[size=14pt]US court convicts Nigerian pastor for cheating dying cancer patients[/size]


A Nigerian-born doctor and ordained pastor, Rev. Christine Daniel, who has been convicted by a US court for peddling snake oil treatment to dying cancer patients, mail and wire fraud, tax evasion and witness tampering, faces up to 150 years imprisonment when her sentence is pronounced in December.
For years, the Nigerian pastor preached the love of Jesus. Practiced medicine for the poor. And promised a sure-cure for terminal cancer patients.
But Rev. Christine Daniel, the founder of Sonrise Medical Clinic in Mission Hills, was a fraud. She was convicted by a federal jury this week of peddling snake oil treatments to dying patients across the nation.


“This is the most egregious fraud case I’ve seen,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph O. Johns, prosecutor in the case. “The defendant used her victims’ religion to blind them to logic, to overcome their common sense. And to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a bogus cancer cure.”
Daniel, 57, of Northridge, was found guilty on Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles of 11 counts of mail and wire fraud, tax evasion and witness tampering.
Her sentence will be pronounced December 5 and she faces up to 150 years in prison and a fine of $5.5 million.
Her trial, which began in March, included the tear-filled testimony of dozens of relatives of terminal patients who had died while taking Daniel’s product.
“In addition to giving them false hope and stealing their money, she also stole their time,” said Johns, chief of the environmental crimes section.
She also failed to report $1.3 million on her corporate tax returns from 2002 to 2004.
Daniel is an ordained Pentecostal minister who got her medical degree from Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia.
For decades she ran medical clinics for the poor, in the San Fernando Valley and downtown, and worked in hospital emergency rooms.
She was also devoted to regular missions overseas.
“If I can just help somebody - one person,” she told the Daily News in 1995. “I just want to make an impact on one person’s life. Just show them love. Just let them know you care.”

A receptionist at her Sunrise clinic on Tuesday said she was too busy with patients to come to the phone. She did not return a request for comment.
Prosecutors said Daniel had used her status as a minister to create trust within the evangelical Christian community.
At her clinic and via the Trinity Broadcasting Network, Daniel promised cures for illnesses from Alzheimer’s disease to terminal cancer.
Her secret: remedies like “C-Extract” created from herbs gathered around the world, then blended for each individual patient.
But a chemical analysis by prosecutors found such ingredients as beef extract flavoring and sunscreen preservative, none of which could cure disease.
The cost of such nostrums ranged from $4,270 a week to between $120,000 and $150,000 for a six-month treatment, prosecutors said.

http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/news/21269-us-court-convicts-nigerian-pastor-for-cheating-dying-cancer-patients.html