Huntington Beach part-time actor convicted of marketing fake COVID-19 treatment

A Huntington Beach part-time actor was convicted Friday of federal wire fraud charges for convincing victims to invest in companies that marketed what turned out to be bogus cures and treatments for COVID-19 during the early days of the pandemic.

Keith Lawrence Middlebrook, 56, was convicted of 11 counts of wire fraud. He faces up to 20 years in federal prison on each count when he is sentenced Sept. 9. He remains free on $150,000 bond.

According to prosecutors, 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 alleged cure was dubbed “QC20” and the treatment was “QP20.”

He 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.

Middlebrook was arrested in March 2020 after he delivered pills that were purported to be his treatment preventing COVID 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.”