Case Studies 9 & 10

The case study from chapter nine dealt with a legal con. Thomas Dowling, a reporter for the Ridgeland Register-News & Review, found out several people were solicited by phone or mail or they responded to an ad in the paper about direct sales. The offer was to invest in a community development project. The catch being the guests had to sign the contract on the evening of a dinner explaining the deal. They had a year to check out the property. If they weren't pleased, they could get their money back.

Dowling spoke with the attorney general in Arizona about the development project. The attorney general explained most people don't take the time out of that year to see the land, and then they're stuck in the contract. He told Dowling, however, the scheme wasn't illegal.

Dowling wanted to interview local community members who had been taken in by the scheme, but not many people were willing to talk about money they'd lost or being duped into a scam. He did, however, get one couple to agree to speak and be photographed. He did so by meeting with them as soon as possible and explaining to them why they needed to tell their story to stop this type of scheme. I think Dowling did what he needed to do to get the interview. They weren't sure they should talk at first, but when they get their story out there, others will be cautious when seeing another ad like that in the paper.

After Dowling's story was published, several more people came forward stating they'd been reeled into a similar scheme. Dowling reported a very common scam happening to middle-aged and elderly people and possibly helped his community in recognizing the same sort of scheme. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

In the case study from chapter 10, Anne Fortunato, a feature writer for Great Forks Herald-Times, was researching a new clinic that treated patients with, "coffee enemas," "foot reflexology" and "ground-up plant leaves from Brazil."

Fortunato found out a Coastal City newspaper was being sued by the clinic for stating Doctor Cornucopia was banned from practicing medicine in that state. Cornucopia sued the paper stating he had appealed the case and it was not yet final. When Fortunato contacted the reporter who wrote the doctor's story, she wouldn't comment on it because of the lawsuit. She simply said, "Good luck!"

Fortunato pitched the story to her editors and, with some discussion, was allowed to move forward with another senior investigative reporter. Fortunato immediately met with Cornucopia to get his side of the story. He explained his methods very carefully and didn't say he was practicing medicine or curing cancer. He also didn't associate his business with the hospital in any way.

Cornucopia gave Fortunato a list of patients who were satisfied with his treatments. He strongly suggested she used them in the story or he would assume she was being malicious and would prompt his attorneys of the situation. Fortunato decided to find other patients from the license plate numbers on the cars in the facility's parking lot. I think doing so would give her an unbiased opinion from people who received treatments at the clinic. The testimonials from Cornucopia's list could be from close friends of his.

All the patients Fortunato interviewed said Cornucopia put them on a pure foods diet with food they could order from his mail order house. One of the patients claimed she was cured of cancer because of Cornucopia. However, one patient said she became ill from eating peapods from Nepal suggested by Cornucopia. When she visited her medical doctor, she found out she never had cancer.

Also, the machine Cornucopia was using to evaluate a person's health was nothing more than a soil detector. Fortunato confronted Cornucopia before walking into the facility one day. He had a bag of greasy food from a fast food restaurant in his hand. He said, "Well, you have to treat yourself once in a while." I'm sure he didn't advise his patients to do so.

Fortunato ran with the story the same time a competitor did. The competitor's story gave praise to the new-age facility and used the same testimonials Cornucopia had given Fortunato. Fortunato's story was much more impressive, revealing the problems with the clinic, not just seeing it for face-value. Fortunato did the investigative work and was considered a serious journalist for it.

The facility closed up shop and moved to New Jersey.