The Binge Cases: Denise Didn't Come Home - Deadly Cure | 7. Doing Time

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

From prison in Colombia, to a detention facility in Texas to federal detention in Florida, the Grenons continue to fight for their freedom, and promote their product. Meanwhile, Mark Grenon remains defiant. MMS, he insists, will never stop. Want the full story? Unlock all episodes of Smoke Screen, ad-free, right now by subscribing to The Binge. Plus, get binge access to brand new stories dropping on the first of every month — that’s all episodes, all at once, all ad-free. Just click ‘Subscribe’ on the top of the Smoke Screen show page on Apple Podcasts or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access wherever you listen. A Neon Hum Media, Bloomberg, & Sony Music Entertainment production. Find out more about The Binge and other podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Bench. on the southern end of the city. It's a prison that made news recently after the attorney general opened an investigation to the facility. Following rumors of days-long parties, of gambling and champagne, it wouldn't be a difficult place, it seems, to obtain a cell phone, which Mark apparently was able to do. Mark has, after all, found many ways in his life to dodge the authorities. But this time, Mark didn't sound like he was having a party. Welcome, welcome, welcome was how we used to open up our G2 Voice podcast. Mark was now painting himself as a political prisoner.

And over the next two-plus years, these warbly transmissions from Mark's jail cells would continue to reach his followers with a new and conveniently altered message. The MMS movement is under attack, and the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing had its martyr. How long would the average American last

if they woke up one day to have their house raided and everything of value, their work, books, supplies, phones and computers taken, as well as their bank accounts closed? Its martyr, unsurprisingly, was Mark. He'd supposedly been granted life, liberty and property. The government had stripped him of each inalienable right, except for his life. Where is the U.S. Constitution in all of this? And the government, one he calls a corporation, was unlawfully coming after him,

at least from his perspective. And my son Joseph and I were taken and put in jail in Columbia. And adding insult to injury, they wouldn't even give him his day in court. Happened here 91 days. And during these years that he and his son spent in jail awaiting trial, Mark seemed to avoid one real and pressing reality at every turn. He could be going to prison for a long, long time. Still, he appeared incapable of giving up. He tried every trick in the book to keep his church and his empire from collapsing. From Neon Hum Media, Sony Music Entertainment, and Bloomberg,

I'm Kristen V. Brown, and this is Smokescreen, Deadly Cure, a podcast about how a family on the fringe convinced tens of thousands of people across the globe to buy a miracle liquid made of poison, the international conspiracy it ignited, and the people who fought to take them down. Episode 7, Doing Time. About four months after Mark and Jonathan were arrested in Santa Marta and brought to La Picota Prison in Bogota, Mark sent a message to his followers and fans.

I want to say Happy New Year 2021. What a year 2020 was. We look forward to things changing for us and bring us all home to be with our families. On the 8th of January, Bishops Jordan and Jordan, excuse me, Jordan and Jonathan have been six months now in Florida jails without bail, with no victims. All this happened because we told the FDA and the Department of Justice that we have the right to practice our church, Genesis 2 church sacraments, to help the body heal itself. As the family marched toward a bleak milestone, Mark's son's six-month anniversary in jail,

Mark shared a different message across the transom. He painted himself as a victim of the federal government's pursuit of him and his church. But privately, Mark was not acting like someone in fear of a looming prosecution. The day after he sent this message out, Mark would receive a phone call. Can you hear me, Mark? Hello? Can you hear me? Can you hear me now? Much better, yeah. Hi, Mark, how are you? It's from someone we've met. Someone who is not very good at doing accents. She says she's a concerned mother. She's got a heart fever. She says she's a concerned mother. She's got a boy with COVID. What should I do?

She pleads with him. You could give him two or three drops every couple hours. The mother asks Mark for a link to where she can purchase the MMS. He says he'll get it for her and put it in the chat. All right. Brilliant.

God bless you, Mark. Mark, I really appreciate your help. God bless you, Mark. It's shocking. He's still pushing MMS. From behind bars. Mark Grennan, awaiting extradition, his children in jail,

tells this scared, albeit strange-voiced mother the appropriate dose. Then, the mother on the other line does something odd. She offers him words of encouragement. Maybe she could tell he was becoming increasingly despondent. You'll get out, mate. You'll be out soon, mate. Don't worry. We're going to get you out, mate. You'll know about it. Just keep praying for us. We are. Thanks, Mark. Send the link in the box, will you? Message me, yeah?

