Families ravaged by cancer scramble to find a cure...
- We were desperate.
- If there was a treatment out there,
and they said that it can cure cancer, we were there.
- Every day, there would be worship and prayer.
- They would talk about merging spiritual things with medicine.
- High-priced treatment rooted in faith.
- I just knew that it was changing her for the better.
- The doctor said,
"See how much his strength has returned?"
and, "I think he's really improving."
- But was this a miracle cure
or a deadly scam motivated by greed?
- We didn't know if it was pure snake oil.
We really had no idea.
- He lost weight. He was definitely deteriorating.
- People who could have gotten real treatment
didn't get treatment.
- Time was running out to uncover the truth.
- The federal authorities had executed a search warrant.
- We had a very dangerous individual
that needed to be taken off the streets.
- As a doctor and certified expert
for the California Medical Board,
I know firsthand that most medical professionals
will go to any length to help their patients,
but in some cases,
there are those with a deranged mind
and a license to kill.
Cancer is a devastating disease,
especially in its advanced stages.
Patients and their families often feel helpless
when a doctor gives them a dire prognosis.
So in 2001, when David and Laurie Morris received
distressing news about David's fight with cancer,
they considered all possible avenues to find a cure.
- I met David in 1980 at bible school.
He was a musician, I was a musician, and we just clicked.
He and I shared a lot in our connection with music
as well as our faith.
He was a very charismatic person.
He was genuine.
He also had an amazing sense of humor,
and he was a hilarious guy,
and we fell in love quickly-- very quickly.
We got married in 1981, and David and I
didn't necessarily have a plan about children,
although we ended up having four,
which was kind of a surprise.
We were an athletic, outdoors, healthy family,
and that changed in 2001.
David started complaining of a pain in his shoulder blade.
I started saying, "Honey,
would you please just go get an x-ray?
This is not like you."
And so in November, he went in for an x-ray,
and there was a huge, white blob
in the middle of his lung.
He had stage 4 metastasized lung cancer.
It was acting very fast-growing and aggressive.
That was terrifying to both of us.
You know, I'm like, "No. He's 41 years old.
There's no way that he has cancer."
Started trying to talk to other doctors
about what our options are.
We even went to Duke and met with some doctors,
and they said, with chemo treatment,
you know, he might have maybe only six months to live.
"There's not a lot that can be done."
At that point, we knew we needed a miracle.
A few days later,
I got a phone call from a friend,
and she said, "I'm here at a clinic in California.
I want you to consider coming here."
She said, "I've had a seven-year battle with cancer,
and I've had a goiter on my neck,
and that goiter, in the time I've been here, has shrunk."
She also articulated it was a faith-based clinic,
which was important to us.
So following that conversation with our friend,
I talked with someone at the clinic.
And I had a list of questions.
How many people have been healed?
How many people have died?
What kind of medication are you giving them?
Why is it different? I was extremely skeptical.
And she said, "Where normal chemo,
"you feel sick and you lose weight,
"none of my people are having that.
"I use some herbs, and I use things out of other countries
"that I have to bring in across the border,
and everybody's being healed."
She was very firm and exhorting in her faith.
All those things made me feel
a little more settled in my skepticism.
But when I'd asked her questions about
what the expectations were financially,
I was totally freaked out.
Where are we gonna get $50,000?
Which was the quote that the clinic had given me.
We don't have that kind of money.
We don't even have a savings account, you know?
And also, he would have to go to California
from North Carolina,
and we were looking at months of treatment,
and that meant not seeing our children.
I remember just crying, saying,
you know, "What if this is the wrong decision?
"And what if this isn't real?
And what if he doesn't get healed?"
So from that point, we had a family meeting.
Our children were like, "We want you to do
whatever you need to do for Daddy to get well."
After the conversation with the kids,
we went to our pastors and,
you know, our church had raised all this money for us,
and, um, so we decided to go.
We arrived in California,
and our new daily rhythm began at the clinic.
David would come in and sit down in a chair,
and he would take this cup of little liquid.
