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- [00:01]
Robert Young
There is another way.
- [00:02]
B.B. Fell
What is going on?
- [00:04]
Larison Campbell
You found Chameleon Season 8. And this is Dr. Miracle. A production of Campside Media.
- [00:10]
Robert Young
Oh, The bench.
- [00:22]
Larison Campbell
So Don Cali was suing Robert Young for negligence and fraud. And now the jury had finally reached a verdict. They filed into the courtroom, and one.
- [00:33]
Dawn Colley
Of the jurors looks at me and winks.
- [00:36]
Larison Campbell
Time slowed down for dawn in that moment, the way it slows down when you know you're experiencing something life altering. And it slowed down for Dawn's lawyer, BB Fell too.
- [00:47]
B.B. Fell
And so when the judge came out and read the verdict and everybody on the jury turned and looked at dawn and watched her just melt down into tears when the judge read that, they thought she had zero percent fault.
- [01:05]
Larison Campbell
The jury said none of this was Dawn's fault and Robert Young was 100% liable. It was a stunning symbolic victory.
- [01:14]
Dawn Colley
We get into the courtroom and I just start hearing numbers. 91 million. Da da, da, da da. You know, 5 million. And I'm just going.
- [01:26]
Jane Bottely
And.
- [01:26]
Dawn Colley
And all my lawyers are just stone faced cold. I just, you know, I needed the reassurance of what I thought I was hearing was what I was hearing. And so, yeah, they. They awarded me $105 million versus $105.
- [01:47]
Larison Campbell
Million, a staggering sum. It would make the rest of Dawn's life easier and would make her kids rich for the rest of their lives. It would also send a clear message about the consequences of duping sick people into giving up on conventional medical treatments in favor of a fake miracle.
- [02:08]
Dawn Colley
And afterwards, all the jurors could talk to you, and the jury came and talked to me, and they said, we just wanted send a real big message.
- [02:19]
Larison Campbell
They send a message, that's for sure. But would Dom ever see the money? From sony music entertainment, campside media, and dorothy street pictures. I'm larison campbell, and this is Dr. Miracle. Episode. The wheels of justice turn slowly. As they say, it can take months or years for a trial to happen. And then when it does, there are new motions and appeals, more slow, turning wheels. This means Don won't get any money until Young has exhausted all his options in the court system. That takes time, something dawn doesn't have. So Dawn's victory isn't the end of the story. It's just the middle. And she was about to see that victory get whittled down. She started with a $105 million award. And after all those motions and appeals.
- [03:35]
Dawn Colley
The judge reduced it. And this is just normal. They'll reduce it to 28 million, which.
- [03:41]
Larison Campbell
Is still substantial over $20 million. Still a huge amount of money. But then could Young shell out that much money?
- [03:52]
B.B. Fell
One of the things that we had a hard time with is, okay, let's say we get this big judgment, does he have the money to pay it? And June was the one who was telling us, yes, he does. He has a ton of money. And it wasn't reflected in his books. She said that a lot of people would pay in cash and he just had these stacks of cash that he was keeping in a safe in the house itself.
- [04:17]
Larison Campbell
Let's set aside the fact that keeping tons of cash in a safe in your house is sort of insane. Luckily, Bebe didn't just have June's word to go on a loan. That's thanks to Shelley Young for divorcing Robert when she did. Now, there were records of Robert's holdings, bank accounts, real estate and other property.
- [04:37]
B.B. Fell
We were able to get at his divorce proceedings because after the verdict came down, he and his ex wife finalized their divorce, where he gave her some things for very cheap, like gave her a property. I think it was the Alpine property.
- [04:55]
Larison Campbell
Still, Young was good at hiding his money. After the verdict, Bebe believed he transferred assets to his kids so dawn wouldn't be able to get it. But since the divorce happened around the same time as the trial, Bebe was able to negotiate with Shelly to get some of the money from her. See, there was always a question of just how responsible Shelley was too. After all, she owned the ranch with her husband and co authored his bestsellers. So Bebe told Shelly that they'd leave her alone if she gave up some of the things she'd gotten in the divorce.
