Judge Smacks Down St. Louis Radio Host Accused of Covid Misinformation

Eric Nepute can’t testify as an expert at his own trial because he’s not an expert, Judge Ronnie White says

Jul 24, 2023 at 10:35 am

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Eric Nepute says that he's just trying to keep people healthy and sell vitamins. The FTC says that he's made more than 10 million misleading claims about COVID-19.

The St. Louis-area chiropractor, radio host and vitamin guru who in April 2021 was the first person in the country to be sued by the federal government under the COVID-19 Consumer Protection Act suffered a series of setbacks in court last week.

Nepute is accused of millions of violations (10,175,234 to be exact) of the law, which regulates how products can be advertised in relation to COVID-19. The Federal Trade Commission says that the 93.3 FM Real Talk Radio host, who goes by "the rock doc," peddled false information about the pandemic in service of selling his own supplements and vitamins — chiefly Vitamin D and zinc. His trial is set to begin August 21 in federal court.

The FTC accused Nepute of claiming on his radio show that vitamins "are more effective than the available COVID-19 vaccines" and then directing listeners to a website where he sold his Wellness Warrior brand of Vitamin D and zinc.

U.S. District Court Judge Ronnie L. White issued a ruling on Wednesday saying that though Nepute had hoped to testify as an expert at the trial about the validity of his own statements, that won’t be happening.

“Nepute does not practice medicine,” Judge White wrote. “There is no evidence in the record that he has any experience treating infectious diseases, and more specifically, COVID-19.”

Eric Nepute Is Being Sued for Spreading COVID Misinformation — 10 Million Times: The St. Louis chiropractor says he's being persecuted by an overzealous FTC

The judge added later, “The fact that Defendant Nepute declares himself an expert in supplements and the treatment and prevention of COVID-19 does not make it so.”

The judge barred Nepute from testifying only as an expert, not from testifying all together.

Judge White also shot down two other experts who Nepute's defense had hoped would take the stand, finding that both lacked the necessary qualifications to provide expert testimony in the areas that Nepute's attorneys hoped to ask them about.

Nepute’s defense offered Christina Parks to give expert testimony on the validity of Nepute's claims about zinc. According to the judge’s order, Parks is “currently a high school teacher at a homeschool co-op in Michigan” and “has not conducted academic or peer-reviewed research since 2000.” The research she did do, Judge White wrote, didn’t even have anything to do with zinc. Ultimately, he determined she can't testify at Nepute's trial because she lacks the necessary qualifications.

Testimony from Michael Holick, an endocrinologist, also must be excluded, the judge ordered. Nepute’s defense planned to have him testify about how Nepute’s audience would interpret the radio host's claims. Alas, wrote Judge White, “Holick is a medical expert, not an expert in marketing.”

Nepute's defense had previously argued that he can’t be personally liable for civil penalties under the COVID-19 Consumer Protection Act that is the basis for the government’s lawsuit against him. Judge White shot that down on Wednesday, too.

Perhaps worst of all for Nepute, the judge wrote in his order that the chiropractor’s radio show is a form of advertising, or at least close enough to advertising to be subject to the law under which the government is suing Nepute, a law that regulates commercial speech. Nepute’s attorneys argued that the advertising of vitamins took place only during commercial breaks, which were separate from Nepute’s program. On Wednesday, Judge White called this a “closer call” than others he made, but ultimately determined that Nepute’s contested statements about COVID-19 cures were made in connection with his hawking of vitamins.

Nepute’s radio show airs most days at 6 a.m. on Real Talk Radio. Other Real Talk programs include shows hosted by Rudy Gulliani, Bill O'Reilly and St. Charles County Sheriff Scott Lewis.

Last week, Nepture broadcast from a remote studio in south Texas, saying he was there on business "trying to save the world, come up with our new health care system, our new parallel system for health and wellness."

"I got to tell you, it's crazy," he said.