Kevin Trudeau

Kevin Trudeau, author of the book The Weight Loss Cure ‘They’ Don’t Want You to Know About, has been sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $50,000 after inciting his fans to flood a judge’s e-mail account with letters of support, says a Reuters wire story.

According to the report, Trudeau, who’s also a well-known infomercial pitchman, “has long battled federal regulators over his marketing of alternative ‘cures’ for obesity, memory loss, disease and financial ruin,” and is currently in court “because an appeals court had thrown out a $37.6 million fine and a three-year infomercial ban against him for violating the terms of a 2004 Federal Trade Commission settlement with his book, ‘The Weight Loss Cure ‘They’ Don’t Want You to Know About.'”

But after Trudeau urged his fans to write to the judge hearing the case, that judge—U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman—said he saw Trudean’s tactic “as a threat to his safety,” chastised him in court and imposed the jail time.

Trudeau has since “apologized and posted a message on his Web site to stop the campaign.”