Some Whirled snippets while we're waiting for real news

I've been remiss this month -- only one May-dated post so far (although several of the April posts have various May updates, and I have been adding info and links to the most recent post in the comments section). It's not that it's been such a slow news month; there's always something on this beat, even if one of my favorite snargets, the lunatic not-doctor from Germany, has been rather quiet-ish on the Facebooks since he got his Krautsack kicked in court by Salty Droid.

Well, technically, the little Teutonic twerp's civil defamation case against Salty (who was mistakenly identified in the legal papers as another blogger, Omri Shabat at Glancing Web) was dismissed on April 17, 2014, "for want of prosecution." That basically means that no one showed up during the scheduled hearing to argue Loony C's case (the lawyer who filed the suit, Dennis Kellogg, withdrew from the case fairly early on, which didn't stop Loony from boasting on Facebook about how he was going to decimate Salty in court). Anyway, ever since the dismissal the Loonmeister has been relatively silent; either that, or he just has all of my peeps blocked so nobody in my circle can see his manic blathering. But oh, well, there are plenty of other things to keep me amused.

Ozgate: behind the curtain
Not surprisingly, jailed serial scammer Kevin Trudeau has been one of those diversions, providing rich fodder even when he presumably wasn't directly involved in the items in question. One example of something that doesn't overtly have Kevin's stamp on it, but still seems to be one of those guilt-by-association things (particularly since, as I noted here previously, his former asset protection attorney Marc J Lane seems to be involved) is the animated movie flop, Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return. I wrote about Oz-gate at length on this post, and in the comments. The Katie connection -- apart from possible (until proven otherwise) Katie connection Marc Lane -- is that certain members of Katie's big boondoggle, the Global Information Network, or GIN, were flogging this project to other members as an "investment opportunity." And as the initial release date neared, some GINners were boasting that the impressive amount of money raised for the film was an example of a few members putting their GIN training to work. Uh-huh.

I guess that could ultimately be true, regarding GIN "training"; in its less than five years of existence so far, GIN has taught many people the hard way that liars will tell any lie in order to get you to give them money. Some of the screwed "investors" may yet come to embrace Ozgate as a valuable lesson, while others, no doubt, will stay in denial. For now, one of the film's executive producers, Greg Centineo, the guy who reportedly got GIN member John King involved with bilking the GIN rank and file, has been busily rationalizing the floppiness of the project. And "investors" who each paid $100,000 or more are embracing the theory that a Hollywood conspiracy destroyed the film. This fits right in with the mindset of GIN members, whose willingness to believe all sorts of nutty conspiracy theories made them easy marks for Trudeau in the first place. There's a lively discussion of the Ozflop on the 800Notes.com web site; the thread has been going on since 2008 and currently has 19 pages. Here's the link to page 1. In particular, pay attention to the comments on some of the more recent pages from a person going by the moniker "Legends of OZ Scam Expert."

GIN is not dead, despite Katie being caged
Meanwhile, the fate of GIN itself seems to be sealed. People have been speculating about this since long before the court-appointed receiver took over GIN and other Trudeau assets and business entities in early August 2013. Self-proclaimed "GIN destroyers" (bolstered by the likes of the aforementioned Loony C) have announced the death of GIN and the "final nail" numerous times, but AXS Investment Group, a small band of investors and Katie buds with money, earned the receiver's approval to purchase GIN. Their proposal will be presented to Judge Robert Gettleman's court this coming Tuesday, May 27, 2014 at 1:30 PM Central Daylight Time. Although protestors had a right to file their objections in the court (that deadline was May 12), the sale is expected to be approved.

And while all of this is going on, Trudeau's proxy continues to spew bits of inspirational "wisdom" on his official Facebook fan page. Katie is due to be transferred to a new facility soon, where he will be serving the rest of his ten-year sentence, but I haven't seen any particulars about this yet. But at least his parents' home is officially safe; on May 21, Judge Ronald Guzman finally signed an order to exonerate the bond that had been holding their home hostage since July 2013.

