Weight-Loss Infomercial Pitch-Man Kevin Trudeau Sentenced To 10 Years In Prison For Criminal Contempt

DOJ press release announcing Kevin Trudeau's sentencing. Fetched via an Internet Archive Wayback capture (2026-07-10) after the live justice.gov page returned an automated bot-verification challenge to direct access. States that U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman sentenced Trudeau, then 51, to 10 years in federal prison for criminal contempt of a 2 September 2004 settlement order (Federal Trade Commission v. Trudeau, No. 03 C 3904) that barred him from producing or broadcasting deceptive infomercials misrepresenting the contents of any book. Reports that a jury convicted Trudeau after a week-long trial in November 2013; that the offense carries no statutory maximum; that the advisory guidelines range was 235-293 months, which the judge called reasonable, but that he imposed the prosecution-requested 10 years, plus five years' supervised release. Quotes Judge Guzman: "Since the age of 25, [Trudeau] has attempted to cheat others for his own personal gain," citing a "history of refusal to follow court orders to tell the public the truth." Quotes the prosecution's sentencing memo describing Trudeau as "an unrepentant, untiring, and uncontrollable huckster who has defrauded the unsuspecting for 30 years." Details the trial evidence: three infomercials aired December 2006-July 2007 for The Weight Loss Cure "They" Don't Want You to Know About falsely claiming the diet was not a "diet" (it required at least three weeks at 500 calories a day or less), that a pregnancy hormone (human chorionic gonadotropin) the diet required could be obtained "anywhere" (in fact only by prescription in the U.S.), and that dieters could eat freely afterward without regaining weight.