Million Dollar ‘Miracle’ Cure: Investigate Scam Disguised As Church

Leaders of a business disguised as a church They sold a poisonous chlorine solution as a religious sacrament and they marketed it as a “miracle” cure for COVID-19, cancer, autism, Alzheimer’s disease and more, U.S. federal prosecutors have said.

Miami federal grand jury indicted Mark Grenon, 62, and their three sons, Jonathan Grenon, 34, Jordan Grenon, 26, and Joseph Grenon, 32, all from Bradenton, Florida. Prosecutors said on Friday they violated court orders and fraudulently produced and sold over a million dollars of their “miraculous mineral solution”, a dangerous industrial bleaching substance marketed under the English name of Miracle Mineral Solution.

The solution contains sodium chlorite and water. When ingested orally, it becomes chlorine dioxide, a strong bleach used in industrial water treatments and in the bleaching of fabrics, pulp or paperthe South Florida District Attorney’s Office said.

The Food and Drug Administration warned last year that the product the men were accused of marketing through Church Genesis II of Health and Healing was “untested and potentially harmful.”

“Despite an earlier warning, the Genesis II Healing Church continued to actively endanger consumers by selling potentially dangerous and unapproved chlorine dioxide products.Stephen M. Hahn, then FDA commissioner, said last year.

The Grenons used a book, a radio station and a newsletter and They quoted verses from the Bible market the solution to vulnerable consumers, prosecutors said. It is not known if a person became ill or died after taking the product they were promoting.

In civil case documents last year, an FDA program analyst said she ordered the bleach and it was shipped to her. Federal prosecutors said they discovered the solution was made in a shed in Jonathan Grenon’s backyard.

Agents seized dozens of blue chemical drums with nearly 3,000 kilos of sodium chlorite powder this could produce thousands of bottles of the solution, federal prosecutors said. They also recovered loaded guns, including a shotgun in a custom-made violin case, officials said.

The Grenons were Charged with conspiracy to commit fraud and contempt. If found guilty, they risk life in prison, according to federal prosecutors.

The church has described itself on its web pages as a “non-religious church,” according to federal prosecutors.

Mark Grenon, described as archbishop and founder, has also repeatedly said that the church “has nothing to do with religion” and that founded the institution to legalize the use of the solution and avoid going to jailprosecutors said.

The church has promoted the solution to make chlorine dioxide for years.

Jim Humble, one of the founders of the church and a former Scientologist, claimed he was a billion-year-old god of the Andromeda galaxy.. Humble, who has not been charged in the Grenons case, said he had asked “to be put in the part of the space army that was guarding Earth,” according to an investigation last year by ABC7 in Los Angeles.

Jonathan Grenon and Jordan Grenon were arrested last summer on charges related to the complaint filed by federal prosecutors in Miami. They have been detained since their arrest based on a judge’s ruling that they risked not attending future court proceedings and considered a danger to the community.

Mark Grenon and Joseph Grenon are currently in Colombia, according to prosecutors. The Grenons, who could not be located, have represented themselves in court on previous occasions.

Federal prosecutors believe Mark Grenon and Joseph Grenon They run what they call a “health restoration center” in Santa Marta, Colombia, where they charge consumers around $ 5,000 a month to stay put and “administer the miraculous mineral solution themselves.”, according to court records.

Federal prosecutors have filed contempt charges against the Grenons, accusing them of willfully violating court orders in a separate civil case last year, ordering the family to stop distributing the solution.

Prosecutors say the Grenoons also threatened a federal judge presiding over the civil case, saying if the government stopped distributing the solution they would “take up arms” and unleash a “Waco”, referring to the deadly siege of 1993 by part of the federal agents at the compound of a religious sect in Texas.

This case is one of many that have been the subject of lawsuits related to a discredited bleach cure. In 2015, a salesperson for a bleaching solution in Spokane, Washington was sentenced to more than four years in federal prison.

“I can tell you that the Department of Justice takes the distribution of the Miraculous Mineral Solution and all chlorine dioxide products very seriously,” said Michael B. Homer, Assistant District Attorney for the South Florida District.

© The New York Times 2021