Kevin Trudeau went to jail, for too short a period of time

Maybe I'm just upset that I didn't write
"Natural Job Hunting Tips 'They' Don't Want You To Know About."
Credit: Phil Plait

Back when I was in graduate school, I used to come home late at night and watch TV until I fell asleep (such "Natural Cures They Don't Want You To Know About." They were both fascinating and angry-making. It was so obvious that he was bilking people out of their money by slagging the industry I hoped to work for (the pharmaceutical industry) and it made me mad -- but I kept watching.
a bad habit...)

[I confess that I love watching natural salespeople do their thing -- it's such a study in psychology. (I love to wander the aisles at county and state fairs and watch the pitchmen sell knives and such; quite a performance they put on. I am a bit of a cheapskate, so it's not like late-night infomercials get me to buy things.)]

Well, ol' Mr. Trudeau was sent to jail for a night the other day:

After spending just one night locked up in a federal jail, former infomercial king Kevin Trudeau is a free man again. 

But U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman — who jailed Trudeau on Wednesday only to free him Thursday — said he’d keep the smooth-talking 50-year-old fraudster and alleged multi-millionaire on “a very tight leash.” If Trudeau doesn’t come clean about just how rich he is, he’ll be back in custody next week, the judge warned. Trudeau said “no comment” to reporters as he left the Metropolitan Correctional Center and entered a taxi. 

Trudeau, of Oak Brook, has for five years failed to pay a single cent of the $38 million fine Gettleman imposed on him for flouting a court-ordered ban on making false claims in his diet book infomercials. The judge this week finally lost patience with Trudeau’s insistence that he is broke and can’t pay the fine after learning that Trudeau went on a luxury spending spree just days after he’d been ordered to limit his spending to necessities last month. 

Those luxuries included two $180 Vidal Sassoon haircuts, $900 worth of cigars and $1,000 in meat he bought from an up-market website.

It's a shame it didn't last longer. Kevin Trudeau is a fraud (albeit an entertaining one) and he deserves all the punishment he can get.