And we would just sit and visit and talk
and they were emphatic that every day
there would be worship and prayer.
- The doctor, she had a tambourine that she would play.
She would lay hands on different people.
There was singing,
and it was just getting closer to the Lord.
- It was just an easy connect.
David was totally into it,
and he was 100% convinced,
"This is where my miracle's gonna happen."
- My mother, Jean, instilled in us at a early age
a sense of prayer and faith.
The home life was really centered around
church and a strong faith.
- And my mom was a writer. She wrote poetry.
And I would put music to the poems that she would write.
And most of the subject matter was religious in nature,
because the-- to kind of bring us closer together.
- She's a mother among mothers.
She was, you know, everything to us.
She was there for us. She was a wonderful mother.
I was on the freeway,
and my cousin called me
and just basically said something about,
"Your mother has advanced colon cancer."
I almost had an accident.
I had to find an exit, and then gather myself.
I was in tears.
It was the worst news that you could possibly get.
Because of the advanced stage of the cancer,
the doctor said that there was nothing they could do.
They had given my mother 30 days to live.
At that point, we were-- we were desperate.
- I first met George at church in Pacoima.
He let me know that
his mother, Jean, was suffering from cancer.
And he was very distraught, and I let them know
that I worked for Dr. Christine Daniel at
the Sonrise Medical Clinic, and she has a treatment
for people who are fighting cancer.
And it healed them.
- Dr. Christine Daniel
graduated from the Temple University School of Medicine,
one of the top programs in the country.
However, after 20 years of working as an ER surgeon,
Dr. Daniel injured her back in a serious car accident
and was no longer able
to perform physically demanding procedures.
That's when she decided to reconnect with her faith
and become an ordained Pentecostal minister.
Then, in 2001, she opened
the Sonrise Medical Clinic and Wellness Center,
which combined medicine with spirituality.
- We initially went to Dr. Daniel for a consultation.
Dr. Daniel's treatment
consisted of this substance called C6.
It was comprised of herbs from all over the world,
and she felt that there was a great chance
that Mom could be completely healed of the cancer
if we followed her treatment.
- You know, if you have to fly all over the world
to get all these natural chemicals,
it's going to be expensive.
One bottle was, like, $6,000.
- It was just astronomical.
But my father said, "I'll do anything I can
that's within my power
to save my wife, to save your mother."
And from that point, she started taking the C6.
- I just knew that it was changing her for the better.
And the reports that we got from Dr. Daniel
was that she was getting better.
- Jean had very high hopes,
and she felt like this treatment was something
that could give her a new lease on life.
- We had been in L.A. for several weeks,
and Dr. Daniel sent us to the hospital to have a scan done.
And then she would call us into the office,
and she was showing me how everything had shrunk,
and those big tumors, see, they're gone.
And she said, "He's in a good place."
So I made a decision.
I was gonna go home and see my kids for two weeks.
But when I got home, I checked in,
and David's brother said,
"He's not doing well. He has pneumonia."
And I was like, "What?"
- Coming up...
- Am I being played here?
Is this-- is this real?
- I started to get a sinking feeling about this whole thing.
- She actually said, "You don't have a right
to take him home," and I said,
"I have all the right in the world. I'm his wife."
- The ingredients were not what we thought they were.
- If you call it a supplement, you can still treat people.
- David and Laurie Morris
were confident
in Dr. Christine Daniel's
unorthodox faith-based cancer cure
and decided against traditional methods
like chemo and radiation.
Several weeks later, after showing signs
of improvement at the Sonrise Clinic,
David appeared to be well enough for
Laurie to return home and visit their children.
However, soon after arriving in North Carolina,
Laurie received some distressing news
about her husband's health.
- David's brother said,
"He's not doing well. He has pneumonia."
So I got on a plane immediately
and flew back into California from North Carolina,
and when I got back, he looked horrible.
He'd lost weight.
He was definitely deteriorating.
We went to the emergency room, and after several tests,
they came out to me, and they said,
"You need to admit him into the hospital.
He has no blood platelets."
And so we admitted him into the hospital.