While we're waiting for news about the GIN sale finalization and Katie's new address, here are a couple more tidbits to snack on.

A WIN-Wynn situation?
On Sunday evening, May 18, Perry Kiraly, the executive director of the WIN (World Information Network), one of the newest GIN ripoffs, sent an excited email to the membership.

WIN Family-Reunion Event
Wynn Encore Resort in Las Vegas
With keynote speaker: Gregg Braden
October 31^st thru November 2^nd 2014

Dear WIN Members & Supporters,
It wasn’t easy since he was booked solid for the remainder of 2014 but when WIN asked Mr. Greg [sic] Braden to be the keynote speaker to launch its major event on October 31^st he went out of his way to make it happen.

Mr. Braden’s biography includes being a New York Times bestselling author whose works have been publish in 27 languages and 30 countries. The following are some of the many books/CD’s he has published:

• The Spontaneous Healing of Belief
• The Divine Matrix
• Deep Truth
• The Turning Point
• The Isaiah Effect, Fractal Time
• Beyond Zero Point
  

Please click here to read Gregg’s biography: http://www.hayhouse.com/authorbio/gregg-braden
Please click on the following YouTube links to view some of Gregg’s seminars:
The Spontaneous Healing of Belief:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8DeBePK3Wg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLPahLakP_Q

The Devine [sic -- unless he's talking about prospective GINvestment group member Jeff Devine ~CC] Matrix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyCiL8ql7bs

This event will take place at the fabulous Wynn Encore Resort Hotel in Las Vegas. Click on this link to view the Resort: http://www.wynnlasvegas.com/

The event package will include:

• 2-night stay in a Wynn/Encore resort suite (Oct. 31^st/Friday & Nov. 1^st/Saturday)
• Keynote speaker Gregg Braden ( on Friday Oct. 31^st /Event starts at 7 PM)
• Other speakers (to be announced) on Saturday/Nov. 1^st
• An exclusive private banquet/party for attendees on Saturday evening at the renown Wynn Resort Nightclub The Tryst (please click on this link to view): http://www.wynnlasvegas.com/NightClubs/Tryst
  

In addition to WIN Members this event is being made available to all who wish to attend to accommodate those that follow Gregg Braden’s work as well as other interested guests. Please consider also that seating & rooms are limited so this event is likely to sell out quickly. Register now to reserve your seat. If you register before May 31, 2014 you will receive a $100.00 discount on the package price.

You will want to be at this event!

For reservations, questions, and further details please call: Beverly Weaver (WIN Events & Member Services) at [redacted].

Thank you and have an excellent day,

Perry Kiraly,
Executive Director, World Information Network

Admittedly, Braden is a bigger "name" in the biz than some of the speakers GIN has been parading around at their recent pathetic events, such as the "Family Reunion" in DC in October 2013. But, alas, he is still full of New-Wage crap. In fact I wrote about him years ago; this is from February 2007.

At first I wondered what sort of deal WIN was giving him and/or vice versa. Maybe, I thought, Braden's star is fading and he is desperate for attention. But then I went back and looked more closely at Perry's letter and noticed that bit towards the end, where he said that in addition to WIN members, the event is being made available to all who wish to attend, in order to accommodate Gregg's fans and "other interested guests."

So, obviously, Braden wants to be ensured that he will have an actual audience that will make the appearance worth his time. In any event, he seemed to have a fairly long blank spot in his busy schedule, judging from the listings on his web site. After October 26 and before November 13, he doesn't really seem to have anything going. So far the WIN/Wynn thing isn't listed on his page. It kind of looks as if WIN and Gregg are exaggerating about the momentous nature of this event. I know, I'm as shocked as you.

Natural Cures is feeling poorly these days
If you've been following this blog, or for that matter, the press about Katie, you probably know about his Natural Cures scampire, and how its creation was sort of a big turning point for him. Salon.com published a good article about the phenomenon back in July of 2005, nearly a year before this Whirled was born. Katie's first Natural Cures book was the tool used to suck thousands into his sales vortex; it was lauded by co-creator and marketing strategist Reno R. Rollé as a breakthrough that "could revolutionize the book publishing industry." (And yes, I know I've mentioned this before, but sometimes it's good to review.)