Yeah, I'm trying to find it. As soon as I get it, I'll send it to you. Thanks, mate. Thanks so much. God bless, Mark. God bless. Take care. Bye. Mark doesn't seem to notice the oddness of his interaction with the person on the other line. It sounds staged almost. And that's because it was staged. The mother on the other end of the line?

That's Fiona, dialing Mark in prison. She had called Mark undercover. And Mark consulted this panicked mother with a child she claimed was sick with COVID, high fever, in distress. Don't go to the hospital or see a doctor. Give the child MMS. Two, three drops an hour.

Mark was a calm, clinical MMS physician from behind bars. But on the line, behind the mic, Mark plays up his political prisoner status. So I'm calling from a prison phone in a maximum security prison in Bogota,

Colombia. Myself and Bishop Joseph have been held five months in a Colombian prison. This is November 17, 2020. The family's patriarch continued to mark time with his jailhouse dispatches. We've now been in jail in Colombia for 100 days. Today we've been here 100 days. In Jonathan and Jordan, in Miami, have been 100 days. Today we've been here 100 days. And Jonathan and Jordan

in Miami have been 135 days. Joe and I have been moved to a new cell block which has no windows in many areas, so it's cold. But we and the others with us in

this cell block, we hung blankets up in our cells and used plastic to block out the wind and put on extra clothing. And Bogota is like over 9,000 feet, so it's in its wintertime, so it's getting colder every day. I guess December is the coldest,

and it's almost in December. As long as Mark Brennan had operated as the Genesis 2 church, he'd pushed a cause, spiritual and physical wellness, freedom, health. But as time ticked away in jail, Mark's cause shifted from health to himself. Mark Grennan was the cause. Of course, the Grennans had always asked for money, for seminars, for the MMS, in the form of quote-unquote donations. But this was the first time their fundraising attempts became brazen. And Mark Grennan was smack dab in the center of his very own fundraising campaign. Please pray for us this week. We have some documents coming out.

It's now been six months for Joe and I, seven months for Jonathan and Jordan. The contraband cell phone would come in handy. It's how Mark was able to continue to fundraise. Of course, other people did it on his behalf, too. Hello, everyone. Like Bishop Max Ard, who filmed himself in front of a beachside Zoom background. His Zoom with a view. I am in my Zoom room currently. It is, today is Friday, August the 14th, and it's 835 right now in Central Standard Time here in South Alabama. I am manning the Zoom room, and so if we do have an emergency with the Grenons, if you have wanted to help, well, this is the way you can do it, is to help out and tell the truth about what's happened to you and how good chlorine dioxide is.

We wanted to speak to Bishop Ard, but he's passed away. Anyway, there were lots of these fundraisers, telethons. It's like late-night programming, but for a world relegated to the screen. It's hard to tell how exactly Mark spent his days awaiting trial, but by the looks of it, a lot of the time was spent on something of a press junket. What is the situation like where you're at, like the prison that you're living in? What are your circumstances like? Okay, well, first of all, it's not what people think, especially where we're at, because we're in a group of an area where people are being extradited to other countries. They said no bail because we're an escape risk.

Well, we were on radio every week. We never hide from anybody. He's got a point. Some podcast hosts asked Mark if he needed legal advice, but he didn't really, he said. Mark was confident. God was on his side. Justice would come. Prayers were helpful, but so was cash. If you've been praying, ask the Lord to help us financially, and he's told you to do it, whatever it is, please send half to this link, paypal.me forward slash David Lester Straight. We'll put the link in the newsletter. And the other half to our Colombian, well, really to my

email. You'd have to write me, because we're having a problem with PayPal right now, at bishopmark at protonmail.com. And they could do a Western Union, a Zoom, or something like that. As time wore on, the lines between donations to the church for MMS and fundraising for Mark blurred. But also, by the sound of it, Mark wasn't really looking for legal advice.

He wanted to make a sale. Get the books. Get all three books. You have to write an email, which I'll include, to the place with the printing for international shipping. But they can get all three books.

And I tell you, it will help them take care of their own health tremendously. Practice self-care, not health care. Mark petitioned his listeners, his followers, to support the church, to keep it alive. But is that really all he was doing? Hello, is that Barbara? We weren't the only ones who wanted to know. If that voice sounds familiar to you, it's just a message that came up today. I have autistic children myself, and I know of Mark for a while. It's not a concerned citizen on Telegram. It's Fiona O'Leary, again.

This time, she's talking to Mark's ex-wife, Barbara Grennan. Okay, well, he and I, I'm the mother of two of the boys, three of the boys that are in jail. Two of them here in Florida, and Mark is with my other son, Joe. Yeah, that's Jonathan and Jordan, yeah? And right here in Florida with me, yeah. Okay, yeah. How are they getting on? How are they coping? When I hear this call, I'm thinking about Fiona's commitment. She's been chasing the sellers of MMS for almost a decade.

