Whatever else Judge Robert Gettleman learns about the financial maneuvering of TV pitchman Kevin Trudeau, he knows this: People will pay to hear Trudeau speak, read his books and, possibly, pay off the $37 million he owes to people who bought a diet book full of fraudulent claims.
Trudeau, who was released from prison last year after serving a 10-year sentence for making bogus claims about the contents of his best-selling diet book, faces a return trip to federal custody if Judge Robert Gettleman decides Trudeau has concealed millions in offshore accounts and hidden gold bars.
Tanned and wearing a pinstriped suit at Thursday’s hearing, Trudeau seldom missed an opportunity to remind the judge that he had paid out more than $1.8 million ahead of his last court appearance — most of it raised by members of his “fan club” set up after his release from prison.
“I want to pay this debt. I want to get this behind me,” Trudeau said plaintively during questioning by his lawyer, Giel Stein. “I want to live a normal life and not have to walk on eggshells.”
Until recent months, Trudeau had made no payments on his $37 million debt other than what had been recovered by the FTC and was facing jail time a decade ago, when he received his 10-year sentence in a separate case for violating a court order barring him from making fraudulent claims in his TV infomercials.
Gettleman opted to let him serve that sentence before deciding on whether to lock him up for failure to pay down his debt from a previous case in which he was found to have made deceptive claims about the contents of his best-seller “The Weight-Loss Cure ‘They’ Don’t Want You to Know About.”
Thursday, Gettlemen closed the hearing by reminding Trudeau that he could have had him locked up for not paying down his debt back in 2013, which would have delayed the start of his prison sentence, and that he has yet to assign a punishment for Trudeau’s failure to report to the court after completing his sentence.
“It’s obvious he has the ability to make a lot of money with speaking engagements... which, frankly, I don’t understand,” Gettleman said at the close of the hearing. “I hope he doesn’t cross any lines, but he’s got a right to speak, he has a right to write books.”
On the witness stand, Trudeau was alternately defiant and chastened as his lawyers painted him as working hard to repay his court-ordered debts, and attorneys for the Federal Trade Commission outlined a long list of gold purchases, Swiss bank accounts, and Panamanian shell companies. Trudeau is expected to return to the stand Friday.
Trudeau maintained that he turned over information about all his bank accounts and business ventures to a court-appointed receiver a decade ago, who then liquidated his assets. Since getting out of prison last year, Trudeau said he has become an employee of Global Information Network United — previously, Trudeau had controlled a company called Global Information Network — where he provides training materials and leads seminars for the groups members, and receives an annual salary of $150,000— which ballooned to around $1 million last year with bonuses.
Trudeau’s “fan club” members have donated money that Trudeau has used to pay for his lawyers and living expenses since his release from prison, as well as the bulk of the $1.8 million he sent to the FTC to date. Trudeau also emptied several bank accounts and his cryptocurrency wallet after the hearing in January.
At a hearing in January, Trudeau’s ex-wife testified that Trudeau kept gold bars in a closet in his Oak Brook home, took gold bars on a trip to Guatemala, and stashed still more gold in a Zurich safe deposit box. Trudeau testified Thursday that he gave the gold bars to his wife as a gift. His ex is expected to testify for a second time Friday. Gettleman said that there would probably be more hearings in April before he makes a ruling on whether to jail Trudeau again.
“This is not my only case,” Gettleman said. “It may be my oldest case. I do want to get it over with.”
Nishan Bhatt, 26, makes monthly donations of $50 to Trudeau’s fan club and watched the first hours of Trudeau’s testimony from the courtroom gallery — before Trudeau was cross-examined by FTC lawyers — and handed Trudeau a signed affidavit stating that his payments were made willingly and that he knew nothing of any hidden assets.
Bhatt also has paid to become a Global Information Network member and for seminars hosted by Trudeau and thinks he’s getting a good value.
“It’s not monetary value right now,” he said of what he’s spent on Trudeau’s self-improvement program. “But my life is getting better. Things are going more my way, I’m a happier person.”
