Mark Grenon, the 64-year-old who led Genesis II Church of Well being & Therapeutic and claimed to be the supply of Donald Trump’s bleach fixation, has spent the previous two years jailed within the South American nation along with his 34-year-old son Joseph. Grenon’s two different sons, Jonathan, 36, and Jordan, 28, who had been arrested on the similar time on U.S. soil, stay incarcerated at Miami’s Federal Detention Middle pending a September 12 trial.
The wheels of justice flip slowly, however on this case, at the very least, they’re turning. In keeping with a press launch from the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace of the Southern District of Florida, the elder Grenon made his preliminary look in federal courtroom on Thursday, July 28. He waived illustration of counsel, in line with courtroom filings. No attorneys are listed on the docket.
In keeping with an indictment filed final yr, the Grenons manufactured, promoted, and offered a product they referred to as “Miracle Mineral Answer” (MMS), a chemical resolution containing sodium chlorite and water that, if ingested orally, turns into chlorine dioxide, a poisonous compound used as an industrial disinfectant. Even earlier than the pandemic descended, the Grenons had been promoting jugs of the substance, claiming it might forestall and treatment all method of illnesses. Prosecutors contend that the household raked in additional than $1 million in gross sales.
In truth, the product had killed seven folks within the U.S. as of August 2020, in line with a report in Enterprise Insider.
“Should you’re ingesting “Miracle” or “Grasp” Mineral Answer or different sodium chlorite merchandise, cease now,” reads a 2019 warning from the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration. “The FDA has acquired many studies that these merchandise, offered on-line as ‘therapies,’ have made shoppers sick.”
Screenshot of the Genesis II Church web site, which marketed Miracle Mineral Answer as a “sacrament”
Screenshot through Web Archive
Except for fraudulent advertising and marketing, the federal indictment prices the Grenons with legal contempt, alleging that the household continued to promote the product regardless of a short lived injunction in 2020 to halt distribution. The Grenons additionally allegedly threatened the federal choose presiding over the civil case and warned that, ought to the federal government try and implement the courtroom orders, the household would “choose up weapons” and instigate “a Waco” — a reference to the 1993 federal siege on the Department Davidian spiritual compound in Waco, Texas, wherein 75 folks died.
In keeping with prosecutors, the Grenons manufactured MMS inside a shed in Jonathan Grenon’s Bradenton yard, the place officers seized dozens of enormous barrels stuffed with almost 10,000 kilos of sodium chlorite powder and hundreds of bottles of MMS. The federal government alleges that the household operated its “miracle treatment” rip-off beneath the guise of the church, which the senior Grenon created in an effort to skirt authorities regulation and insulate the household from prosecution.
Mark Grenon infamously wrote to then-President Trump in April 2020 touting chlorine dioxide as a “fantastic detox” that may kill most pathogens within the physique and treatment these contaminated with COVID-19. Trump subsequently instructed on nationwide tv that disinfectants is perhaps employed as cures.
Courtroom information present that a lot of Grenon household loyalists have despatched equally conspiratorial letters to Miami Chief Decide Cecila M. Altonaga, asking her take into account releasing the defendants.
“The Grenons have helped me and thousands and thousands of others across the globe with their sacrament, chlorine dioxide,” reads one letter from December 2021.
“This isn’t how America is meant to work,” a January 2022 letter reads. “There’s a pressure at play to close down any early remedy of COVID-19 and that is why they’re the place they’re.”
“Why the heavy hand of justice in opposition to these good people?” questions a letter despatched in Might.
Mark Grenon’s subsequent scheduled courtroom look is about for Tuesday, August 2.
