Huntington Beach actor convicted of marketing phony COVID-19 cure sentenced to 8 years in prison

A judge sentenced a part-time actor and self-styled credit guru from Huntington Beach to eight years and two months behind bars Monday for soliciting investments in companies marketing fake cures and treatments for COVID-19 during the early days of the pandemic.

Keith Middlebrook, 57, was also fined $25,000 before he was remanded to federal custody to begin serving his prison sentence, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. A jury in downtown Los Angeles found Middlebrook guilty of 11 counts of wire fraud at the conclusion of a three-day trial in May 2024.

Evidence showed Middlebrook solicited investments in March 2020 from people in California, Nevada, New York, Texas and Colorado through various social media channels that touted an alleged “patent-pending” cure and a treatment for COVID-19 that he claimed to have developed. His so-called cure was dubbed “QC20”and the treatment was “QP20.”

He attempted to dupe potential investors into handing over as much as $4.4 million, according to officials with the U.S. Attorney’s office. However, no actual funds were ever transferred to his accounts.

Middlebrook made numerous posts falsely claiming the products could cure the disease within 24 hours on his Instagram page, where he also described himself as a “Real Iron Man, Genius Entrepreneur Icon, Cleaner to the Pros.” His account had about 2.4 million followers as of March 2020.

He also released a YouTube video titled “Keith Middlebrook on the truth about the Media, CoronaVirus and Secrets of Success,” and in its description he wrote “There is a 1 Centillionth (.00000000001) of a chance of the average person in America getting and dying of the CoronaVirus.” It was viewed 6,212 times. Meanwhile, the deaths of over 1.2 million Americans were attributed to COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Middlebrook would guarantee investors “enormous returns,” and even claimed that Laker great Earvin “Magic” Johnson was a director at his company, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office. He also told investors that a person in Dubai was offering to buy his company for $10 billion, guaranteeing victims that they would get their money back, prosecutors said.

“Investors who come in at ground level say $1M will parachute with $200M - $300M,” Midlebrook wrote in a text to one potential investor that was described in court documents.

Middlebrook was arrested in March 2020 after he delivered pills that were purported to be his treatment preventing coronavirus infection to an undercover FBI agent posing as an investor. According to his page on IMDb, Middlebrook had minor roles in films including “Moneyball” and “Iron Man 2.”

Daily Pilot staff writer Eric Licas contributed to this report.