SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Get rich quick? Not quite. A hucksters’ deceptive dream dies

Oct 3, 2011, 12:29 PM

donald-lapre-tv-pitchman

He promised us riches on late night TV, claiming to make $50,000 a week from his tiny one bedroom apartment.

But huckster Don Lapre died broke this weekend in a much smaller and ignominious place, found dead of an apparent suicide in an Arizona jail cell.

He made millions alright, but an indictment claims it came from scamming at least 220,000 people into buying into his worthless internet schemes selling vitamins and other multi-level marketing.

Although many could resist the promise of instant wealth, Ross and Burbank co-host Luke Burbank wonders how anyone could believe the BS.

Listen to RIP Don Lapre-Dave and Luke on the death of a TV huckster

“Even when I was a kid and I heard that, I thought ‘how long are you staying in that one bedroom apartment?! Wouldn’t you take the first check and move out,” asks Luke.

“I often dreamed of making my fortune stuffing envelopes but never had the guts to try,” laughs Dave.

Luke says the biggest crime is all the people who actually thought they could get rich quick.

“There’s no way any of this can really be the money making dream that it’s presented as because if it was nobody would go to college, nobody would get their actual real estate license, nobody would do any of the things we all do in order to go out and earn a living in this world.”

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Get rich quick? Not quite. A hucksters’ deceptive dream dies