- [05:31]
B.B. Fell
She was getting royalties from his books. And so we were able to unwind some of that, cut a deal with his ex wife in order to get some money in Don's pocket in my.
- [05:42]
Dawn Colley
Lawsuit, in order for us not to have come after her, we had. She had to agree to take off her million dollar lien on his on the ranch, and she had to let go of her royalties.
- [05:58]
Larison Campbell
So, so you do you get her royalties now?
- [06:00]
Dawn Colley
I've just started receiving some royalties.
- [06:03]
Larison Campbell
The irony is that the only money dawn can get out of Young comes from his books, from other people reading about and buying into his lies.
- [06:13]
B.B. Fell
It still doesn't come close to making her whole, and it doesn't come close to satisfying the full amount of the verdict. But it's something.
- [06:29]
Larison Campbell
Between raising her son Jonathan, who's now 13 years old in dealing with cancer treatments, money is tight. It's difficult for dawn to work. She's in constant pain. In fact, she had to pause our interview several times to take her pain medication.
- [06:45]
Dawn Colley
I want to stay ahead of my pain.
- [06:47]
B.B. Fell
Yes.
- [06:48]
Dawn Colley
I might need to take some meds.
- [06:50]
Larison Campbell
Yep, sure, let's do it. Take a little break. The cancer and the treatments have made her bones weak and prone to fractures. Dawn is only 50 years old, but. But she's already had a hip replacement which failed. And it's so difficult for her to move around. She has to coast between pieces of furniture just to get across her apartment. Here's Caroline and Dawn. She's not in a good place financially.
- [07:15]
Dawn Colley
No, I'm not. In fact, I, you know, I have to go work on my. And it's 10 hour, 12 hour days and I'm in tons of pain and I have to do that, you know, at least once or twice a month to make ends meet.
- [07:38]
Larison Campbell
Dawn has an Etsy shop, Dawn discovered where she sells patterned caftans and robes and beaded jewelry. The products are beautiful. It's one of the only jobs she can do with her cancer. But what about Robert Young? After his criminal trial and Don's civil suit, not to mention all the sickness and death, did he learn his lesson? My producer Lily and I went to find out. We heard that Young was speaking at an event called the Conscious Life Expo held at the Hilton lax, so we bought tickets. It was a bright February day in LA when we arrived at the building. A big glass structure with tall palm trees in the front and architectural flourishes that looked like a deconstructed geodesic dome. It's the type of place where you'd expect to find a conference of dentists, not something like the Conscious Life Expo, which is New Age meets wellness meets QAnon. Some of the sessions on the Expo calendar sounded kind of cool, like a Kundalini yoga class. Others were more, shall we say, out there? Like one called Working with Divine Light Beings. It's exactly what it sounds a lecture on how to talk to aliens. Actually, there were a few of those. The Expo was on two floors. We walked around upstairs before heading downstairs to the Rabbit Hole Room where Young would be speaking. It's the room where the more fringy talks were held, which is saying a lot at a conference where lectures on intergalactic communication are not considered fringe. Downstairs, where Young is speaking, has a different vibe. Lower ceilings, smaller booths, dimmer light. The Rabbit Hole Room is big. There's seating for about 150 in there, but only about 30 show up. We get there and sit near the back. Young is already on stage. He's wearing dark jeans and a navy blazer, a light blue shirt and a blue tie. His jeans are belted and his stomach hangs over it. His hair is more white than blonde. The blazer isn't cut for him. Men's warehouse style with wide shoulders and a boxy fit. His son Alex is there too, wearing a beanie and a Henley shirt, playing a sound bowl as people file in.
- [10:07]
Robert Young
Thank you, Alex, for being here and sharing those beautiful sounds that help to open up our chakras. Yes, they're real. The biofield has a body. The body does not have a biofield. We are energy. We are light energy. We run on electrons. And that's why I talk about ph. So when we're listening to these frequencies.
- [10:36]
Larison Campbell
So he's still talking about ph, still peddling his nonsense cure. But that's not really what he's here to talk about today. His lecture is called Liberty versus Tyranny.
