The voice seems inescapable. In the middle of the night, it haunts TV screens. At rush hour, it beckons from the radio dial: "I'm Dr. Greg Cynaumon."
For nearly two years, Cynaumon and his diet pill infomercials have saturated the airwaves, proclaiming CortiSlim's ability to slash weight by controlling stress.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday July 06, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 52 words Type of Material: Correction
CortiSlim -- An article in Tuesday's Section A about a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit against the makers and promoters of the diet supplement CortiSlim implied that the companies had claimed the pill prevented cancer. That claim was made about a related product called CortiStress, which has since been pulled from the market.
To some, the pitches have become as obnoxious as Sit 'n Sleep's "You're killing me, Larry" spots. But to people desperate to shed pounds, Cynaumon's mellifluous voice is like a siren song:
"It's not your fault that you're overweight," he intones. "Drop 15 to 50 pounds quickly and keep it off for life."
More than a million people have plunked down $50 for a month's supply of CortiSlim, which is sold over the phone, on the Internet and in drugstores nationwide, making it one of the decade's most successful infomercial ventures.
But if it's true that CortiSlim soothes stress, then the guys who created the beige capsules should be gobbling their product by the fistful.
After hauling in more than $200 million, CortiSlim honchos find themselves besieged by government investigations, lawsuits and revelations of criminal pasts.
The Federal Trade Commission has sued the individuals and companies behind CortiSlim -- headed by Window Rock Enterprises Inc. of Brea -- for saying their pills help people lose weight or prevent cancer. Such promises "fly in the face of reality," the FTC said.
CortiSlim officials deny the allegations, but until the lawsuit is settled, they've agreed to retool the ads.
As the profits continue to roll in, critics say the case shows how easy it is for dubious merchandise to skirt consumer fraud regulations, particularly after a 1994 law that eased restrictions on over-the-counter health products.
"A lot of companies know the FTC will come after them," said Thomas Haire, editor of Response magazine, which covers the infomercial industry. "They put the dollars for an FTC settlement into their budget."
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The saga of CortiSlim involves a Mormon opera singer, two ex-convicts, a toy inventor and a chunk of tree bark.
It all started with an e-mail.
Two summers ago, Cynaumon, a silver-tongued former police officer who recently was fined by the state of California for falsely claiming to be a psychologist, ran across a slim paperback called "The Cortisol Connection."
The book, written by a former nutrition advisor to the Utah Jazz basketball team, outlined the link between stress and obesity. Cynaumon dashed off an e-mail to the author. Is it possible, he asked, to convert the book's message into a pill?
Inside a cluttered, windowless office at the University of Utah, author Shawn Talbott read Cynaumon's note and grabbed a telephone.
"I told him the recipe for such a product could already be found in my book," recalled Talbott, a part-time nutrition professor with a doctorate in nutritional biochemistry from Rutgers University. "But he wanted me to formulate and endorse a specific product."
A deal was soon hammered out. Cynaumon, whose career path includes stints as a Christian talk radio host, toy inventor and pitchman for the Phonics Game, would be the official spokesman for the new product. And his Yorba Linda company, Infinity Advertising Inc., would book the radio commercials.
Talbott, who previously created an arthritis tablet for a division of Nabisco, signed on as scientific expert and pill designer. A Montana company was hired to make the tablets, a blend of herbs, minerals and chemicals.
Ultimately, though, everything fell under the control of Taiwanese-born entrepreneurs Stephen Cheng and his elder brother, Thomas, whose infomercial companies -- Window Rock and Pinnacle Marketing Concepts, respectively -- had collaborated with Cynaumon on a previous product.
Within weeks, Talbott's concoction was developed, bottled and being hawked on radio and TV. "I used to tell my students, 'If you come to me with a formula for a nutritional supplement, we can get you into business next week.' It's that easy," he said. In hindsight, Talbott wishes he'd moved more slowly: "I probably should've done a little more checking into people's backgrounds."
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At first, nothing seemed amiss. In August 2003, Cynaumon test-marketed a batch of CortiSlim ads on Christian radio. TV infomercials followed, airing on the Discovery Channel, TNT and other outlets.
The format was a fake talk show -- a common tactic for infomercials -- hosted by Cynaumon and opera singer Jonelle Goddard, a former Miss Utah, who was in the 1989 teen film "Hot Times at Montclair High." Their guest was Talbott.
Seated on rented furniture in Stephen Cheng's house, the trio gushed about CortiSlim and fielded phone calls from "viewers" who claimed to be watching the show even though it was prerecorded.
"Stress causes you to overproduce a fat-retaining hormone called cortisol," Cynaumon said in one ad. CortiSlim "controls cortisol, so you release those excess pounds."
CortiSlim's phone lines were bombarded.
