The limits of gullibility

[the_archfiend]

I barely remember Don Lapre's infomercials. Quite a few other people remembered them more, though, and the price of their recollecting and trusting his face out of a crowd of slick/skeevy late-night pitchmen is now quite apparent, especially to Lapre:

Authorities say TV pitchman Don Lapre was found dead after an apparent suicide
in an Arizona jail cell on Sunday morning. Officials say they are continuing to
investigate the circumstances surrounding his death. It was only a few days
before his $52 million fraud trial was set to begin.

The 47-year-old had been charged with 41 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud,
wire fraud and promotional money laundering with his company, "The Greatest
Vitamin in the World."

At this point, if this were some odd variation of several infomercials making use of a "live audience",  a shill would stand up and probably ask "so what did Don do that was so bad, Wink?":

The indictment claims the Arizona-based TV pitchman received millions from
his scam between 2004 to 2007. He was accused of tricking at least 220,000
people with worthless Internet-based businesses mostly revolving around a
pyramid scheme to sell vitamins that did not provide the health benefits he
claimed. His company was shut down in 2007 due to multiple complaints.

If convicted, he would have faced between $250,000 to $500,000 per count and
five to 25 years in federal prison.

I'm sure that somewhere both Kevin Trudeau and Spamford Wallace aren't learning anything from this. Why should they? If they weren't bright enough to change their ways after getting caught the first time, why would they now?