UPDATED: Florida Family Found Guilty of Fraud for Hawking Bleach as COVID "Miracle" Cure

Update published 10/9/2023 1:50 p.m.: The chief judge in the Southern District of Florida sentenced Mark Grenon and three of his sons to federal prison for selling bleaching solution as a COVID-19 cure.

During an October 6 hearing, brothers Jonathan and Jordan Grenon both received a sentence of 12 years and seven months. Mark and a third son, Joseph, were sentenced to five years.

The original story follows below.

A Florida family has been found guilty of fraud for creating a fake church to peddle industrial bleach as a "miracle cure" for COVID-19.

Mark Grenon and his three sons — 36-year-old Joseph Grenon, 38-year-old Jonathan Grenon, and 29-year-old Jordan Grenon — have been convicted by a federal jury of selling jugs of toxic bleaching solution as a coronavirus cure under the guise of a phony church called Genesis II Church of Health & Healing. The Bradenton natives sold tens of thousands of bottles of a product they called "Miracle Mineral Solution" (MMS), filled with sodium chlorite, to consumers across the country, including in South Florida.

"The Grenons claimed that ingesting MMS could treat, prevent, and cure COVID-19," the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said on the heels of the conviction. "The FDA, however, had not approved MMS for treatment of COVID-19, or for any other use. Rather...the FDA had strongly urged consumers not to purchase or use MMS for any reason, explaining that drinking MMS was the same as drinking bleach."

In 2019, even before the pandemic descended, now-65-year-old Grenon and his sons were slanging jugs of the substance on YouTube and claiming it could prevent and cure all types of ailments.

Grenon claimed to be a source of former president Donald Trump's interest in bleach as a COVID-19 treatment.

"If you’re drinking 'Miracle' or 'Master' Mineral Solution or other sodium chlorite products, stop now," reads a 2019 warning from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "The FDA has received many reports that these products, sold online as 'treatments,' have made consumers sick."

In August 2020, Mark and Joseph Grenon were arrested in Colombia and extradited to the United States to face the criminal charges. A federal indictment against the father and sons was handed down in April 2021.

All four men were convicted of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government by distributing phony medication.

Prosecutors say that Mark Grenon acknowledged that he founded the church to "legalize the use of MMS" and skirt government regulation –– in his words, avoid "going to jail." The family raked in more than $1 million in sales from the product.
During trial, a federal jury viewed photos of the rundown shed in Jonathan Grenon's Bradenton backyard where the family manufactured the product.

Photos showed several blue chemical drums comprising roughly 10,000 pounds worth of sodium chlorite powder and thousands of bottles of MMS, among other items.

Aside from fraudulent marketing, Jonathan and Jordan Grenon were also found guilty of contempt. Prosecutors contend that the men continued to sell the product despite a temporary injunction in 2020 to halt distribution. The Grenons allegedly threatened the federal judge presiding over the civil case and warned that, should the government attempt to enforce the court orders, the family would “pick up guns” and instigate "a Waco" — a reference to the 1993 federal siege on the Branch Davidian religious compound in Waco, Texas, in which more than 70 people died.

Sentencing for the Grenon family is scheduled for October 6. They each face up to five years in prison.