She won't give up. It's a long time to be in jail. A few times a day? Sounds like the Grennan boys were pretty freaked out. Or perhaps still running an operation from prison. What do you need money for the most? Is it for rent and for food as well, Barbara? Mainly for the rent and, you know, like, and things like that.

Have people been giving you help? Like, have you been getting that support, or have they been good? We did, yes, at the beginning, Mark went in until now. Yeah, but, you know, we have not had, so that's a blessing, you know. So do you rent the property then? It's not your home. Do you have to pay rent every week? Yes. Okay, all right, sorry.

Every month. Every month. Every month. Okay. This was the big expense Mark needed funds for. The money wasn't going toward legal defense. They needed it for phone calls, household expenses, donations to support martyred bishops of the Genesis II Church. According to Barbara, they were paying rent on a house outside Tampa.

Well, thank you so much. What is your name again? My name is Mary. According to Barbara, they were paying rent on a house outside Tampa. But, you know, there's kind of a lot of cutoff in supports and things, but they're OK. They're happy. That's all that matters, you know, healthy and happy. Fiona is at it again, able to connect to the enemy, bond with them even, but lay a meticulously stealth trap. For years, Mark had claimed the government was in it for themselves. They were simply threatened by the idea of medical freedom. It's an idea that gained popularity on its own parallel track through the mid-2000s and flourished in the age of COVID. There are plenty of times in which Mark and his son's behavior, particularly in front

of law enforcement, makes no sense. They appear to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the way the criminal justice system works, particularly in America. They're naive. They leave their running app public. But this time, Mark was making shrewd political moves. He saw a movement in America. Maybe he was the product of it. And he capitalized

on a moment. He courted the sheer rage so many felt toward big institutions that had failed them repeatedly. It's like Daniel Smith's slogan, I'm not a monster. Mark wasn't a criminal. He was a political prisoner. Hashtag free the Grennans. Here he is on the Sons of Liberty podcast. I think you have the law on your side, brother. We do. I mean, I mean, what the law that the pharmaceuticals... Yeah, they've got the pretended legislation. Yeah, exactly.

But we have God and God's going to—we're probably the best guys to lock up and make a stand for this because we have the Lord. And on another podcast, where he's introduced as a political prisoner under the medical police state, an image appears on the screen in big black lettering over a red background. All caps. Free the Grennons. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you, Mark. How is the connection? Good? It's not too bad.

Okay, good. I've been over 500 days, a month before us, in Miami at the Federal Detention And it wouldn't stop him from preaching. Or prescribing MMS. It was a great opportunity to get the word out. Mark became the perfect plaintiff. His sensibilities were strategic. He became a martyr because it fit comfortably into the political reality of the contemporary right wing. I know I'm repeating myself,

but I'm just trying to get as much time as I can in this phone before they shut the phone off. Well, I hope to see everybody soon. And another week or so, I'll send another audio. And again, God bless you all. Mark, the political prisoner, was hopeful that his wrongful imprisonment would be overturned, that the government would recognize the colossal mistake they'd made in arresting him, that they were at fault, not him. He was adamant about this. He knew the law better than those enforcing it. Nothing worked. No one would save him. His right-wing talking points wouldn't gain traction. Circumstances grew especially dire when Joe, his son and jail companion, was extradited in December 2021.

It was only a matter of time before Mark would be extradited too. Joseph, that was with me in Columbia, we were captured the same day. I call it kidnapped the same day. And now he's been in Miami for five months and I'm still waiting to leave. And the reason is, I really believe 99%. The reason is they have to wait for me to be there before they can do a trial. And they don't want me to be there because they're scared of this trial. Despite what Mark was alleging, things were moving ahead for Joseph in Florida.

He appeared before Judge Chris McAulelee in Miami on December 29th, right before the new year. The scene played out pretty much like his brother's. He said he'd be defending himself. The judge asked if he'd ever represented himself before, if he'd ever been in trouble before. No and no, he said. Then clarified.

First time in legal trouble. Judge McAlee told Joseph he would be held without bond pending trial. Then McAlee brought up Mark's podcast, the one where he shared his choice words for Judge Kathleen Williams. I'll have someone else read from the transcript here. And you have made public statements that you defied the order, that you don't recognize the authority of this court, from the transcript here. because I want you to understand why I'm detaining you. You have a right to know it. So I'm looking to see, do I have somebody in front of me who I think will obey the order of a court,

which is what a bond is, and your own behavior speaks very compellingly to me that I can't trust you to do that. Your statements about you could be taken out, Ms. Williams. I view those as a threat, and you should understand that. You should understand that somebody in my shoes, when I hear that, that a party who I've ordered to do something refuses to obey it and says I could be taken out, I would consider that a threat.

