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.

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