Two years after being sentenced to a decade in federal prison for repeatedly defrauding American consumers, best-selling liar Kevin Trudeau is hoping that the U.S. Supreme Court will take a different view of his case than all of the previous courts.

Trudeau’s run-ins with the law go back more than a decade. In 2004, the Federal Trade Commission first went after him for making misleading marketing claims about a calcium product he falsely claimed could cure cancer, and another product called “Biotape” he marketed as a way to permanently cure or relieve severe pain. As part of that FTC settlement, Trudeau agreed to no longer make misleading product statements about the things he marketed.

Then in 2007, he was found in contempt of that agreement for misrepresenting the content of his book The Weight Loss Cure “They” Don’t Want You To Know About, because he advertised the book as an “easy” way to shed pounds, without revealing that the program detailed in the book actually requires, among other things, colonics and prescription injections of hormones found only in pregnant women.

Once again, he was ordered to cease making misleading claims about his products, but Trudeau soldiered on — truth and the law be damned — with infomercials that falsely claimed the weight loss program required no exercise, when in fact it details a daily workout routine — in conjunction with a a dangerously unhealthy 500 calorie/day diet.

In late 2013, a federal jury found him guilty of criminal contempt for continuing to defy previous court orders. Four months later, the court sentenced him to 10 years behind bars.

Trudeau appealed his conviction, arguing that prosecutors failed to proceed to trial in a timely manner, and that they did not show Trudeau had willingly violated the court orders.

However, in Feb. 2015, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled [PDF] that there was no violation of the Speedy Trial Act, and that Trudeau’s other arguments were “meritless.”

In a 184-page petition [PDF] Trudeau’s legal team once again raises the questions of a speedy trial and the convicted pitchman’s willfulness is breaking the law.

The petition argues that the nation’s various federal appeals courts have differing opinions on whether or not criminal contempt is a Class A felony, and that only SCOTUS can resolve this dispute among the circuits. Depending on how the highest court answers this question — if it agrees to hear the appeal — Trudeau’s team contends that prosecutors may not have abided by the relevant timeline for bringing the contempt case to trial.

Trudeau’s team also argues that different appeals courts have differing views on what constitutes willful contempt. They are hoping that SCOTUS resolves that disagreement in a way that would result in an acquittal for the unrepentant scam artist.

[via Law.com]

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