It was Reno Rollé who initially urged Trudeau to combine his extensive experience in infomercials with the book business. “I suggested he focus less on hard products, ingestibles, and more on information and newsletters,” he says. “That way he could find a safe harbor under First Amendment protections.” They teamed up to see if, and how, it would work. “No one knew how a book would behave,” he says. “Initially we treated the book as just a product that shouldn’t behave differently than a stomach exerciser or kitchen utensils.” It’s a strategy that paid off handsomely.

“The infomercial business is very standardized,” Rollé continues. “You put the product on TV first to create awareness and sell a large number of ‘units.’ Then, after a period of time, you pull trigger and head out to retail.” And once a product hits retail, as “Natural Cures” did just four weeks ago, Rollé says, the industry standard is to sell two to 10 times as many “units” as were sold on TV.

See, Kev had already been in trouble with the Feds for years; he'd been out of prison since 1993 but had gotten himself into trouble again in short order. Essentially Reno helped him with strategies that would allow him to keep on telling lies without getting into more trouble. Ultimately that didn't work, but Reno apparently jumped out before more serious troubles began and the Feds really started turning up the heat. In fact he was Trudeau's CEO for a while, but spins his resignation from that position as his discovery that Katie was doing some dodgy things. Somewhere along the way, some of the ill will Katie is known to attract got stuck to Reno too, and he felt obligated to defend himself on Ripoff Report. This is an excerpt from his defense, which for some reason was published in triplicate:

I have never in my life been convicted of a single crime. I have never partnered with a convicted felon.

I believe the author [of the complaint] has the false idea that I am some how "partnered" with Kevin Trudeau. I was employed briefly by Kevin Trudeau as his CEO and resigned almost immediately. He and I had very different philosophies with regard to handling his legal challenges with the US Government. These challenges had NOTHING to do with me and were the result of actions that occurred prior to my joining his company.

After resigning as CEO, I stayed on as an INDEPENDENT executive consultant. I had moved my family across the country. Yes, I was involved and even co-created Kevin's best selling book but I did NOT write the book.

And now, as I've noted here before, Reno is a co-producer in a fictionalized film project about Katie and GIN, The Platinum Bonus. I wonder what sort of fund raising shenanigans are going on with that project. I wonder if it will ever be completed, much less released.

But I digress.

One of the bad things the Natural Cures book did, besides luring the unsuspecting masses into Katie's sales funnel, was to elevate nut cases like Coldwell -- and for that matter, this guy -- to prominence, by virtue of Kevin recommending their frauducts and flopportunities. But it gave me more blog fodder, so there's that. Although the book was widely panned by reviewers, real-as-opposed-to-fake health experts, and customers, that didn't stop Katie from perpetrating a Natural Cures sequel (without Reno) and numerous other books, all of which were promoted in infomercials, and one of which, The Weight Loss Cure "They" Don't Want You To Know About, ultimately landed him in the slammer for civil and criminal contempt (the ten-year sentence is for criminal contempt; he still faces a $37.6 million fine for the civil matter).

The Natural Cures web site thrived for several years. But now, alas, it seems that the site is down for the count. A friend forwarded an email that was sent out earlier this month.

From: support@emailnaturalcures.com
To:
Sent: 5/7/2014 10:23:04 A.M. Central Daylight Time
Subj: Latest news for Diabetes | NaturalCures.Com site down

As regular visitors to our Natural Cures site you will have noticed the site is currently down. I’m sorry to say it’s a combination of factors. Firstly, a minor technical glitch, secondly a more sinister one, for which I can’t go in to too much detail, but sadly will probably involve lawyers & regulators. Clearly the information we are providing for free is causing some issues out there.

The technical side also impacts our support email addresses, so if you have emailed in over the past few days, you will receive a bounced email. This also looks like it will take some time to resolve.

