Background and career
Kevin Trudeau (; born 1962 or 1963) is an American author, salesman, and television personality, who has been convicted of fraud, larceny, and contempt of court, and is also known for promotion of his books and resulting legal cases involving the US Federal Trade Commission. His late-night infomercials, which promoted unsubstantiated health, diet, and financial advice, earned him a fortune but resulted in civil and criminal penalties for fraud, larceny, and contempt of court. He has been called a promoter of "quackery" by astronomer and science blogger Phil Plait, and his book and other media comprise what the American Association for the Advancement of Science has called Trudeau's "snake oil empire". In the early 1990s, Trudeau was convicted of larceny and credit card fraud. In 2007, he was accused of grossly misrepresenting the contents of his book, The Weight-Loss Cure "They" Don't Want You to Know About. In a 2004 settlement, he agreed to pay a $500,000 fine and cease marketing all products except his books, which are protected under the First Amendment. In 2011, he was fined $37.6 million for violating the 2004 settlement, and ordered to post a $2 million bond before engaging in any future infomercial advertising. In 2013, facing consequences for non-payment of the $37 million judgment, Trudeau filed for bankruptcy protection. His claims of insolvency were challenged by FTC lawyers, who maintained that he was hiding money in shell companies, and cited examples of continued lavish spending, such as $359 for a haircut. In November 2013, Trudeau was convicted of criminal contempt, and was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison in March 2014. The Chicago Tribune reported in April 2014 that infomercials starring Trudeau and promoting his books continued to air regularly on United States television stations even though he was in jail at the time. Trudeau left federal custody in 2022 after 8 years, after which the FTC continued to pursue the unpaid $37 million fine.
Trudeau grew up in Lynn, Massachusetts, the adopted son of Robert and Mary Trudeau. His birth mother was Jewish. He attended St. Mary's High School in Lynn, where he was voted "Most Likely to Succeed" by the class of 1981.
After high school Trudeau became a used car salesman, then joined the seminar circuit, selling memory improvement techniques. In 1990 he pleaded guilty to depositing $80,000 in worthless checks and impersonating a physician, but served, he said, fewer than 30 days. In 1991, he pleaded guilty to 11 counts of credit card fraud and spent two years in federal prison. After his release in 1993, Trudeau joined a multi-level marketing firm, Nutrition for Life. The firm was successful until the Attorney General of Illinois charged that it was running a pyramid scheme. Trudeau and Nutrition for Life settled cases brought by the state of Illinois, and seven other U.S. states, for US$185,000. Next, Trudeau produced and appeared in a series of late-night television infomercial broadcasts throughout North America. They promoted a range of products, including health aids, dietary supplements (such as coral calcium), baldness remedies, addiction treatments, memory-improvement courses, reading-improvement programs, and real estate investment strategies. The FTC took regulatory action against Trudeau, alleging that his broadcasts contained unsubstantiated claims and misrepresentations. In 1998, he was fined. In 2004, he settled a contempt-of-court action arising out of the same cases by agreeing to a settlement that included both payments of a $2 million fine and a ban on further use of infomercials to promote any product other than publications protected by the First Amendment. In 2004, Trudeau began writing books and promoting them with infomercials in the U.S. The first book he published was a medical guide titled Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About, which was published in 2005. The book was criticized for containing no natural cures. Trudeau claimed he was not able to include them because of threats by the FTC. The book became a bestseller selling 5 million copies. Two years later, Trudeau published a second medical book titled More Natural Cures Revealed: Previously Censored Brand Name Products That Cure Disease. According to Trudeau, the book identifies brand name products that will cure myriad illnesses. Trudeau's books claim that animals in the wild rarely develop degenerative conditions like cancer or Alzheimer's disease, and that many diseases are caused not by viruses or bacteria, but rather by an imbalance in vital energy. Science writer Christopher Wanjek critiqued and rejected many of these claims in his July 25, 2006 LiveScience.com health column. Trudeau went on to publish The Weight-Loss Cure "They" Don't Want You to Know About and Debt Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About. His writing has been commercially successful although not factual. In September 2005, Natural Cures was listed in the New York Times as the number-one-selling nonfiction book in the United States for 25 weeks. Trudeau launched a self-titled Internet radio talk show in February 2009 which also aired on several small radio stations consisting of mostly brokered programming.
Trudeau has been married at least three times. His first wife was Oleksandra Polozhentseva, a Ukrainian immigrant. His second union, in 2007, was to Kristine Dorow, a Norwegian student whom he met in London, and ended in annulment after four months. Dorow said that her prenuptial agreement with Trudeau obligated her to reach a certain level in Scientology, which Trudeau has "dabbled in over the years." In 2008, he married Natalya Babenko, another Ukrainian, who filed for marriage annulment based on fraud and had it granted by Los Angeles Superior Court in November 2022.
In 2004, Trudeau self-published his book Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About, in which he made a number of unsubstantiated claims—for example, that sunlight does not cause cancer, sunscreen is one of the major causes of skin cancer, and that AIDS was a hoax devised as an excuse to stimulate medication usage. Trudeau further suggested—again without documentation—that various "natural cures" for serious illnesses, including cancer, herpes, arthritis, AIDS, acid reflux disease, various phobias, depression, obesity, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, lupus, chronic fatigue syndrome, attention deficit disorder, and muscular dystrophy, had been deliberately hidden from the public by the Food and Drug Administration, the Federal Trade Commission, and the major food and drug companies. In one widely quoted example, he asserted that the University of Calgary had developed a "natural" diabetes treatment, then quashed its data, fearing reprisals from the pharmaceutical industry. (A spokesman for the school told ABC News that "there have been no human studies conducted at the University of Calgary in the past 20 years on herbal remedies for diabetes." The university later sent Trudeau a "cease and desist" letter, ordering him to stop using its name.) Rose Shapiro cited Natural Cures as a prime example in her book, Suckers: How Alternative Medicine Makes Fools of Us All. Natural Cures sold briskly due to an aggressive infomercial promotion. Quackwatch and other internet watchdog sites cautioned that the infomercial itself was "misleading". In a 2005 public warning from the New York State Consumer Protection Board, CPB Chairman Teresa A. Santiago cautioned that Natural Cures contained no actual cures, only "speculation". Cures were promised, but only by subscribing to Trudeau's newsletter or website at $71.40 per year or $499 for a "lifetime membership". The paid sites contained only additional, similarly unsubstantiated speculation, according to the CPB. The Chicago Tribune also noted that a purported back-cover endorsement by former FDA commissioner Herbert Ley—who died three years before the book was written—was actually an excerpt from a 35-year-old New York Times interview.
Following Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About, Trudeau released a second medical guide two years later. His second book, More Natural Cures Revealed: Previously Censored Brand Name Products That Cure Disease, was self-published as well. The book is a similar publication to his first, where he purports to explain why drug and food companies hide the truth about how their products can cause disease. In More Natural Cures Revealed, Trudeau writes that workers at the FDA and FTC want to censor him and, figuratively, burn his books. Though the book received negative comments from some reviewers, it received average ratings on both Amazon and GoodReads.com.
