In 2012, the FTC notified the court that Trudeau had refused to pay.

Trudeau has violated the Court’s Order by failing to pay even one penny, and his claim of poverty is meritless. He is engaged in multiple lucrative business ventures that generate millions of dollars in revenues. He has systematically concealed substantial assets by various means, and dissipated other assets on his lavish lifestyle. Moreover, Trudeau’s complete failure to pay, his extensive history of failing to obey court orders, and his total lack of credibility, demonstrate that he will not comply with the Court’s Order unless he is coerced to do so by incarceration. Accordingly, the FTC moves to: (1) hold Trudeau in contempt for failing to pay the $37,616,161 contempt sanction; (2) immediately incarcerate him to coerce his compliance; and (3) order that he remain incarcerated until he purges his contempt by paying the sanction in full, with interest, and failing that, until he fully accounts for and turns over all assets directly or indirectly held by him or for his benefit.

The FTC’s filing stated that Trudeau owned or controlled five corporations with nearly $190 million total cash flow since 2007. In 2013, ABC News reported that he had been averaging about $1 million a year in new credit card charges that were paid mainly by the corporations the government says he controlled. Trudeau’s attorneys denied this and characterized the payments as business expenses associated with Trudeau’s speaking engagements and worldwide travel. They claimed that the expenses were paid by separate companies that Trudeau neither owned nor controlled, in connection with services he provides to them. In 2013, during a court hearing, when an FTC attorney questioned him for more than three hours, Trudeau invoked his Fifth Amendment rights hundreds of times. Trudeau was represented by the Law Offices of Marc J. Lane, which specializes in “asset protection.” The FTC also asked the court to hold the law firm and and three of the companies in contempt for failing to produce subpoenaed documents.

In 2013, Trudeau underwent a jury trial for criminal contempt and was found guilty. In 2014, he was sentenced to ten years in prison. At the sentencing hearing, the judge (Ronald Guzman) called him “deceitful to the core” and said he had “treated federal court orders as if they were mere suggestions . . . or at most impediments to be sidestepped, outmaneuvered, or just ignored.” He was released from prison on January 18, 2022.