You've got to be smart enough to get that. So Joseph and his brothers would all wait in jail and wait to see where their dad ended up. Meaning Mark's big day would likely come soon too. You might remember this story from 2020 when we showed you a Bradenton home raided by feds on accusations that four family members were selling bleach as a COVID cure. Mark got an extra 15 minutes of fame in July 2022. One of those men, 64-year-old Mark Brennan, was arrested in Columbia and recently extradited to appear in Miami federal court yesterday. Mark was going back to the U.S., but he wasn't joining his sons in Miami like Jordan

and Jonathan. Instead, Mark and Joseph on them, a mental evaluation on them. It brought Joe and I all the way to Texas. I mean, it's insane. They're the ones who need the medical evaluation. Meanwhile, their trial was pushed from September 2022 to early 2023. And then summer 2023. This call is from a federal prison. You will not be charged for this call.

This call will be recorded and subject to monitoring at any time. To accept this call, press 5. Mark, once at the helm of an international church, a big effing deal in his mind, was now sitting in a psychiatric institution. There are some mental gymnastics at play here. Mark and his family, they're just like you. They've been forgotten by the elite, the government, the powerful. Just like you.

But when it comes to playing by the rules, he's special. Here he is on yet another podcast. The other voice you hear is the host. I want to tell you something else that's happened to us. Yeah. You know, we got locked up because they found knives in this place. I mean, there's literally crazy people. I mean, literally.

And I've talked to them personally. We're not in any danger to be, but we are in danger because there's a potential threat that one of these guys can stab you. He didn't belong here. The other people here are crazy, he says. Before that, they strip-sit you. They make me lift my testicles, bend over, spread my butt cheeks, cough, and see if there's anything in there, right? Then they put us in these little monkey suits, shackle us in chains. We walk a quarter of a mile before by the time we go there back, right?

I'm there monitored the whole time. I'm there cameras the whole time. We do our hearing. We come shuffled back in these tunnels like slaves. Yeah. He equates himself to someone enslaved. He says he's trapped, humiliated. Probably another tactic by the FDA to make a mockery of Mark and his medical freedom, he figured. They try to humiliate you. Where did I pick up a knife? Mark and his medical freedom, he figured. And they strip justice again. They try to humiliate you. Where did I pick up a knife? I've been under surveillance the whole time, under cameras.

Where did I pick up any kind of weapon or anything? But Mark had big plans. He was going to expose these judges. See, the judges are nothing more than administrative magistrates. They're not really judicial judges. They work for administrative, the administrative office, because they work for a corporation called the United States of America, Inc. I keep thinking back to those early podcast episodes,

where Mark is quick to invoke divine intervention in his life story. While he still acknowledges a higher power, the string of misfortunes perhaps has made him more weary, less quick to make his fate seem predetermined. Anyway, the judges, for their part, were not impressed by the repeated threats or tales of woe. They said as much when they started receiving an envelope from each of the sons with letters addressed to the judge. Each document included the signature of the Grennan who filed it. But these motions weren't sent from Texas. Their return address was stamped Spokane, Washington. So someone, not their appointed counsel, was sending in motions. Motions need to be filed by the defendant or his lawyer, the judge warned.

In other words, cut it out. But the Grennans had another trick up their sleeve. They'd accused the judge of prosecutorial misconduct. They still hadn't had the speedy trial they were entitled to. The judge denied this motion, too. Throughout the process, the Grennan's had navigated the legal system solo. Even as judges encouraged them strongly to get a lawyer,

they refused. They cited the corrupt Bar Association, that all they needed was Jesus, that they knew what they were doing. They spoke as a united front, in the courtroom, on telegram, through their surrogates. That is, until August 2022. So guess what?

You are going to be followed up, and we're going to talk to the sheriff. You should stay away from here. You should never be coming here again, because Jesus Christ is Lord, and he will come one day, and he's going to save us from this. You have no right here. You are nothing to me. You are nothing. Jonathan Grennan, the son who shouted from his lawn at the feds.

Okay, I got you guys. Guess what? I'm going to the sheriff with this, and this is illegal here because this is church property. The guy who invoked his divine and constitutional right to practice his religion freely. He tapped out and hired a lawyer. It was a shocker to everyone following the story. Writing on the wall, perhaps, for the future of Genesis 2. And things weren't about to get any better. After now, I start copying emails and telephone numbers.

