A sketchy California doctor who duped patients out of $1.3 million [over 200million naira] by selling them herbal remedies she said cured cancer has been convicted.
Christine Daniel, 58, will spend the next 14 years in prison – and has been ordered to pay back all of the cash — for the disgusting scam.
The L.A. medic told sufferers to avoid chemotherapy and pain killers — and instead charged them up to $100,000 for six months of her unique treatment.
She claimed her concoction had a 60% to 80% chance of success in overcoming advance stages of cancer and could also cure diabetes and multiple sclerosis.
But her remedies — which she claimed had been tailored individually for each patient — were completely bogus.
Experts testified that the potion — made up of sunscreen preservative, beef extract flavoring and various other ingredients — would have no effect on cancer or any other diseases.
It meant patients were deprived of proper treatment and had to endure the final months of their lives in “absolute agony.”
“Daniel robbed victims of more than money, she also stole their hopes and dreams for a cure,” U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. said after Daniel was sentenced.
U.S. District Judge Robert Timlin charged Daniel with four counts of mail and wire fraud, six counts of tax evasion and one count of witness tampering.
The court heard from 28 former patients and family members of cancer sufferers who had died as a result of the ruse, reports the Washington Post.
Daniel told Paula Middlebrooks, who she charged nearly $60,000, that she was free from the disease after five months of treatment.
But, in reality, her breast cancer had spread and she died soon after.
And a 22-year-old woman, suffering from neck lymphoma, was told by Daniel not to bother with radiation or chemo. She might have been cured, but instead she died
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