- [10:50]
Robert Young
We're going to talk about truth versus deception. And you can see the title there. Liberty versus COVID 19. I'm the only scientist using scanning transmission microscopy and spectroscopy to identify the UN non disclosed ingredients in the VACC to inoculate 8 billion people with a foundational material that's magnetic. Once they turn the switch on this, people will be dropping over dead.
- [11:33]
Larison Campbell
Yeah, that was exactly one person in the audience clapping for him. I had so many questions for Young. Not about his COVID vaccine conspiracy theories, but about the alkaline diet and Miracle Ranch and what happened to the people under his care. So I walked up to him to talk. Even though it was noisy. I started with a softball. If there's one thing you could convince, like the greater public of what would it be? One thing.
- [12:05]
Robert Young
That they should measure their ph and maintain it at 8.4. Because if you don't, you're going to be a victim. You're going to get injured, you know, you're not going to. You need. And you can simply do it by taking 5 grams of baking soda in water two to three times a day.
- [12:21]
Larison Campbell
Is that easy?
- [12:22]
Robert Young
It's that easy.
- [12:24]
Larison Campbell
Hold on now. He's telling me that all the green juice, the Damn avocados, the IVs and colonics and beratement, when you chewed, they didn't matter. The answer was just baking soda dissolved in a glass of water. Then, completely unbidden, he launches into a defense about how he's not to blame if his baking soda cure doesn't work.
- [12:49]
Robert Young
You are the cure. You want to be you are the health you want to be. You are the fitness you want. I can't do that for you. But I get blamed for it if it doesn't work for you. Because you weren't, you weren't brave enough or, you know, or intelligent enough to actually say, hey, I'm going to take. I'm going to take possession of my body.
- [13:08]
Larison Campbell
You weren't brave enough. You weren't intelligent enough. All these years later, it's still never his fault. But it's not just that. People are blaming Young for their problems. He says they're actively trying to take him down.
- [13:24]
Robert Young
I was gaining momentum. People were listening to you. I was re educating the world. They can't have that. You can't have re education like this. That changes their whole plan. The plan is to dumb people down. The bottom line is this is so freaking corrupt, you have no idea. And that's why they want me silenced and they want me dead. What about the people?
- [13:47]
Larison Campbell
Because, like, some of like your former supporters are now saying, like kind of like or really kind of coming out against you. Why is that?
- [13:55]
Robert Young
Is that part of Name One?
- [13:57]
Larison Campbell
Well, Dawn.
- [13:58]
Robert Young
Yeah, no, I agree. I'm side not as an actor.
- [14:02]
Larison Campbell
Don's an actor. Yeah.
- [14:03]
Robert Young
It's not a real name.
- [14:05]
Larison Campbell
From the beginning. From the beginning, he never supported you.
- [14:09]
Robert Young
That's not about support. This whole thing was a setup. A governmental setup, an FBI, CIA, state to take me down.
- [14:21]
Larison Campbell
This was definitely the strangest thing Young said to me. If dawn is a government plant and this is all about taking down Young, she sure fooled me. It seems that Young has gone so far down the conspiracy theory path, he's paranoid about everything. It's no wonder the Conscious Life Expo put him in the rabbit hole. In a weird way, it's not a big surprise that Jung has entered today's popular conspirituality sphere, where wellness, New Age ideas and conspiracy theories meld into something that somehow transcends right and left politics. Here Jung is seen as anti establishment, a maverick healer on a mission to save people from greedy pharmaceutical companies and hospitals and government agents. It's a perverse space where the fact that Young went to prison for medical quackery is not a strike against him, it's a credit to his commitment to the cause. It also helps that today Young has a slick website and social media presence. He sells his supplements, he sells products. He doesn't post videos to YouTube anymore, but he's very active on Rumble, which is basically YouTube for conspiracy theorists.
- [15:55]
Robert Young
And when I testified at the International Tribunal of Natural justice in Bali, Indonesia, and testified the fact that the reason I was persecuted is because I was too successful, too successful in helping people, empowering people and educating people and reversing serious illness. Serious, and I say this with a hyphen, dis ease.
