All language subtitles for The.Curious.Case.of.S02E01.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH[EZTVx.to]

There are people who have been
rock stars in the food health

business over
the course of decades.

And Robert Young was one of
those people.

I have discovered that
the human organism

is alkaline by design.

I was thinking
this guy walked on water.

Any expert or research
scientist always regards him

as the Nikola Tesla
of our time.

This is like the teachings
of Jesus

coming through this man.

[Jane] Robert Young said
he could cure her cancer

if she did exactly what he said.

[Dessa]
Everyone had to drink
this green drink.

Have you had your green drink?
Are you drinking enough
green drink?

-Drink your green drink.
-[tense music plays]

Robert said, "If you eat
certain things and don't eat

other things,
life will be good."

When I went into
my client's residence,

everything was green.

Had it been blood,
it would have looked like

a murder scene.

Why was everybody getting
sicker, not better?

[Matt]
You would think,
"Wow, the guy that cures cancers

is gonna get brought out
as a hero."

Robert Young was energized
by watching people get better.

But where does salesmanship end
and fraud begin?

My mother-in-law was saved
by Dr. Robert Young.

She had fell completely septic.

She was admitted into ICU.

She was going to die.

I asked Dr. Robert Young,

"If this was your mom,
what would you do?"

He told us what to do.

Her daughter, my wife,
whispered in her ear,

"Mom, I'm gonna save
your life."

She basically gave her what
is identical to healthy blood

and forced
stem cell production.

Fifteen minutes later,
she started murmuring.

And within six hours,

my mother-in-law was awake,
aware, conscious.

She was dead
on every level, man.

And she's still alive now
because of Dr. Robert Young.

[phone rings]

[automated voice]
You have a prepaid call from...

[Robert]
Robert Young.

[automated voice]
...an incarcerated individual

at the California Institution
for Men.

[ominous chord strike]

[dramatic cello plays]

[cello rests]

[ethereal music plays]

[Dessa]
Energies correspond
with our organs,

so when our organs
are functioning,

everything else is
functioning.

-[ethereal music continues]
-[soft ringing]

And the intention is set.

My name is Dessa Ireland
and I'm an energy healer.

When I was in my 30s,
I was diagnosed with

precancerous cells and they
wanted to start radiation

right away.
Well, I absolutely knew

that that was not my path.

I went on a road trip
with my sister,

and I walk into
a beauty supply,

and there was some oils

that you could get
for curing cancer.

So I bought the oils,

and I started applying them
as instructed.

My dystrophy was on my labia,
so I was douching.

And so in the ninth day
of my douching,

I was in the shower standing,
and literally

a black blob like
the size of a softball...

fell out.
I heard it splash.

I saw it.

But when I looked down
in the shower,

there was nothing.

And I heard,
"You are cured."

I went back to the doctor
and I was cancer-free.

That...began my journey
on alternative healing.

It has been my path ever since.

[ding]

[Dessa]
In 2011, I moved down
to California

and saw an ad
on Craigslist.

And it was housekeeping

position for an alternative
healing center.

And I went, "Fantastic,
that is the perfect fit for me."

So I responded to the ad.

When I arrived and saw
the estate,

I asked the manager
what went on here.

And she told me
it was the pH Miracle System.

The pH Miracle System is
a dietary and lifestyle program

developed by
Dr. Robert O. Young.

You know alkaline water?

You've all seen it
in the supermarket?

Well, that's popular in part
because of Robert Young.

He promotes what he says is

a science-based approach
to diet.

And in the early 2000s,

Young was a rising star
in the world of wellness.

My name is Matthew Hazen.

My best friend and my mentor is
Dr. Robert Young.

The way that me
and Dr. Robert Young

became friends is,
I was working on a product

that was supposed
to remove the toxins

and the environmental pollution

that was affecting
everybody's health.

And just like
his pH Miracle Diet,

this was minerals and water.

This is truly Robert Young's
masterpiece formula.

Dr. Robert Young is from Utah.

Robert, from a very young age,
has been taught to be a healthy

skeptic and to critically think
things through, not just go

with the status quo,

and to let your food be
your medicine

and your medicine be your food.