- White blood cell counts are checked regularly
during traditional cancer treatments.
If David's were so low, why had an experienced physician
like Dr. Daniel told Laurie that David was getting better?
Laurie reached out to Daniel for answers.
- And she said, "That's just part of
the way the body processes," and
she said it was imperative
that David stayed with his medication.
But I felt the growing sense of something being off.
- Jean McKinney's health
had also taken a turn for the worse.
- My mom's getting skinny,
but her stomach was getting bigger,
and I'm like, "Boy. This doesn't look good."
- That was the beginning of
where I really started having some concern.
- For three months, Jean McKinney
had been taking the highest level of C extract, C6.
At over $8,000 a week,
the McKinney family was running out of money,
and Jean McKinney was running out of time.
- My mother continued to take C6 and continued to get worse.
I felt, "Am I being played here?
Is this real? Am I doing what's best for Mom?"
And it was that-- I started to get a sinking feeling
in my stomach about this whole thing.
- To their surprise, Dr. Daniel told Jean's family
that she would add chemotherapy and radiation
to their mother's C6 regimen.
- I was very suspicious.
If you're up holistic doctor,
why would you promote chemotherapy?
- And also, Dr. Daniel told us that she would prefer us
not to tell the doctors that she was receiving this C6.
She said it was because the radiation and the chemotherapy,
that was big business,
and anything that could actually help people recover,
they would discourage it.
- But why would Dr. Daniel try to keep her C extract
a secret from other doctors?
She seemed to have no problem
telling prospective patients about it.
In fact, she launched an ad campaign
singing its praises, which won her new clients,
as well as some serious complaints.
- A man who lived in Massachusetts,
his wife, who had been a nurse,
was suffering from breast cancer,
and she was looking for alternatives to chemotherapy.
They'd started to order this herbal remedy for her cancer
for roughly $13,000, and it didn't work.
She passed away within two months of starting that remedy,
and the husband was essentially looking for a refund.
But when he contacted Dr. Daniel,
Dr. Daniel refused to give him a refund.
- The husband quickly filed a complaint with
the Cambridge, Massachusetts, Consumers' Council.
For the first time since becoming a licensed physician,
Dr. Daniel was under heavy scrutiny by her medical peers.
- The Cambridge Consumers' Council referred that matter
to the California Medical Board,
and they started to investigate
whether or not Dr. Daniel
was selling a bogus cancer cure around the country.
- That morning, I get a phone call from my brother.
He said, "They had to rush Mom to the hospital."
- We were all there at her bedside.
My mom was in so much pain
that she was talking but not making sense.
She was, um, in agony. She was in-- in agony.
It was hard. It was very difficult.
But I think--
I'm-- I just-- I need a little time here.
- Just kind of unbearable to see someone you love moaning,
and you can't do anything but hold them.
It's kind of hard, you know?
- It was terrible.
Yeah, it's indescribable.
She passed away that evening, and she was gone.
- To hear that Jean had passed
when the whole family had had so much hope,
and she had had so much hope, I was devastated.
- Dr. Daniel said maybe this was the Lord's will,
but that wasn't very comforting.
I felt a lit-- very disappointed in her.
- I knew David was failing,
and he's deteriorating, and I can see it.
And so on one of the mornings, I asked the nurse, I said,
"You know, the doctors won't tell me anything,
and in your professional opinion,
would it be a wise decision for me to fly my husband home?"
And she looked me straight in the eye, and she said,
"Honey, it'd be the best decision you've ever made."
She said, "You have been seeing Dr. Daniel,
and I don't trust her."
And I said, "Okay."
There was something wrong.
I didn't feel good about the situation anymore.
- Laurie Morris ultimately
came to the realization
that Dr. Daniel's cure for cancer
was not working on her husband, David,
so she decided to follow her instincts
and take David back to North Carolina,
where he could be with their children during his final days.
- I was in the hospital room with David packing up stuff,
and Dr. Daniel came to see us.
And David began sharing that I wanted to take him home.
Dr. Daniel, within a matter of a minute or two, was yelling.
