I hope the cops are out tonight on the streets of Mount Pleasant, watching for erratic driving.)

And then there's the fact that for the most part Federal prisons are horrible places -- hell holes, as a commenter to this blog recently reminded us. I don't wish prison on any scammer except the violent and destructive types -- reckless killers, sex predators, and the like. I realize this puts me at odds with some of my fellow critics and scambusters, but there you are.

Moreover, if Trudeau spends any time in prison at all, he will increase his martyr creds a hundredfold, which may spur a whole new Free KT movement. He has already promised that if he gets thrown in the clink, he will write the book to end all books about government tyranny. In addition, prison doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent to crime, for those who are intent on being criminals. It wasn't a deterrent for Kevin the first time he was in the joint.

So once again... no neat and tidy endings. But I bet there are going to be some serious hangovers tomorrow.


Early news reports:

• Chicago Tribune (article by Jason Meisner, who has been doing an excellent job covering this story)
  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-closing-arguments-heard-today-in-tv-pitchmans-case-20131112,0,2063993.story
• Eureka Times-Standard (AP story by Michael Tarm; many of the media outlets are picking up some variant of this one) http://www.times-standard.com/nationandworldnews/ci_24507932/tv-pitchman-kevin-trudeau-guilty-contempt
• ABC7 Chicago
  http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local/chicago_news&id=9323042
• Chicago Sun-Times (article by Kim Janssen): http://oakbrook.suntimes.com/crime/trudeau_convicted-OBD-11122013:article

Update 13 November, 2013: Loony gets his bonds confused, GIN scavengers/predators still circle, and Katie's fans, despite their tears, remain optimistic.
As soon after yesterday's verdict as he could get to a camera, self proclaimed "GIN Destroyer" Abe Husein made a video about Trudeau's conviction. That's only to be expected, since Abe has been providing regular updates. However, the vid contained the inaccurate claim that the home of Trudeau's parents had been taken away by the court. Several people responded with great concern, ragging on Trudeau for making his parents lose their home. 
 
I wondered where Abe got this misinformation; surely it wasn't from the court or the legitimate media. But I needn't have wondered; someone shared this screen shot of a post from Loony Coldwell.


Apparently Loony read the order from Judge Guzman (I'd shared it earlier that day, and I quoted it above), which mentioned that Trudeau's bond had been revoked -- and the Loonmeister automatically conflated the bond revocation with the $200,000 security bond that had been issued on a couple of occasions this year (July and October) when Katie was allowed to travel outside the jurisdiction. I blogged about it both times, emphasizing the fact that it seemed kind of shoddy for a self-proclaimed successful billionaire to let his sweet elderly middle-class parents possibly risk their home. However, on both occasions he did come back and face the judicial music, so their home is apparently safe. But facts have never stopped Loony from spewing half-cocked conclusions or outright lies on Facebook, and Abe from picking it up and spreading it to the minions.

Loony also said that Trudeau's $2 million dollar bond" was taken away. The $2 million was a performance bond that Trudeau consented to put up several years ago in the event that he violated the FTC orders again. (In fact, the civil court was recently debating about whether or not to pay the court-appointed receiver from the funds in that account.)

So again, wrong bond, Loony.

Here's Bernie at GINtruth. com with commentary about Loony's lies and the GIN warriors' "crimbly Christmas." Bernie also provides good links to the highlights in the news media stories about yesterday's verdict.


And as you can imagine, in the wake of Trudeau's conviction and his being taken into custody, the scavengers are circling more than ever. Or perhaps "predators" would be a better description. Here's Loony flogging his upcoming IMBS-ing U Master's Society event, set to take place in Panama City, Florida in December. You can "Lean [sic] more in one weekend than you could ever learn from the Gin losers in 3 years!"
 
I don't know about you, but I'm "leaning" towards not ever believing anything that lunatic writes or says. But I've been leaning that way ever since before he started calling me an AIDS-infected, cancer-ridden ex-prostitute. He is not exactly a bastion of credibility.

Finally, we have this missive from a fan of Trudeau. Many were devastated by yesterday's verdict, and I intend to be gentle with them for the most part. But this one, shared by my Facebook friend Roger just a while ago, takes the cake.


Sabbatical... is that what the kids are calling it these days?

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