Social media: How to reach us

If you need to reach us, you can visit our Social media sites which we will be monitoring. You’ll find us at:

Facebook.com/NaturalCures
Twitter.com/NaturalCures

If it is a private matter, be sure to use the message service on both platforms rather than an open post otherwise everything is visible. For Twitter, you can’t Direct Message (DM) us if we don’t already follow you. So if that happens, just tweet us from your account that you’d like to DM us and we’ll follow you to open up that function...

The rest of the email was a promo for some "natural" something-or-other for diabetes.

As you may know if you've been following this blog, long-time Trudeau bud and UK resident Lee Kenny is the current "owner" of Natural Cures. He bought it for a mere $100k towards the end of 2012.

So why is the site down? Beats me; the best I can do for now is read between the lines of that email. I have a feeling that Natural Cures -- or, more specifically, Lee Kenny -- is being investigated because he is a good buddy of Kevin's and he probably knows a lot that he hasn't told the investigators yet. Even the receiver noted that they thought Lee wasn't being completely forthcoming about "where the money is." Plus, he has been promoting Katie's $997.00 baccarat scam through Natural Cures (and he was processing the proceeds through Future Transactions Company, aka the FTC (ha, ha, get it?)). I've been ragging about this matter on this Whirled for months and months.

I have mentioned this a few times on this Whirled (most recently here, and I wrote about it last August), but here it is again, because you know how I love to repeat myself. Natural Cures was set up in the first place to feed KT's legal defense fund. Here is a direct link to some August 2013 court documents that clearly state when and why Natural Cures Health Institute (NCHI) was set up.

Anyway, judging by the recent-ish email to the Natural Cures mailing list, it appears that Lee Kenny is trying to get a good Trudeau-style martyr thing going: "Clearly the information we are providing for free is causing some issues out there." But that's the way the alt-health hucksters roll; the aforementioned Loony C has the martyr thing going too, even claiming that Big Pharma thugs have shot at him and tried to kill him with a car bomb. In 2012 he was quoted by a natural health blogger as saying, "I have death threats -- about twenty a day -- but I do not have any fear."

In any event, another site called The Natural Cures Store is still open. It sells all sorts of health frauducts, including those to support the various phases of Katie's infamous "Weight Loss Cure." But it claims not to be connected with Katie or his companies in any way. (Prolly like the GIN Store is a separate entity from GIN... sort of, anyway.)

The NaturalCuresStore.com is dedicated to bringing you high quality products recommended by Kevin Trudeau and health care practitioners, Dr. Thomas Hohn [a Leonard Coldwell buddy ~CC], Dr. James Rotello and others.

The NaturalCuresStore.com is in no way affiliated with these health care practitioners, nor with Kevin Trudeau, Natural Cures, Inc. or Alliance Publishing.

We are just the a "One-Stop-Shopping" store for all the products recommended in his various books and newsletters.

Although we do not know Mr. Trudeau personally, nor agree with all of his conclusions, we appreciate his labors in bringing such valuable information to the public.

Items sold on the site include all sorts of cleanses, including a "Heavy Metal Cleanse" (I don't think it involves music, though), a "Colon Cleanse," and something called "Dr. Coldwell's Stress Reducing System" for $99.99, which is also listed in the site's Bookstore.

On the promo page for the Coldwell product, we're told that "Dr." Coldwell of Germany has "treated over 35,000 cancer patients, and has the highest cure rate in Germany. That's a version of his amazing bio that has been published elsewhere on the Net as well. It is, as you may have noticed, somewhat different from his other common claim, which is that he cured over 35,000 cancer patients, "many in a terminal state," and has the highest cure rate in the world. But like most narratives in Scamworld, Loony's stories have never been consistent.

The Natural Cures Store, which lists one T. Payne of Dover, Idaho as the registrant and admin contact, doesn't seem to be wildly popular. But I guess it -- and the official NaturalCures.com social media sites -- will have to do till the NaturalCures.com main site comes back...if that ever happens.

That's it for now, and I'll be back soon with some more substantial fare.