"If you take him home," and pointing her finger,
"he's gonna die!
God told me he'd be raised from the dead here."
I was just totally shocked.
I couldn't believe that this medical professional
was yelling at me and threatening me.
She actually said, "You don't have a right
to take him home. I'm his doctor."
And I said, "I have all the right in the world.
I'm his wife."
And she left.
I was so distraught at that point.
He's deteriorating, and I can see it.
I needed to fly him home immediately.
The plane arrived on Wednesday night.
David was in the hospital, and on Friday night,
I had the kids gather around him,
and he took his hand,
and he put it on each one of their shoulders
and called them by name
and spoke a short prayer of blessing,
and then he wasn't lucid anymore.
I was so glad I got him home.
I couldn't have lived with myself if I hadn't.
He died in the morning.
- Despite the horrible outcomes for their loved ones,
the McKinneys and Laurie Morris were too overwhelmed with grief
to pursue action against Daniel
and were unaware that she and the Sonrise Clinic
were already under investigation.
- The California Medical Board
was actually investigating Dr. Daniel,
and trying to figure out what was going on.
And they sat down and interviewed Dr. Daniel.
- Okay.
- And of course, she did the exact opposite of that.
This doctor was incredibly cunning.
She was clearly very careful and cautious
in the words she was using.
She told the medical board
that she wasn't selling an herbal cure.
She wasn't selling a cancer cure.
But given the initial allegations,
our suspicions were that Dr. Daniel
was actually selling a bogus cancer cure around the country.
Now, we have to prove that case beyond a reasonable doubt
and pull together enough evidence.
- Even though Daniel told the medical board
she only sold nutritional supplements,
she continued to promote her herbal treatment
as a cure for cancer.
- How are you, Dr. Daniels? - I'm fine. How are you?
- Good to see you. Let's welcome Christine Daniels.
- Thank you. - Would you do that, please?
- I was watching the Christian channel with my mother, Emily,
and we saw Christine Daniel come on TV.
- What would you say to someone who's just been diagnosed?
What do you say to them?
- Well, we have an array of herbs that we use.
We are an Evangelical clinic. We combine prayer and herbs.
- My mother, Emily, was extremely religious
and had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
- She proceeded to take a treatment in San Francisco.
It did work, and she was feeling great for a while,
and then it came back-- the cancer came back.
She wanted to find other treatments that were out there
that, you know, could possibly work.
- We have different levels of herbs that we put together.
Depends on when they want to get in.
- My mom, once she saw that, she was like,
"We got to try this. We got to see what this can do."
Dr. Christine Daniel seemed like the answer.
It was like our last hope.
- My mother and my siblings all drove down to L.A.
to see Dr. Daniel.
- I can picture Dr. Daniel
calling my mother up to the front,
and saying, "You're cured. You're cured."
And she was kind of, like, dancing,
and everyone was clapping and screaming,
and everyone was so excited...
except for me.
- It just seemed a little odd,
because Dr. Daniel was saying that my mom was cured,
and I thought, "How does she know?
How does she know that my mom's cured?"
But whatever treatment she wanted to try,
I was there to support her.
- Dr. Daniel insisted Emily begin her C extract regimen
and shun all other medical options.
But unable to stay in Los Angeles,
the family returned to Watsonville, California,
and Emily received
Daniel's herbal treatment through the mail.
- I remember, it was, like, dark liquid.
And so my mom was taking it for,
I think, two to three weeks, and was just not feeling good.
It was hard for my mom to swallow.
It always made her nauseous,
and that was the concern off the bat.
- She was feeling very weak.
She said, "I need you to call Dr. Daniel,
"'cause I need to find out,
"is this how I'm supposed to be feeling?
"I mean, I thought, you know, maybe after a few weeks,
"I should start feeling a little better,
and I feel like I'm feeling worse."
So I called Dr. Daniel saying,
"You know, she's having a hard time.
She's not feeling well with it."
And she says, "Well, is she doing other things?
What is she doing?"
And I said, "Well, I mean,
she's seeing her doctor here too."
And she said, "No. She needs to stop.
