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| Kevin Trudeau |
“You look good,” a security guard told Trudeau as he walked past.
“Yeah?” replied Trudeau, his arms outstretched. “Because I’m not wearing orange!”
Trudeau, 50, who had recently been held in jail for six days, is charged with violating the terms of a decade-old consent order in which he promised the Federal Trade Commission that he would stop making misleading ads touting his best-selling book, “The Weight Loss Cure 'They' Don't Want You to Know About.”
If he is convicted in the unusual trial, he could be wearing an orange prison jumpsuit again. The criminal contempt charge has no statutory maximum sentence under federal law, giving prosecutors wide leeway in the time they could seek if Trudeau is found guilty.
In opening statements Tuesday, prosecutors painted Trudeau as a snake oil salesman who promised his weight loss program was “easy” when it actually called for drastic techniques such as prescription hormone injections, a month of colon hydrotherapy and a grueling 500-calorie-a-day diet.
Jurors today watched three, half-hour infomercials that aired on late-night TV in 2006 and 2007, years after Trudeau had signed an agreement before U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman to not make any ads that misrepresented what was in his books.
In the infomercials, all shot in a “live interview” talk show format, an animated Trudeau told viewers he’d uncovered a secret and permanent weight loss plan that was devised by a British doctor in the 1950s and was being covered up by the government and big food companies that wanted to keep people fat.
The key to the program was a “miracle substance” that was easy to find and use and changed the body’s metabolism, allowing someone to eat as much as they wanted – from pot roast and mashed potatoes to ice cream sundaes with real whipped cream – and not gain back any weight, Trudeau claimed. He said there was no exercise or dieting, no portion control or calorie counting required.
“This is the simplest and most effective way to lose weight on Planet Earth, and it’s being hidden from the public,” Trudeau said in one infomercial from 2007.
Prosecutors say the “miracle” drug was actually a hormone found in pregnant women. The book called for it to be injected into the buttocks every day for at least a month.
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By Jason Meisner
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