A federal judge in Miami has sentenced Jonathan Grenon, 37, and Jordan Grenon, 29, to 151 months in prison, for conspiring to defraud the United States by distributing an unapproved and misbranded drug, and for contempt of court. Mark Grenon, 66, and Joseph Grenon, 36, were sentenced to 60 months in prison.
The family was accused of promoting chlorine dioxide branded as MMS or Miracle Mineral Solution as a cure for COVID-19 and other ailments through their non-religious church organization. Even though the church was not religious according to Mark Grenon, the claim was that the MMS (chlorine dioxide) was a religious sacrament and thereby not subject to FDA control due to separation of church and state. “You can’t arrest us from doing one of our sacraments,” Mark Grenon said.
The FDA remained determined to assert that the MMS distributed by the Grenons as they encouraged sick people to drink it was equivalent to encouraging people to drink bleach and just as dangerous, or more so, as it is only approved for industrial use.
All four defendants were found guilty by a federal jury following a trial this summer, who according to court records, received more than $1 million from selling MMS, and further reported threats that were made by the Grenons against the federal judge, and that government interference would result in their taking up weapons for a Waco-inspired level of defense.
U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida and Assistant Commissioner Justin D. Green of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Office of Criminal Investigations (FDA-OCI), Miami Field Office, announced the sentence.
FDA-OCI Miami investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michael B. Homer and John Shipley prosecuted the case.
Lapointe asserts, “The Grenons poisoned thousands of people with their bogus miracle cure, which was nothing more than industrial bleach,” Michael Homer, an assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case, said in a statement. “They targeted vulnerable people who were suffering from life-threatening illnesses and who were desperate for a cure.”
Prosecutors called the Grenons “con men” and “snake-oil salesmen” and said the family’s fake Genesis II Church of Health and Healing front sold $1 million worth of their so-called Miracle Mineral Solution, distributing it to tens of thousands of people nationwide. In videos, the solution was sold as a cure for 95% of known diseases, including COVID-19, Alzheimer’s, autism, brain cancer, HIV/AIDS, and multiple sclerosis, prosecutors said.
Reportedly, the Grenons marketed the product to vulnerable customers through a “church” website, book, radio station, and newsletter in which they cited Bible verses, according to prosecutors who also said that the Food and Drug Administration had received reports of people requiring hospitalizations, developing life-threatening conditions, and dying after drinking the product. “Hopefully their victims can find some solace in today’s outcome,” Mr. Homer added.
Jonathan and Jordan Grenon were sentenced to 151 months — about 12 1/2 years — in federal prison, while Mark and Joseph Grenon were sentenced to five years, the DOJ said.
Mark and Joseph Grenon received lighter sentences due to an arrangement with Columbian authorities to extradite if contempt charges were dropped, explaining how the sentences differed.
This is an update to the previous article,