Damn It Jim, He’s A Scammer, Not A Doctor: Con Man Bilked Investors For Bogus Trekkie ‘Medical Tricorder’
An Illinois man, Howard Leventhal, pleaded guilty Monday to multiple counts of fraud in a scam that beamed away some $25 million from investors into a bogus scheme to build a "medical tricorder" just like the one used by "Doctor Spock" in the popular Star Wars television series. What's worse, he named the fake device after Leonard McCoy, a terrible libel on America's most beloved fictional space doctor. (Presumably, naming the thing after Battlestar Galactica's Gaius Baltar would have been too big a giveaway.)
Leventhal created an elaborate online presence for his scam, registering multiple websites to fool investors into thinking that he was developing the "McCoy Home Health Tablet" for a contract with Health Canada, the Canadian medical insurance system, and that huge sales in the USA would soon follow, because Obamacare is socialized medicine or something.
Damn it Jim, the Enterprise is starship, not an economic system!
ONE. HUNDRED. BILLION. DOLLARS.!!!
Please keep up.