"This is what's gonna cure her.
"She needs to just
"completely commit to what I'm giving her,
"and that's what's gonna heal her.
That's what's gonna fix her."
I was skeptical at first, but the doctor was saying that,
you know, it's-- "The medicine is curing you."
But it was difficult to see my mom in such pain.
- Within weeks of taking Dr. Daniel's treatment,
Emily's health made a turn for the worse,
and she was rushed to the local hospital.
There, doctors found that the cancer had spread,
and several tumors had developed in Emily's brain.
- She had to be flown to Stanford,
and at that time,
they did operate on the ones that were operable,
but there were some that were not operable.
- The doctor at Stanford said, "Your mom's young,
and she looks great, but she's very, very sick."
He said that my mom was
not gonna live more than three to six months.
I really couldn't believe it. I was pretty scared.
I couldn't imagine not having my mom.
- Things were not looking very good.
And she was still alive, but she was gravely ill.
- My stepfather called Dr. Daniel
and was leaving messages and trying to explain
his concern regarding the treatment,
but he was unable to ever reach her again.
- Now, Emily and her family
knew Dr. Daniel's costly treatment was just a hoax,
and that Emily might have had a better outcome,
or at least more time with her family,
if she had tried traditional treatment options.
- She had lost her hope, and she said,
"I do want you to see if
"you can find a lawyer to get the money
that I invested into this so-called cure."
It was just money spent on-- on garbage.
It was-- you know, it wasn't real medicine.
My mom passed on October 24th, 2003.
I didn't really want to think about Dr. Daniel,
but I wanted to support my mom,
and that's when I met with my mother's attorney.
- Nancy's mother had been sold some of what we thought
were bogus cancer cures using the guise of religion.
And it was just so egregious that we just had to step in
and do something about it.
And we started with the Medical Board.
- When the law firm reached out
to the California Medical Board,
they learned Dr. Daniel's practice
was already under investigation due to the complaint
from the patient's husband from Massachusetts,
and the board believed that Dr. Daniel was a threat.
- Dr. Daniel, she claimed in newspapers,
she claimed on broadcast TV,
and she'd also claimed to every single patient that she saw
that she had an herbal remedy that would
shrink their tumors, cure their cancer.
But after Dr. Daniel had been interviewed
by the California Medical Board, they reached out to
the FDA Office of Criminal Investigations,
because they suspect Dr. Daniel had dramatically
departed from the standard duty of medical care,
and had, in fact, introduced a misbranded
or an adulterated drug into interstate commerce.
That's a crime.
- Since Dr. Daniel had been accused of promoting
her C extract as a cure for cancer,
it was the agency's job to evaluate her product
and determine if it was legitimate.
- We received an actual sample of this cancer cure
from the husband of the victim in Massachusetts.
Our suspicions were that it was bogus.
But to prove that it was fraudulent,
we had to figure out whether or not
there was actually any benefit
to the herbal remedy that she was selling,
or if it was just pure snake oil.
- Investigators sent the bottle of C extract
to a forensic lab for testing.
Then they sent an undercover agent to the Sonrise Clinic,
armed with a heart-wrenching story.
- The investigator said
his father was dying of lung cancer,
and that he was desperate to find any type of cure,
and of course, Dr. Daniel bit on that.
She actually said, "I have a cure,
"but I can't call it a cure,
because the FDA won't let me do that."
That statement demonstrated to me that the doctor was
clearly trying to have it both ways.
She knew what she was doing; she knew it was illegal;
but that she wasn't gonna stop.
In fact she wasn't gonna stop until
somebody caught her and made her stop.
- When investigators sent Dr. Daniel's C extract
to a forensic lab for testing,
they were shocked by the results.
- Despite Dr. Daniel's claims, there was absolutely nothing
that had any significant effect on cancer.
There was about six to eight different compounds--
with celery seed, chamomile, pine,
caffeine,
beef extract flavoring,
sunscreen.
I was just-- I was really shocked.
I felt anger.
Do we actually have a licensed, practicing medical doctor
who had taken the Hippocratic oath
selling a bogus, fraudulent cancer cure
to terminally ill patients?