He's never drank alcohol,
never smoked cigarettes.

He eats raw natural foods,
not processed foods,

and that is directly related
to his Mormon upbringing.

-[phone ringing]
-Here we go.

[automated voice]
You have a prepaid call from...

[Robert]
Robert Young.

Young believes that the human
body is naturally alkaline

and that a diet that is rich
in alkaline foods

like green vegetables
and limits acidic foods

like meat, refined sugar,
and processed foods,

will naturally transform
someone's health.

Pretty good.

[soft piano plays]

[trampoline squeaks]

How many other 90-year-old
people are doing this?

I don't know, but they don't
know what they're missing.

I know.

My name is
Antonia Adele Hoffman,

and this is
my daughter.

My name is Lynne Hoffman,
and we have been avid followers

of Dr. Young since
the late 1990s.

I tried Weight Watchers,
Atkins diet,

the banana diet, fasting,
the grapefruit diet,

whatever diet
was out there, I tried it.

And once I was introduced
to Robert Young's program,

oh, my God,
I experienced a miracle.

I went full-force
into drinking the greens.

I could eat as much as I wanted
to without counting calories.

Now, I just turned
90 years old,

and I still do what I always did
when I was younger.

I owe everything to Dr. Young
and his program.

[Lynne]
So Dr. Young had a ranch in
Valley Center,

a magnificent place.

It was almost like God opened
the door and brought him

this ranch to come here
and teach the truth

about how to maintain
vibrant health and vitality.

[Beth]
Look, I have a very open mind
for wellness, right?

I actually had been diagnosed
with a thyroid problem

a few years ago, and I was like,
"Before taking traditional

medicine, let me try
a few things out."

And I went
to a nutritionist and kind of

rebuilt my thyroid,
and I'm 100% normal,

and have been
for the last few years.

I did it through diet
and supplements, but I wouldn't

hesitate to get traditional
treatment if I needed it.

I didn't really know very much

about Robert Young,
but I had some

friends that actually did
the pH Miracle Diet,

and they lost weight.

So I thought, well, great,
this ought to be really nice.

One thing I love about
the horses is that they just

bring me a lot of peace.

They just calm me down.

My name is Jane Bodily,
and my sister-in-law,

Tracie Cole was a patient of
Robert Young.

Tracie was a single mom
and went to school to be

an environmental engineer.

Tracie was in her last semester,
and she was diagnosed with

leiomyosarcoma, which is cancer
of the soft tissue.

She was a stage four case,

and this is
an incurable cancer.

They said, "We could operate,
take out the tumors,

but inevitably
this will take you."

When that news hit,

Tracie's mother had heard about
Dr. Young from someone,

and we were at the ranch
two days later.

To me, it sounded legit.

Dr. Young was very personable,

and he was pricking her finger
and doing microscopy

underneath his microscope,
and he's showing us her blood

on the screen, and then
he kind of points out that

she had candida and mold
and fungus and cancer.

Robert Young said
he could cure her cancer

if she did exactly
what he said.

This was going to
save our sister.

[Dessa]
When I came to work at
the ranch, you drive through

the gates and there's
tennis courts

and there's a beautiful studio.

And there was a three-car,
four-car garage that they had

converted to a kitchen
and dining room.

We were getting the avocados
off the avocado trees.

And then...

you start seeing the underbelly
of the beast.

The brochure for
the pH Miracle Ranch

was showing
Robert Young's

personal residence.

These people were looking
at the brochure of his home,

his pool, his water walkway
to his massive,

beautiful estate doors.

Not the mobile trailer that was
also the colonics room.

Mind you, I think he was
charging $1,900 a night.

So I started feeling like,

"Hmm, that feels
a little strange."

One of the "rooms" was
their family RV.

And before somebody checked in,
I would always go in

and do a pre-check.

And I kept having
this smell in there,

and I recognized the smell.

And when I opened up the oven,

there were two inches of
rat droppings

in the bottom of this
oven that these people

were sleeping in.