So I'll be busy for a while, but I might write you again or call you. At the end of November, Mark was moved again into custody in Tallahassee, Florida. Throughout this time, Mark's stepson kept everyone in the know and released Mark's voice memos, like this one. So keep your phone next to you, because I'm going to be leaving in three hours. I got a lot to do in three hours. So I appreciate if you'd be up, or at least in bed with your phone by you, please.

It felt like they were waiting forever for their day in court. Hey, everybody. Hey, everybody, Hey, everybody. We're in Texas, and we have a trial is in January still. But we're fighting. We're sending motions in every week. So keep praying for us. He sounds tired, but hopeful.

Just needs money to keep their dream of freedom alive. Apparently, it worked. At least a little bit. Mark's stories of woe and victimhood were enough to hook someone named David Lester Strait. A man who, apparently, lends his legal advice to causes like Ammon Bundy. That's one of the anti-government activists famous for his occupation and standoffs with the government in the Pacific Northwest. He didn't respond to our request for comment.

Now, I don't know if Strait found Grennan or the other way around, but they seem a little bit like kindred spirits. The two evidently linked up, and Strait became the person collecting all of the Grennan's money. Our spirits are free, and soon our bodies will be also, Lord willing. May the Lord receive all the glory

in what we are doing for him. Anyone can send a donation if they'd like to David Strait at his PayPal account, which is Strait, E-N-T, S-T-R-A-I-G-H-T-E-N-T, all one word, at msn.com. And I should say here that Mark wouldn't have continued with the seemingly endless fundraising

if it wasn't working. The way he tells it, the Grennan families covered their basic needs during the years they'd been in prison. But they needed help now, more than ever. Mark kept asking, posting, telling people he needed money, asking that funds go right to David. Even Barbara Grennan asked for contributions. And David was supposed to gather it all up and distribute it to the family.

A lot of these conversations happened on Telegram, where Mark's supporters felt they could converse with impunity. And then another message came in on Telegram in November. This one linked to a new fundraiser. There was a problem. A quote-unquote sizable amount of funds directed to David Lester Strait apparently never made it to Mark. David Lester Strait was not the guy you wanted to send money to. So Mark's supporters asked again for more money. They hoped, I guess, people would have a little bit of faith and donate a second time. Last we checked, they'd raised over $12,000.

Their goal was $100,000. So now Mark, Joseph, Jonathan, and Jordan were all in U.S. custody. It seemed like this was enough to stem the tide of MMS. The people peddling the cure had finally been caught. But it turned out the marketplace was filled with sellers. They've made 1,730 sales on this marketplace. They sell what appears to be just MMS. MMS had been chased off mainstream medium platforms like YouTube and Facebook and into

the dark corners of the internet, like Brighteon and Telegram. And then it had been chased right back into the mainstream. Wow. That's all they sell. Imperial California. Yeah. That is not too far from me. That's all they sell. Imperial, California. Yeah. That is not too far from me. That's true.

MMS is so in the mainstream, so unregulated, that you can find it on a website usually associated with handmade knitwear and artisanal candles. You can get kits. They have, like, it looks like gift packages, like stocking stuffer packages of MMS for $115. Three kits. So where in the world is MMS now? It's on Etsy. That's next time. It was written and produced by Carla Green, Kate Mishkin, and Jonathan Hirsch. Our associate producers are Navani Otero, Zoe Kulkin, and Anne Lim.

Production assistants from Stacey Wong, Gilda DiCarli, and Magnus Nierksen. Editing by Jonathan Hirsch, Catherine St. Louis, and Maureen McMurray. Catherine St. Louis is our executive editor. Sound design and mixing by Scott Somerville. Theme and original music composed by Asha Ivanovich. Catherine Nguyen is our fact checker. Our production manager is Sammy Allison. Alexis Martinez is our podcast coordinator.

Our executive producers are Jonathan Hirsch, Katie Boyce, and Jared Sandberg. Thomas Buckley's reporting on Genesis 2 for Bloomberg informed the development of this series. Special thanks to Chloe Chobol, Krista Ripple, Stephanie Serrano, Odelia Rubin, Liz Sanchez, Shara Morris,

and Jeff Grocott. I'm Kristen V. Brown. Be sure to rate and review the show. It helps more people find and hear this story. Thanks for listening. For emergency assistance, please call Poison Help at 1-800-222-1222 to speak with a poison expert

or visit poisonhelp.org for additional resources.