Magic Johnson Found Himself in The Middle of a Court Case Involving a Fake Covid Drug & Crazy Part-Time Actor Who Claims to Be The Inspiration For Ballers
KTLA — A part-time actor from Orange County who claims to be the inspiration for HBO’s “Ballers” was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for swindling investors who thought they were buying into a cure for COVID-19.
Huntington Beach resident Keith Lawrence Middlebrook, 57, was sentenced on Monday to eight years and two months in federal prison and ordered to pay a $25,000 fine, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release.
Middlebrook “solicited potential investors in California, Nevada, New York, Texas, and Colorado via text messages, videos and statements posted on YouTube and Instagram about his purported cure for COVID-19,” the release said.
Here's the story as I understand it. There's a part-time actor/full-time insane person named Keith Middlebrook. Here's a video he posted to YouTube 6 days ago. This should give you a pretty good idea as to what he's all about.
Keith also refers to himself as "The Real Iron Man". Apparently he earned that by playing a small role in the movie. But his real fake claim to fame is that the HBO series Ballers was inspired by his life. I have no idea what grounds he claims that on. I see zero evidence that Keith Middlebrook was ever an agent. He certainly never played in the NFL. But in fairness to Keith, he does kinda resemble a much uglier, more oddly shaped version of The Rock. An ugly mishapen Rock who's refusing to come to terms with his baldness.
Keith Middlebrook claimed to have invented his own cure for covid during the height of the pandemic. He called his drug QC20. Somehow, real life people who heard this fledgling actor pitch them drugs, decided they liked what they heard and gave him their money. But in fairness to Keith's investors, when you scroll through Keith's Instagram page, he does seem pretty legit.
On top of that, he claimed Magic Johnson was a "director and officer" of his company. Also that someone in Dubai was set to purchase his companies (now plural) for $10 billion. So their investments were perfectly safe. Until Keith was eventually arrested in March 2020 when he delivered pills to an FBI agent posing as an investor. I'll give Keith credit. He was ahead of the game when it came to fake Covid cures. March Madness had barely been cancelled and Keith was already knee deep in scamming.
In the end, he didn't even up getting that much money from investors. I can't find an exact number on how much it was, but he was convicted of 11 counts of wire fraud and sentenced to 8 years in prison in large part due to him obstructing justice when he testified about his supposed relationship with Magic Johnson while on the stand. Effectively perjuring himself.
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Unfortunately for Keith, Magic Johnson had time that day, and made an appearance at Middlebrook's trial where he took the stand and said he had never once worked with Middlebrook. That he didn't even know the guy.
Keith Middlebrook is still adamant he hasn't committed any crime. His lawyer claims a Stanford doctor (who's existence I can't find any proof of) said his Covid cure worked. He has no idea how a jury convicted his client. He refers to Magic Johnson as "the biggest liar I've ever seen". And he promises to prove it. Which personally I'm looking forward to.
The article posted at the top of the page goes into a little more detail, but that's the story in short. I'd be lying if I said I didn't like to imagine a world where Magic Johnson met Keith at some networking event Keith paid $10,000 to attend, and really liked the cut of Keith's jib. That Magic thought Keith's miracle Covid drug pitch was the greatest thing he ever heard, and promptly agreed to be the "officer and director" of his mystery company, then 5 minutes later forgot the conversation even happened until one day he was subpoenaed to court. I think Magic Johnson is probably a smarter guy than that. But sometimes when I see his tweets I can't help but picture him as bumbling idiot who traipses through life just agreeing to shit.
Weird time for an exclamation point, Magic!
More likely, Keith Middlebrook is an out of control narcissist who's been lying his way through his entire life and finally had it catch up to him. But there's just something about Magic Johnson that makes me think he's ripe for a scamming. He strikes me as the type of guy who if not for a good team around him would Western Union $50k to a Nigerian prince in need of his humble assistance. Maybe Keith's lawyer will come over the top with his appeal and drop some bombshell evidence incriminating Magic in his shady client's plot to cure Covid. What a fun story that would be.
Good luck in prison Keith. I think you'll do great. And might I add, I think your hair is coming in super normal.