Just a day after he was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison, it appears famed TV pitchman Kevin Trudeau's problems are far from over.
In a filing in U.S. District Court in Chicago, the Federal Trade Commission told Judge Robert Gettleman that they believe Trudeau continues to be less than candid about where his assets may be hidden, suggesting there are still countless millions to be found.
Lawyers for the FTC interviewed Trudeau last month, and said in their filing that he made "numerous demonstrably false statements, which highlight the likelihood that he continues to control significant wealth offshore."
They note that Trudeau told them that his net profits from infomercials for a Coral Calcium supplement were "probably zero."
"However, in 2004," they wrote, "a prominent Chicago accounting firm (Kroll) calculated Trudeau's net profit as approximately $23 million (including money that went to entities Trudeau controlled). To the FTC's knowledge, neither Kroll nor anyone else was able to determine where this money went."
They further noted that Trudeau gave them still another new story regarding a cache of missing gold bars and coins.
"This time, Trudeau stated that his wife, then an NYU graduate film student, sold the gold periodically to cover student filmmaking expenses," they wrote."There should be quite a bit of evidence bolstering it, including, among other things, evidence of large periodic deposits in his wife's accounts, and records of tens of thousands of dollars spent on implausibly expensive student film production. To the FTC's knowledge, no such records exist."
Trudeau was jailed last year by an angry Gettleman, who insisted that he come clean on his finances. The term is separate from the federal sentence which was imposed yesterday, the FTC declared in their filing it should not be lifted.
"Requiring Trudeau to disclose (and turn over) his assets fully before he begins his criminal sentence is consumers' best hope for substantial relief," they wrote. "Because once again, Trudeau has been dishonest, the FTC asks the Court to continue the status quo, until Trudeau either complies fully, or establishes to the Court's satisfaction that he will never comply."