And so I cleaned it out.

I did my job
because that's what you do.

And I told him...

this place
should not have anyone in it,

but he would never
address the issues.

Just clean it up
the best you can.

I went into this position
knowing that I would be

cleaning five guest residence.

And then it comes to pass that
now I'm doing Robert Young's

personal residence.

The amount of dishes that
I would clean on a daily basis

made me feel like I was
cleaning up after...

seven people.

There was no concept of
picking up after yourself.

None.

I went into
the master bathroom.

I don't think the toilet...

had been running for months,

yet he was still using it.

So you can imagine what it
looked like.

It was like a porta potty,

but in the master
living quarters.

No flushing.

No running water!

What the [bleep]?!

Like, what pigs!

I mean,
you know,

and the laundry and
their Mormon underwear that

you would just --
and it's like,

"Oh, my God!"
It's...

[groaning laughter]

He was kind of like
a frat boy, right?

And he had -- he was bringing
a patient in there

into this non-sterile
environment to live

and be treated.
It's like, what...

like, I don't understand
how he can hold himself out as

a medical professional and have
such a non-sterile environment.

[Dessa]
I was there Monday
through Friday.

I was not there on the weekend.

Friday, I left one
of the patients

that I had a relationship with.

He was extremely ill.

So ill that I thought,
"Wow, I may not see him."

When I came back Monday
morning, the nurse

and her daughter-in-law were
sitting on the curb

outside this client's
residence, crying.

She was so upset because...

they put this client in
the back of the Suburban,

not the back seat,

the back of the Suburban,

and took him to Orange County
to a hospital

so that he did not die
at the ranch.

They did not want that
on their property.

But what was even worse...

is that when I went into
my client's residence...

and saw the condition
of the way

he expelled his colonic...

happened on the bed,
a trail to

the bathroom, happened
on the toilet.

It was green, everything of
green, green juice,

green colonic,
green everything.

Had it been blood, it would
have looked like

a murder scene.

I cleaned up,

I sanitized, I did everything.

I went up to the office and
I told the manager that I quit.

I never spoke
to Robert Young again.

Dr. Young was -- he was cagey,
he was crafty, and he would say

to his potential patients,
"You must follow my protocol

and then you will be cured."
And if they went off

his protocols,
then they would die.

If they left, they would die.

But meanwhile,
these people are deteriorating

in front of
their loved one's eyes.

His language was enough
to always divert blame

away from him,
and onto the patient.

[Jim]
Robert Young was caring for
this woman

who was stage 4
pancreatic cancer.

So she comes to the ranch

and Robert Young starts pumping
her full of fluids.

One day on the ranch,
the woman suddenly died.

However, I believe she didn't
die from pancreatic cancer.

I think she died from
congestive heart failure,

from being pumped
with too much fluid.

Robert Young went into a panic.

"Oh, my God, I've got
a dead body on my ranch --

what do I do now?"

He didn't want anything that
would bring the authorities

to the ranch.

[oldies music plays
over record static]

[Moe]
I'm 80 years old.

Chronologically,
I'm an old fart,

but in my mind
I don't feel that way,

and in my heart
I don't feel that way.

My name is Moe Felix.

My wife Vicki Felix was
a patient of Robert Young.

In 2010, she was diagnosed
with stage 4 cancer.

They said, "We can't cure it."

Then a friend
of Vicki's introduced

Vicki to the teachings
of Robert Young.

Once we were at the ranch,
Robert Young said, "I've been

"doing this for years,
and I can cure you from cancer.

"You have to push
the traditional medicine aside.

"The body will heal itself

if you do the right things
for it."

[Jane] The very first day
of the ranch,

you start your protocols.

Robert Young believes that
through

respiration,
defecation, urination,

and perspiration, that you can
eliminate the toxins

out of your body.

Hello?
Are you kidding me?

Urination, defecation,
perspiration, respiration.

That is what we all live, okay?

That is how we eliminate toxins
from our bodies.

We all do it.

[Jane]
A lot of his program was
based on colonics,

lymph massages, green juices,

alkalined water,

and you get really,

really sick.
And Tracie did.

