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LOS ANGELES (CN) — A part-time actor who describes himself as a “genius entrepreneur” was sentenced Monday to more than eight years in federal prison for soliciting investments in a bogus cure for the Covid-19 coronavirus.
Keith Middlebrook of Huntington Beach, California, will serve 98 months in prison, U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer ruled. He remanded the 57-year-old to custody straight away to start serving his sentence.
It took jurors less than a day to find Middlebrook guilty on 11 counts of wire fraud during trial in May.
Basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson testified at the trial to debunk Middlebrook’s claims to potential investors that the former LA Lakers point guard was a director and officer of Middlebrook’s company.
Middlebrook himself testified that he’d met Johnson hundreds of times and had extensive conversations with the former NBA player about his business, Covid and Middlebrook’s cure and prevention pill.
But Fischer determined Middlebrook was lying about his purported relationship and business dealings with Johnson, basing the defendant’s sentence in part on an obstruction of justice finding, according to a statement by the U.S. attorney’s office in LA announcing the sentence.
Middlebrook maintains that he’s innocent and that his testimony wasn’t perjurious and sought a sentence of no more than 46 months prison.
His lawyer, Andrew Stein, said he believes the government has cellphone records in its possession that will prove that Magic Johnson was lying.
“Just because you’re a celebrity doesn’t mean you tell the truth,” Stein said in an email. “I will be going through the cellphone records day by day to prove Mr. Middlebrook was telling the truth about Mr. Johnson.”
After he was convicted in May, Middlebrook posted a video on his Instagram account in which he said, “A group of people convinced a brain-dead, dumb, stupid, idiot liberal group of people of things that weren’t true about a company that never received or accepted a dollar.”
“Don’t believe the lies in the articles on the internet,” Middlebrook added. “Everything is being taken care of at the Trump level, the higher level.”
These statements, prosecutors [argued](http://of no more than 46 months prison.) in seeking a 98-month sentence, showed disdain for the criminal justice system, lack of remorse for his actions and a lack of respect for the law.
Middlebrook appeared in “Iron Man 2” and “Moneyball,” among other movies. At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, in March of 2020, he shared videos with his 2.4 million Instagram followers claiming he had developed a liquid that, when injected, would cure the recipient of Covid-19 within 24 hours.
He also claimed he had developed a pill that would prevent Covid-19 infection.
Middlebrook, the government claims, solicited potential investors in California, Nevada, New York, Texas and Colorado via text messages, videos and statements posted on YouTube and Instagram. He promised risk-free and 100% guaranteed “enormous returns.”
Jurors also determined that Middlebrook lied to potential investors, claiming falsely that a party in Dubai had offered to purchase his companies for $10 billion — and that the offer would secure the investors’ money — and that he had secured between $750,000 and $1 million in funding from each of seven investors.
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