Kevin Trudeau, a veteran infomercial pitchman, was sentenced to jail for not disclosing all of his assets.
Trudeau had been fined $38 million by a court and ordered to stop spending on everything except necessities, but was instead spending hundreds on products such as cigars and high-end meats.
Trudeau told the judge that he thought he was following the order.
“I had no cash. I needed money for food,” he said, reported NBC. “I want to comply one hundred percent,” Trudeau told the judge. “There are not millions hidden in bank accounts, and I really want to help.”
Filings from the court receiver indicate that Trudeau had thousands of dollars hidden in an Australian bank account and spent nearly $900 on a trip to a liquor store; more than $920 at a cigar store; and more than $1,000 at a high-end online meat store.
U.S. Judge Robert Gettleman told him that “This is not an infomercial — you can’t talk your way out of this," according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Gettleman is holding Trudeau in civil contempt for disobeying the court order and said he must cooperate with the court-appointed receiver so they can figure out just how much money he has.
There are also allegations involved that Trudeau drives a $340,000 Bentley and employs two personal chefs and a butler at his suburban Chicago home.
Gettleman wrote earlier this year that there is evidence that Trudeau “is living much more like a prince than the pauper he professes to be.”
If Trudeau ever pays any of the fine he has been ordered to pay, the money will be shared among the readers who bought his book “The Weight-Loss Cure ‘They’ Don’t Want You to Know About,” in which he falsely advertised easy weight loss solutions.