According to Dr. Robert Young,
she was detoxing from all

the acid in her body.

[Moe] When Vicki started
her treatments,

I started noticing that she was
losing weight.

Her legs were swelling up.

But Dr. Robert Young says
it's working.

Now, let's analogize this
to somebody who's sick

going into the ER
and be given green smoothies

and colonics,
one-stop shopping,

regardless of
the disease, really.

Can you imagine,
like, a cure-all, an elixir?

It's not 1910 here.
So he bamboozled people.

At one point,
all these patients were up

in the swimming pool,

and the ladies brought over some
shakes for them to drink

and Robert Young
happened to be there,

and Vicki said,
"I'd love to have a sandwich."

He said, "You can't have
a sandwich, Vicki.

Sandwich is the worst thing
for you."

So the bill started adding up,
and so I asked if I could just

work in the kitchen.

He told me that I could,

and he said he would deduct
from my bill.

When you go into the kitchen,
there was...

four fridges there,
and the fourth fridge

was where he stored
his secret stash of his eclairs

and donuts and sandwiches.

He would buy sandwiches

and then eat them later
in the day

when we were kind of
all settling.

[Moe]
Some of the ladies caught him

eating sandwiches at
Trader Joe's,

eating it with potato chips.
That doesn't gel.

It goes against what he's
teaching everybody to do.

Now, you know, okay, maybe he
feels like he doesn't need it,

but if he truly believes
that these green drinks

and whatever else will keep
the body healthy,

he should not have at least
the processed foods

and the sweets anywhere
near his house, right?

I mean, he's kind
of being two-faced.

He's being hypocritical here.

[Moe]
The only time I started
questioning him is when

I started physically seeing
Vicki...

deteriorate...
become emaciated.

And I said,
"Vicki, this is not working."

And she shared my thoughts with
Robert Young,

and he said to her,

"You need to have
some IV infusions

that I can do for you."

He never told us that
the infusion was baking soda.

I have read that sodium
bicarbonate, baking soda,

is not going
to hurt you, really.

But what can be harmful,

depending upon what
you're suffering from,

is all that fluid going into you

that you may not be
able to eliminate very quickly,

and it's just gonna build up,

and that can be dangerous
to your organs.

[Moe]
So we both sat down with him
and said, "Dr. Young, this is

"gonna be the last day
that we're going to be here.

We're going back
to the traditional medicine."

And very callous,

his response was,
"If you leave, Vicki,

you are going to be dead
in a week."

[Moe]
When we left the ranch,
I looked at Vicki.

I said, "We'll never
come back here."

That's when we started
traditional medicine.

She started improving.

She was walking.

She regained her color.
She gained weight.

I was happy.

Towards the middle of January
2013,

Vicki said, "I'm not
feeling that well."

I said,
"Let's go to the hospital."

And they said, "Vicki,
we can't do anything

more for you."

And...on 4th of February
at 7:03 in the morning,

she took her last breath
in my arms.

And there was
a tremendous sadness.

But there's also...

a big relief that she wasn't
suffering anymore.

I do believe
Dr. Young shortened her life.

[Linda]
How cute mom is with all
her sisters, right?

Little Dolores with
her jet-black hair.

And the looker.

Absolutely smoking.

-[indistinct speaking]
-She was gorgeous.

-My name is Kellie Despotakis.
-My name is Linda Shaw.

Our mother, Dolores McCullough,
was a follower of Robert Young.

Our mother, she was
never well.

She had gotten Hepatitis B from
a dirty needle when

Linda and I were very little,
either at our birth

or soon after.

We discovered in the early
2000s that she had cirrhosis

of the liver.
-Non-alcohol-related.

-It was the hepatitis --
-From...the hepatitis that

she got from the dirty needle
when we were little.

We cried in
the doctor's office.

It was devastating.
It's a death sentence.

[Kellie]
It is a death sentence,
and we knew that.

So our mom had this...

absolutely wacky
friend, Catherine.

She went to visit
her friend for tea.

