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.
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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.
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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.)
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But 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.
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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.)
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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.
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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.
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/Nightlineseries, which will premiere on May 29. As I mentioned on a couple of Facebook forums last night, I watched ABC 20/20last night, 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. The same promo was run after last 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/Nightlineshow 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.
More True-dough on this Whirled:
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.)
But 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.)
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.
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/Nightlineseries, which will premiere on May 29. As I mentioned on a couple of Facebook forums last night, I watched ABC 20/20last night, 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. The same promo was run after last 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/Nightlineshow 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.
More True-dough on this Whirled:
- May 2013: Kevin Trudeau: Countdown to court date (or not)
- May 2013: Kevin Trudeau + Mark Hamilton = GIN with a twist of Neo-stink
- April 2013: Bankruptcy: GIN members await Level 7 while Kevin Trudeau files Chapter 7
- March 2013: Ryan Kath at KSHB-TV does Trudeau/GIN update, Coldwell & Wink continue to scam with cheap imitation of GIN
- February 2013: Kevin Trudeau's GIN: The sky is falling (again)...yawn
- February 2013: Loony Coldwell: Cheesy video and bad spelling
- February 2013: IBMS Master's Society Supreme Loony Coldwell strikes again
- February 2013: Faux heroes and hypocrisy in action
- February 2013: Meet the new scam, same as the old scam, Part 2
- January 2013: Vital signs: "Immortal" (former) breatharian Mony Vital dies on GIN cruise
- January 2013: Meet the new scam, same as the old scam, Part 1
- December 2012: 2012 ~ The Whirled goes on
- November 2012: Kevin Trudeau: justice delayed...again
- November 2012: Kevin Trudeau exposé on KSHB-TV: buzz, backlash, and big beginnings
- November 2012: Alien nation: just how crazy is Kevin Trudeau (not to mention his sheeple)?
- November 2012: Kevin Trudeau: KSHB-TV undercover investigation
- November 2012: Kevin Trudeau gets some more mainstream lovin'
- October 2012: Evil has not won
- October 2012: Kevin Trudeau: Rats in our heads, GIN down the toilet...and life goes on
- October 2012: Kevin Trudeau: The shape of things to come?
- September 2012: Leonard Coldwell and Fred Van Liew: Pot, meet kettle
- August 2012: Truth is better than GIN any day
- July 2012: Drunk on GIN, and you can too!
- July 2012: Kevin Trudeau's GIN: part of the big sick machine
- July 2012: Independence Daze
- May 2012 (updated September 2012): Paging Dr. C: Bernd bridges in Deutschland?
- May 2012: Can alien DNA save Kevin Trudeau's GIN?
- May 2012: Does a canary with a GIN hangover sing as sweetly?
- April 2012: Viva Lost Wages: Sin City Become GIN City for a weekend
- February 2012: A. Rose by any other name would shill as sweet
- December 2011: True-dough updates: Bad poetry for KT, hate mail for CC
- November 2011: A jumpsuit for Jimmy
- August 2011: First Amendment Stuporhero
- August 2011: Everything old is Nouveau again (or, Neo-scam by any other name) -- Part 2 of 2
- August 2011: Calling all lazy men: let's build a pyramid together!
- August 2011: Everything old is Nouveau again (or, Neo-scam by any other name), Part 1 of 2
- June 2011: Holy Guacamole! True-dough's racist rants
- June 2011: For he's a jolly good felon: True-dough speaks out for Death Ray
- December 2009 (amended several times in 2010): Illuminutty: the secret brotherhood of the chronically gullible
- November 2009: How to take over the world
- July 2009: Horse farts and related matters
- January 2009: Mr. Fire meets up with true dough