In United States v. Grenon, (SD FL, June 12, 2023), a Florida federal district court, ruled on a motion in liwas through which the government was seeking to exclude various pieces of evidence in the criminal trial of defendants for manufacturing, marketing and distributing an unlicensed drug. The court summarized the charges against defendants:
Defendants are members of Genesis II Church of Health and Healing ... which the Government alleges is “an explicitly nonreligious entity that [Defendant, Mark Scott Grenon] co-founded[.]”...
Under the guise of Genesis, Defendants promoted MMS as a miracle cure to various illnesses and ailments, even though “[w]hen ingested orally as directed by [] Defendants, MMS became chlorine dioxide, a powerful bleaching agent typically used for industrial water treatment or bleaching textiles, pulp, and paper.”...
The court ruled in part:
The Government first seeks to prevent Defendants from suggesting that their conduct was “a religious exercise, constitutionally protected under the First Amendment.”...
... [C]onsidering the Government’s accusations regarding Defendants and Genesis..., it would likely be impossible to conduct this trial without discussion of Defendants’ alleged religion, as well as their personal beliefs regarding the First Amendment...
The court also refused to preclude defendants from raising a defense under RFRA, but did rule that the applicability of RFRA is a pure question of law so that no jury instruction on the applicability of RFRA should be permitted.