-And on Catherine's coffee table
was "The pH Miracle."
-"The pH Miracle."

-Dr. Robert...O. Young.
-Young.

[Kellie]
And my mom picked it up
and read it.

[Linda]
Well, she was
fascinated by it.

She was fascinated.
She thought, wow,

there's some things in here
that she could get behind.

So, April of 2008,
she called Dr. Young

and he suggested that she come
out to the Ranch.

This is the file we prepared --

Linda prepared for
her to take to show --

Twenty years of
her medical history.

[Kellie] Twenty years of
her medical history.

So he was fully versed in what
her condition was.

Basically, take care of her.

This is what she's out
here for.

Take care of her.

Our mom came back
in mid-April 2008.

My mom was walking down
the hallway towards me.

And I just, I remember just
like covering my face,

like grabbing my face saying,
what did you do?

She probably had 50 pounds
of fluid on her.

And come to find out that
Robert Young had ramped up

her salt intake.

Robert Young kept basically
saying, you have to get sicker

before you get better.
-Before you get better.

And then to be honest,
after speaking to him,

we can understand why our mom
was so convinced

he would help her.

We would hang up the phone
and look at each other like...

"What just happened?
I guess she's staying."

So she went back to the ranch.

[Kellie]
When she was there that second
time, the first four days,

she only had water and salt.

Salt and cirrhosis...

-They don't --
-...do not jive.

So this is when, for us,

things started going
a little bit south.

-Our...yes.
-Our spidey senses were
going off.

We just said, "Mom,
you need to come home."

But she was in such bad shape
that Linda had to fly

from New York to San Diego
to get her.

So this is insane.
You ready?

I couldn't get my mother on
the plane to New York

until I paid her balance
for the ranch.

-Which was...over $14,000.
-[Linda] $14,000.

Was not allowed to take
my mother.

This is literally
her ransom, $14,000.

And the memo line is "for Mom,"
"to get Mom."

This is all he cared about,

was getting his money
that was due him.

So, waiting at the curb for
my mother, here she comes from

an employee at the ranch
who was driving her,

puts her in a wheelchair,
and all I saw, my mother was

skin and bones, literally,

sucking on green juice.

I tell you,
I [bleep] saw red.

I walked up, didn't even say
hello to my mother, who I was

desperate to hug.

Grabbed it out of her hand
and just saw this woman

and just whipped it at
this lady.

Hit her, didn't care.
I wanted to hurt her.

I wanted to hurt her.

And I said,
"Here's your [bleep] check.

Give me my mother."

Got my mother
and off we went.

So, once she got
over her embarrassment...

-She got pissed.
-...she got really angry,

and she said...
-[Linda] "We need to stop him."

And then we got to work.

Okay, so Linda and Kellie start
looking into

Young's background,
his education,

and his training.

And what they find is
really alarming.

-He's not a medical doctor.
-We said, "What?"

We know about the IVs.

We know about
the small amounts of food.

But we thought our mother was
under the care of a doctor.

-He went by "Dr. Robert Young."
-A medical doctor.

We trusted him.

And we said, "Oh my gosh, who is
this human being?"

Like, who is
this person?

So, Dr. -- do I have to call
him doctor?

He got an undergraduate,
master's, and PhD

in two and a half years.

It was a diploma mill
in Alabama.

They've since closed it,
but he bought his diplomas.

I mean, the guy was
a total fraud.

So you're wearing a white coat.
You were called Dr. Young.

Did you portray yourself
as a medical doctor?

You know what boat stands
for, right?

Break out another thousand.

Robert Young is a lot
like a fisherman.

He'll keep you on the line
for as long as he can,

and then when he's done with
you, he'll throw you back.

My name is Jim Clark.

I am an investigator
with the San Diego County

District Attorney's Office.

Dolores' daughters contacted
the Medical Board of California

and reported what
was happening.

So our office decided
to investigate this further.

We talked to
the patient's families about

what was going
on there at the ranch

and how their family member
was being treated

and what treatments
they were receiving.

And we found out that IVs were
being administered, and lots of

the times it was Robert Young
giving them directly.

