Bad Pitch: Weight-Loss Pitchman Trudeau Held In Criminal Contempt

United States District Judge Robert Gettleman in Chicago has held infomercial pitchman Kevin Trudeau in contempt after Trudeau encouraged fans to write and call his chambers. The result was clogging the court’s email and phone system. Trudeau is the author of “The Weight Loss Cure ‘They’ Don’t Want You to Know About.”

This is a criminal contempt sanction that would allow up to six months in jail. In 2008, Gettleman banned Trudeau from infomercials for three years and ordered him to pay more than $5 million in profits from his book.

There seems lot that “they” do not want you to know about, including another book on natural cures (and presumably criminal contempt).

Gettleman is presiding over a case brought by the Federal Trade Commission. Trudeau was found by Gettleman to be deceptive in his ads for the book “The Weight Loss Cure ‘They’ Don’t Want You to Know About.” A Seventh Circuit court of appeals ruled that Gettleman’s earlier ruling was too broad and remanded the decision. In FTC v. Trudeau, the court painted a dark picture of Trudeau despite its decision to remand the case:

If you have a problem, chances are Kevin Trudeau has an answer. For over a decade, Trudeau has promoted countless “cures” for a host of human woes that he claims the government and corporations have kept hidden from the American public. Cancer, AIDS, severe pain, hair loss, slow reading, poor memory, debt, obesity–you name it, Trudeau has a “cure” for it. To get his messages out, Trudeau has become a marketing machine. And the infomercial is his medium of choice. He has appeared in dozens of them, usually in the form of a staged, scripted interview where Trudeau raves about the astounding benefits of the miracle product he’s pitching. But Trudeau’s tactics have long drawn the ire of the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”). By promoting his cures, Trudeau claims he is merely exposing corporate and government conspiracies to keep Americans fat and unhealthy. But the FTC accuses Trudeau of being nothing more than a huckster who preys on unwitting consumers–a 21st-century snake-oil salesman. For years Trudeau has dueled with the FTC in and out of court.

The court described an earlier consent decree with Trudeau that banned Trudeau from appearing in infomercials for any products, except for books, provided that he did not “misrepresent the content of the book.” The FTC then sued and claimed such misrepresentation by Trudeau in describing the weight loss program as “easy,” “simple,” and able to be completed at home. In fact, the court found “the program requires a diet of only 500 calories per day, injections of a prescription hormone not approved for weight loss, and dozens of dietary and lifestyle restrictions.”

The court found that the district court was correct in finding Trudeau in contempt. The decision drips with uncharacteristic sarcasm directed at Trudeau and his defenses. However, it was the amount of the sanction that concerned the court:

Though the district court was right in finding Trudeau in contempt, the monetary sanction imposed to remedy that contempt is a different story. We review the sanction amount for clear error, but we review the calculation method used to reach that amount de novo. FTC v. Kuykendall, 371 F.3d 745, 763 (10th Cir. 2004) (en banc). Ultimately, the final $ 37.6 million figure the district court settled on might be correct. But the court’s order, as it stands now, does not give us enough information to affirm that conclusion. The order tells us little about such things as how the court arrived at the figure it did, whether the award will be used to reimburse consumers, and what happens if there’s money left over after all reimbursements are paid. So we must remand to allow the court to provide greater detail on these questions. Beyond more detail in the order, Trudeau seeks greater procedural protections, such as a jury trial and a proof-beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard, on remand. We decline to find such safeguards required in this case.

Here is the appellate decision, 084249p-2

This could be a fascinating contempt case since no rule that I know of prohibits letters and calls to the court. Indeed, such contacts are common as people send personal testimonials in favor of a defendant. If there was a malicious intent that would change the equation significantly.

This is not a great time for self-help gurus, here.

For the full story, click here.

11 thoughts on “Bad Pitch: Weight-Loss Pitchman Trudeau Held In Criminal Contempt”

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  2. Our overlords do not think the peons ought to challenge them.

    I once went with a lawyer (who was our Scoutmaster) and a bunch of impressionable Scouts to visit a local Federal judge.

    It was impressive. We met the judge in the courtroom and he talked to the youths about his job. Somewhere along the way the judge told us that he could do basically whatever he wanted to do and no one could stop him.

    I almost fell over.

    The Scoutmaster, a very decent man, said nothing to me or the boys to criticize the haughty, disrespectful, and contemptible attitude of the judge judge who acted like he was above everyone (including the law).

    I’m still for a reality show called something like: “Judge that Judge” or “Impeachable And Reachable: Can That Judge”. Pop some corn, bring a soda, and get the camera’s rolling.

    It is wrong to think the public doesn’t have the right to challenge those at the bar, the police car, and the bench. If cameras can hound citizens getting arrested they can start hounding those who arrest, prosecute, judge, and lock them up.

    The newest criminal class in America, in my opinion, is the police. Those in cahoots with them are lawyers and judges.

    They threaten innocent people more than drug dealers and murderers.

    We are basically a totalitarian police state and it is the police, lawyers, and judges who are letting it happen.

  3. The TV stations could show some civic responsibility by refusing to air his deceptive infomercials.

    BTW, it’s infomercials practically all week end, if there isn’t sports, on the major stations here in seattle. They get paid double, cable fees and infomercial $.
    They are gonna love the Supreme court ruling on corporate election $.
    It’s gonna be nasty political ads 24/7.

  4. I’ve been complaining to the FTC for a while now over Trudeau’s new round of infomercials. In the past 4 months, I’ve seen them on many channels, including CBS. I’m not clear on whether the ones for his wealth program are legally permitted (neither were the reps who took my calls) but I think at this point Trudeau has displayed his dishonesty and I am PEEVED that he’s still at it.

  5. Since we are talking about health,I can only offer this brief,PSA:

    “Drinking water at the correct time

    maximizes its effectiveness on the Human body:

    2 glasses of water after waking up – helps activate internal organs

    1 glass of water 30 minutes before a meal – helps digestion

    1 glass of water before taking a bath – helps lower blood pressure

    1 glass of water before going to bed – avoids stroke or heart attack”

  6. And what would Mr. Kringle have done on Miracle 42nd Street without all of that mail.

    This does seem a little excessive.

  7. It’ll be interest to see how this unfolds.

    I wonder if the judge thinks amicus briefs are contempt?

    He should as free speech is free speech. Sounds more like the Judge didn’t like what he was hearing. This smells like retribution for the communications “inconvenience” that violates this clowns right to free speech as well as the rights of the callers/e-mailers to express themselves.

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