Kurt Donsbach Sentenced to a Year in Jail

Kurt Donsbach, an alternative health practitioner who lives in Bonita, pled guilty to 13 felony counts on Friday, April 15. The charges he pled guilty to included “practicing medicine without a license, selling illegal and misbranded drugs, and other allegations involving his Internet radio program offering health advice to the severely ill,” according to an April 15 Los Angeles Times article.

Donsbach, who is 73, was sentenced to a year in jail. He will serve his time in the San Diego County Jail.

As reported in a Reader article last September, Donsbach had a business called Let’s Talk Health, which he sold to Jim Cartmill, who serves as a trustee for the Sweetwater Union High School District. Cartmill’s 2010 campaign material calls the business a “multi-million dollar business.” Donsbach’s nutritional supplements continue to be listed on the Let’s Talk Health website.

When asked in the September 2010 interview if Cartmill still supported Donsbach’s health practices, Cartmill answered, “We [Let’s Talk] just sell nutritional supplements. Donsbach maintains a presence on the website because those are his brand of nutritional supplements. They’re inspected by the FDA every year.”

According to the April 16, 2011, Union-Tribune, Donsbach’s defense attorney “argued that his client didn’t make the supplements but did make a mistake by vouching for their purity without testing them.” Some of the nutritional substances were reportedly laced with steroids.

In addition to the time served in jail, Donsbach will be placed on ten years’ probation. The Times article reports that during those ten years Donsbach will be prohibited “from referring to himself as a doctor, prescribing drugs or compounds, or teaching, writing or speaking about any nutrition or health-related issue."

Pictured: Kurt Donsbach

Photo credit: Quackwatch.org