Mistake number one was when
Dr. Young expanded his business

from the wellness and his diet
and supplement world

to treating people
with diseases.

That was a big mistake
because he's diagnosing people,

treating them, and making
promises about a cure.

Mistake number two is when
he starts the IV treatments

because he's breaking the skin
with a needle of patients.

And in California, that is
illegal unless you are a doctor

or, say, a nurse working
under a doctor.

That wasn't happening.

[Jim] In 2013, we served
the search warrant at

three different locations.

The bulk of the evidence we got
were medical records.

We found that the IV equipment
and IVs stored in a shed

over in one of
his employees' residence.

And on the boxes that these IVs
came in, they were labeled with

"pH Miracle Center."

For Robert Young, these IVs
were an important part

of his protocols.

And when I say important part,
I'm not talking about

medically speaking.

I'm talking about
financially speaking.

He's probably paying
$9 or $10 per IV,

but he's charging
$500 a bag to the patient.

During the search warrant
of the ranch,

we found documentation that had
a fee-splitting agreement

between Robert Young
and this doctor for IVs.

So, at 500 bucks a pop,
this doctor was receiving 40%

of the cost of the IVs.

Robert Young wasn't in this
to cure people.

He knew he couldn't cure
people, right?

This was all about money.

This is all about the con.

For every patient that we were
able to identify that

he personally
gave IVs to or diagnosed,

we charged a single charge
of practicing medicine

without a license.

And then we also charged grand
theft based on the amount of

money taken from these people.

[Beth]
He knew what he was doing
was wrong

because he was covering it up.

That's consciousness of guilt.

That's actually a term that
jurors are instructed on before

they deliberate,
that they can consider

whatever conduct
y'know, the judge tells them.

It shows evidence that he knew
what he was doing was wrong,

and the jurors
can accept it or not.

Going into this trial,

we were hopeful that we would
convict on everything.

However,
to Robert Young's credit,

he hired Paul Pfingst.

Everybody knows who Paul Pfingst
is -- San Diego County.

[Paul]
I mean, I've been doing
this almost 50 years.

And this is uh...
this was a one-of-a-kind.

The assistant district
attorney said that she was

gonna prove that he had
murdered 15 people.

His attorney at the time said,
"This isn't a murder case.

This is practicing medicine
without a license."

The prosecution's idea was,
he overpromised to desperate

people that their cancer
could be cured.

The defense was, no, there was
no overpromising.

Sometimes people who are
very sick hear

what they want to hear.

People want to believe
that this was a cure.

Robert Young's position is,
this diet is beneficial,

but he does not promise
that cancer will be cured.

The question has always been,

where does salesmanship end
and fraud begin?

In the end, there was a hung
jury or mistrial on

the grand theft charges,
but Young later pled guilty

to those charges.

The jury did convict him of two
counts of practicing medicine

without a license.

He was sentenced to three years
and eight months in prison,

but only served 40 days
in a county jail.

[Matt]
We live in a country where
big pharma is big business,

and big pharma's number one
cash cow, which

is a trillion-dollar-a-year
industry, is cancer.

You would think, wow,
the guy that cures cancer is

gonna get paraded
around the world

and brought out
as a hero.

But the reality is
you get character-assassinated,

and you lose your freedom so
that you can't speak out.

So, Robert, why are
you sitting in prison?

But what do you say about
the people you did treat

who are no longer with us?
Are they victims, too?

Robert Young is a shyster.
He's a liar.

He's a narcissist.
He's a criminal.

He takes advantage of people.

If more people would listen
and follow

Dr. Young's protocol...

The world would be
a healthier place.

[Lynne] Yes.

When Tracie got home,
she had been diagnosed

14 months earlier, and she
passed away shortly thereafter,

in October of 2012.

Time -- that is your most
valuable asset you own.

She lost all that time with
her family, with her kids.

We are so proud to be...

[together]
Dolores McCullough's daughters.

Because we feel like
she crumbled his empire.

It was her letter that brought
him to the attention

of the authorities.
-Brought him to his knees.

And it is
a satisfying feeling.