I couldn't believe that any
self-respecting doctor would do this.
It just convinced me that we had to take her down.
We really needed to do a good job on this investigation
and make sure that we brought her to justice.
- While the U.S. Attorney's Office and the FDA
were investigating Dr. Daniel,
several victims' families hired attorneys
and contacted authorities,
so it seemed like nothing short of damage control
when Daniel changed the name of her facility
from "Sonrise Medical Clinic"
to "Sonrise Weight Loss Center."
- We were all called into a staff meeting with Dr. Daniel,
and we were told that we were no longer
to refer to the liquid
that she was giving to different clients
as a "treatment."
We were to call it a "supplement."
At that point in the staff meeting, it was, "Well, why?"
You know, "Why can't we just continue to do this?"
And at that point, she let us know that
she was being investigated.
I had questions about
why she was being investigated.
She said if you call it treatment,
then you need FDA approval,
but if you call it a supplement,
well, then, you know, you can still treat people.
And she said, you know, it's important that we still
be able to give these people the thing that they need.
There were doubts in my mind,
but I still had, um, a little hope.
I wanted to believe Dr. Daniel was what she said she was,
that she was helping people.
- To investigators, it seemed as though Dr. Daniel
was trying to skirt regulations
by changing the name of her clinic
and how she defined her C extract.
Under federal law, drugs are defined as
substances that treat, cure, or prevent disease and illness,
and must meet strict scientific guidelines.
But a supplement is simply an additive
designed to support a healthy body.
- We had learned that the federal authorities
had executed a search warrant
for Dr. Daniel's office and businesses.
- We were looking for patient charts, patient files.
We wanted to see whether or not
she was actually handling these people
and treating them as legitimate patients.
And it just was not what I was expecting.
It was a-- shambles. It was disorganized.
There were boxes, records piled all over the place,
randomly stored.
There were an awful lot of irregularities
with the patient files.
For example, Dr. Daniel wasn't recording
how she was treating them
or what the results of the treatment was.
The next location I went to was Dr. Daniel's residence.
She claimed that she had a laboratory,
within which she manufactured this herbal miracle cure.
We were expecting to find a,
you know, a sterile, you know, white laboratory,
but there was no laboratory.
There was a little sitting room behind a closed door
with a trashy refrigerator in it,
and evidently, that is where she made this substance.
In addition, we also found
shelving unit after shelving unit
of dietary supplements in her backyard.
They were exposed to the sun, to the wind, to the rain.
They were covered in dust and debris.
- The fact that Daniel was mixing
a bogus cancer treatment, charging an astronomical fee,
and directing desperate, vulnerable patients
to cease all other medical care
was not only appalling; it was criminal.
- That just kind of underscored the need
to put an end to this case.
Dr. Daniel was charging $120,000
for a six-month supply of this substance.
We realized that we needed to complete the tale.
We needed to tell the rest of the story,
and that was, where did the money go?
- I received a phone call from
the assistant United States attorney
to review some records that
they had seized from a search warrant that
they'd conducted at the clinic and at her residence.
I was able to determine the patient's payments were going
into the Sonrise Medical Clinic nonprofit organization.
Some of the checks had "C extract"
written in the memo part,
and somebody had scratched that out
and wrote "donation" in the memo part of it.
They were altered by Christine Daniel herself.
And she changed it to show that it's a donation,
a non-taxable source of income.
From there, Christine Daniel was transferring the money
to her for-profit corporation, Christine Daniel, MD.
And from there, it was used
in that bank account of the corporation
as her personal piggy bank to pay for her personal expenses,
such as the mortgage on her residence,
her lease payments for the electric vehicles,
her son's college tuition.
- During this IRS investigation,
we were able to determine that
between the years of 2001 and 2004,
Dr. Daniel made roughly $1.3 million from these victims.
- She was reporting zero income.
It was just not a mistake.
She was a criminal, and her motive was greed.
- In 2006, I received
a phone call
from a gentleman with the FDA.
