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| Photo courtesy of Anelo on Shutterstock |
A Huntington Beach part-time actor was convicted Friday of federal wire fraud charges for convincing victims to invest in companies that marketed what turned out to be bogus cures and treatments for COVID-19 during the early days of the pandemic.
Keith Lawrence Middlebrook, 56, was convicted of 11 counts of wire fraud. He faces up to 20 years in federal prison on each count when he is sentenced Sept. 9. He remains free on $150,000 bond.
According to prosecutors, Middlebrook solicited investments in March 2020 from people in California, Nevada, New York, Texas and Colorado through various social media channels that touted an alleged “patent-pending” cure and a treatment for COVID-19 that he claimed to have developed. His alleged cure was dubbed “QC20” and the treatment was “QP20.”
He would guarantee investors “enormous returns,” and even claimed that Laker great Earvin “Magic” Johnson was a director at his company, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He also told investors that a person in Dubai was offering to buy his company for $10 billion, guaranteeing victims that they would get their money back, prosecutors said. --->READ MORE HERE
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| Loretto Hospital's Twitter |
A former executive at Loretto Hospital has been charged with embezzlement from a federally funded program, the Chicago Tribune reported today.
Heather Bergdahl faces federal charges that she helped embezzle nearly $500,000 from the West Side safety net hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Tribune reports. The charges are the first out of a federal grand jury investigation into Loretto executives' activity around its COVID vaccination program, the report said.
Bergdahl served as chief transformation officer at Loretto between February 2020 and March 2022.
"On Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice charged a former employee of Loretto Hospital with embezzlement," a statement released by Loretto Hospital this afternoon said. "The charges stem from an investigation of the hospital that began in 2021. Unfortunately, the hospital was targeted and preyed upon, and it fell victim to a crime. For legal reasons, we are currently unable to discuss details, but we continue to offer our full cooperation and support the investigation."
"Since Spring 2022, Loretto Hospital has been under the leadership of a new CEO and executive team," the statement continued. "Our mission to provide accessible, quality health care for Austin and our surrounding neighborhoods remains our top priority. The Loretto Hospital board of trustees, our foundation board and our entire leadership team are focused on restoring the community’s confidence in Loretto through transformation and transparency. We look forward to providing critical health care services to the community for another 100 years."
The Tribune reported Bergdahl, 37, was arrested on the evening of May 9 shortly before she was to take a scheduled flight to Dubai. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
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