Horrible ‘human’ Lawrence Stowe indicted

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Michael

EDIT: See the comments for an update on the near-exoneration of Vincent Dammai.

I’ve been thinking about it. When I first wrote about scam-artist Lawrence Stowe, I called him “a horrible human being”. I now regret that. Allowing him the title of “human” is far too generous. Far, far too generous. Just look at what he did:

Stowe told [CBS’s “60 Minutes”] MS patient that he can reverse her disease with his program of herbs and vitamins to boost the immune system, custom vaccines and stem cell injections. Medical experts say it’s nonsense but it’s the same pitch that we secretly recorded again and again as Stowe claimed to reverse cancer, ALS, MS, Parkinson’s disease and more.

He did this sort of thing to desperate person after desperate person. He scammed people out of their life savings, sometimes putting them into debt and convincing them to sell their homes. He promised cures where there are no cures. He ruined the lives of real humans nearly as much as nature herself was in the process of already doing.

As awful as that all is, there is at least some good news on the horizon:

Three men have been arrested for their participation in a scheme to manufacture, distribute and sell to the public stem cells and stem cell procedures that were not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), United States Attorney Kenneth Magidson announced today along with Assistant Attorney General Tony West of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division, Special Agent in Charge Patrick J. Holland of the FDA—Office of Criminal Investigations (OCI) and Special Agent in Charge Cory B. Nelson of the FBI.

Francisco Morales, 52, of Brownsville, Texas, was arrested by Customs and Border Protection agents pursuant to a arrest warrant late Dec. 22, 2011. He made his initial appearance the following morning at which time he was ordered held without bond. Alberto Ramon, 48, of Del Rio, Texas, and Vincent Dammai, 40, of Mount Pleasant, S.C., were arrested yesterday. Ramon was arrested as he was about to enter his clinic and has already made his initial appearance in Del Rio, while Dammai was arrested in Florence, S.C., and is expected to make his initial appearance in Charleston, S.C., this morning. Lawrence Stowe, 58, of Dallas, Texas, also charged in relation to this case, is considered a fugitive and a warrant remains outstanding for his arrest. The two indictments in this matter, returned Nov. 9 and 10, 2011, have been unsealed by order of the court.

Given the terrible nature of Stowe, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he has already packed up his stuff and moved his operation to another part of the world. Fortunately, the thing with criminals is that they almost always slip up. If he is out of the country, he will return at some point. He can’t hide from his lies and crimes forever.

via SCmom.

Filed under: News, Pure bullshit | Tagged: , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Lawrence Stowe is a horrible human being

Posted on April 20, 2010 by Michael

I hate snake oil salesman. I hate them with an ever growing passion. They take advantage of innocent, sick people for nothing more than money. They make the world a worse place and ought to be jailed. Lawrence Stowe is one of the worst.

Con men used to travel town to town hawking medical remedies said to be made of Chinese snakes. Snake oil was useless and dangerous. So the FDA was created to put a stop to it and other food and drug scams.

But, today, quack medicine has never been bigger. In the 21st century, snake oil has been replaced by bogus therapies using stem cells. Stem cells may offer cures one day, but medical charlatans on the Internet are making outrageous claims that they can reverse the incurable, from autism to multiple sclerosis to every kind of cancer.

Desperate people are being bilked out of their life’s savings.

We’ve been looking into this surging crime and we found there is no better window on how it works than the practice of a man who calls himself “doctor,” a man named Lawrence Stowe.

Stowe has been unaware that, lately, some of his patients have been working with 60 Minutes.

I wish 60 Minutes could look into every quack out there, but there are just so many.

Stowe told our MS patient that he can reverse her disease with his program of herbs and vitamins to boost the immune system, custom vaccines and stem cell injections. Medical experts say it’s nonsense but it’s the same pitch that we secretly recorded again and again as Stowe claimed to reverse cancer, ALS, MS, Parkinson’s disease and more.

Honestly. I cannot understand how these people live with themselves. Stowe charges exorbitant sums of money so he can insert IVs into people in some dank, run-down building in Mexico. One family sold their home to pay for Stowe’s bogus treatments. Others have paid tens of thousands of dollars of their savings with no results. This guy is a piece of work.

Everyone who reads FTSOS knows I rag on Andreas Moritz over and over. A very small part of the reason is that he’s just too dumb to stop showing up on my radar, but far, far, far more important than that is the fact that I view him as legitimately dangerous. I’ve managed to divert a few specific individuals from his potential harm (and I will not mention any specifics because I do not want Moritz contacting and conning them), but I suppose I can at least give him credit for not charging massive sums of money for his ‘services’; his style is to play small ball and take small amounts of money from desperate people. And even though that’s just one of a depressing number of horrible traits that man holds, he’s nothing compared to Lawrence Stowe; there is no comparing the two. Stowe is in a league all his own: if Moritz is Mario Mendoza, Stowe is Babe Ruth. (I would say Ted Williams but it would pain me a little too much as a Red Sox fan.)

Watch these two videos. Every person needs to be aware of the scams that are out there.

Lawrence Stowe is a scumbag part 1.

Lawrence Stowe is a scumbag part 2.

Filed under: Pure bullshit | Tagged: , , , , , | 9 Comments »

Snake oil?

Posted on March 23, 2010 by Michael

Interactive map here.

Filed under: Science | Tagged: | 2 Comments »