The gentleman told me that Dr. Daniel was
being investigated for fraud.
And the investigator began sharing some things
that they'd found in the treatments
Dr. Daniel had given, which just blew my mind.
What type of person would put sunscreen in a product
and say it was natural?
I can't even put it into words.
It was like something out of a bad movie.
- I remember my dad said
somebody from the FDA called him,
and he had this little sheet of paper.
He said, "These are the things that were in the C6."
It was just awful. And I-- I couldn't believe it.
I couldn't believe it.
It-- it was a crushing day.
- How could you come into our lives
at a very vulnerable time and take advantage of us?
- She knew that she had an influence on people.
So whether it's through neglect,
through very bad instruction,
I do believe that Dr. Daniel did kill, um, these clients.
- In the eyes of the federal government
and family members of Dr. Daniel's patients,
she was not just unethical; she was dangerous.
But proving that Dr. Daniel had intentionally,
or even unintentionally, murdered her patients
was going to be difficult, if not impossible.
So federal prosecutors decided on an unconventional strategy
to take her off the streets.
- One of the ways of doing that
is to rip a page out of the history books
and go back to the days of Al Capone.
- The only agency that could get Al Capone
was the IRS criminal investigation.
In the Christine Daniel investigation,
it was the IRS that was able to show and prove
that she took money from these patients,
these victims, and used it for her personal benefit.
- We nailed Dr. Daniel
for the $1.3 million that she took in
under this mail and wire fraud scheme
and then failed to report to the IRS.
- She was charged with six counts of tax evasion,
three counts for evading taxes by Christine Daniel, MD,
and three counts for evading her personal income taxes
between the years of 2001 and 2004.
We asked for an arrest warrant,
so the agents went out, and they arrested her.
- My father was summoned to appear in court.
He was testifying that
he was paying for the C6 as a treatment.
And she refuted what he said and said it was a donation.
I really saw a person who was not trying
to come to grips with the damage that they've done.
And that was a bitter pill to swallow.
- The hardest part about the trial was her making noises
and throwing her arms up like this and rolling her eyes,
and that was just mind-boggling to me.
- As the trial went on, it just got worse.
And there were certain answers to questions that I would give
in regards to the treatment and C1 through C6,
and she would laugh like, you know,
"I can't believe that you're saying these things."
I was devastated.
And I really understood just how deceitful
and how just demonic she was.
I just couldn't understand
how I was able to be used as one of her weapons.
- In September of 2011, we were finally able
to present closing arguments to the jury.
And after two days of deliberation,
the jury came back with a verdict:
guilty on 11 of the 12 counts.
- Dr. Christine Daniel was found guilty of fraud
for selling a fake herbal cure for cancer
that contained beef extract and suntan lotion.
I am not kidding.
- Looking at Dr. Daniel,
I could see that she was absolutely stunned.
This was not the outcome that she expected,
and it suggested to me that she is completely delusional.
- Dr. Daniel went from a healer to a predator.
She relished the power over life and death
and looked at people as--
as these pawns or toys to play with.
- I don't think it's joyful
to have to send someone to prison,
but Dr. Daniel hurt a lot of people,
and I didn't want her to do that again.
- She was, every moment of every day,
at their sides praying with them for them to be healed.
I honestly can't think of anything
that is more despicable than that.
- Dr. Daniel was beyond greedy.
It was all about her making money.
- My mother was using her last months of her life
taking this pretend medicine.
I just don't understand. I don't.
I do forgive and forget, but I can't forgive Dr. Daniel.
- People who could have gotten real treatment
didn't get treatment.
I believe that there will be a judgment,
and I leave that up to God.
- Out of a maximum 20-year sentence,
Daniel received 14 years in the federal penitentiary.
She was also ordered to pay back taxes
and restitution to the families,
a small price considering she stopped people
from getting treatment
and stole precious time from the victims
and their families in their final days.
When Daniel is released in 2025,
she will no longer be allowed to practice in California.
However, there are still some states
that allow convicted felons
like Christine Daniel to be licensed.
For more on "License to Kill," go to oxygen.com.