- [16:25]
Larison Campbell
That's Robert Young talking on Veritas, a podcast that covers things like UFO sightings and the Flat Earth Awakening. It's yet another platform where conspirituality, you know, conspiracy plus spirituality is taken seriously.
- [16:40]
Robert Young
Hearing from students at Morehouse College, the largest black university and medical school in the United States, they took one of my books, Sick and Tired. I highly recommend it, Reclaim youm Inner Terrain. And that book was used as a text for one year, one year only. The course was canceled because the university did not want to lose its funding. You see, who really controls the education of medical doctors, which really controls the dissemination and narrative of information.
- [17:19]
Larison Campbell
Even though Jung is occupying this conspirituality space, he also has followers who seem like regular mainstream types. A Danish grandmother with cancer, a young woman with lupus, and they're giving testimonies on his website, just like Kim Tinkham and Don Callie did. That made me wonder, why is it so easy for so many people to believe Robert Young and other alternative medicine gurus like him?
- [17:47]
Dr. David Gorski
They're good at co opting things that aren't that shouldn't be considered alternative.
- [17:53]
Larison Campbell
Dr. David Gorski is an oncologist who specializes in breast cancer. And for the last 18 years, he's also written a blog debunking medical myths and quackery. Lately, like Robert Young, he's spent a lot of time writing about COVID vaccines. Dr. Gorski says that one way quacks get people to believe them is by mixing some truth in with their lies.
- [18:18]
Dr. David Gorski
For instance, you know, there's nothing alternative about certain lifestyle recommendations like, you know, exercise, resistance training, cardio. But then somehow they try to lump that in with alternative medicine. I mean, no, you know, get out and exercise. It's good for, you know, eat a diet that's less fat, more vegetables, et cetera. You know, they'll like, sell that as being some sort of alternative recommendation.
- [18:44]
Larison Campbell
There are some good things about the alkaline diet, like its emphasis on eating more vegetables and less processed foods. And that is based on science. But Young offered so much more than just a recommendation for more avocados and kale. What he was really selling, especially to his sickest patients, his terminal patients, was hope. Is there some argument to be made that he does have something valuable to offer, like by giving those people hope.
- [19:16]
Dr. David Gorski
I would phrase that question differently. Is it of any benefit to give someone false hope? And if someone's pursuing false hope, they're usually also foregoing potentially effective palliative care that could make whatever time they have left less unpleasant.
- [19:39]
Larison Campbell
At Miracle Ranch, Robert Young told patients to stop taking their pain medications. I want to talk for a minute about one of the victims, Tracy Bodoli Cole, who had stage four cancer when she went to stay at the ranch. Here's her sister in law, Jane Bottely, talking about her experience.
- [19:58]
Jane Bottely
We didn't do any pain meds because he said that the, the medication slows down the healing process of the body. So how you get out of pain is by alkalizing it.
- [20:10]
Larison Campbell
Tracy spent so much of the time and money she had left trying to alkalize herself at the ranch. She was in terrible pain the whole time.
- [20:20]
Jane Bottely
Time is your most valuable commodity. Like, what the hell? He took her time and energy, which is what she needed to be with her family. When you have limited time and you take it from someone, you've taken the most valuable thing they have, especially when they should be spending it with the people they love and their children. I mean, you think of just the time her children lost with her, the time they needed to be with her, they weren't. He took her time and energy away from the people who needed her most. And for that, I'm really angry. And all these people just paid all of their entire life savings to this man who preyed on people who were very sick and who were very vulnerable and who were desperate. And he took everything he could from them. Finances, time, money, their health.
- [21:18]
Larison Campbell
That time, time that could have been spent in palliative care with family, was instead spent in pain on the ranch.
- [21:27]
Jane Bottely
He played with every aspect of their life and he prayed upon people who were weak and vulnerable and desperate. And he's still doing it.
- [21:40]
Larison Campbell
She's right. It does seem that even after everything, the criminal trials, the prison time, the multimillion dollar award for Don Robert Young is still peddling his miracle cure, selling his lies, books and supplements. And Dawn's lawyer, B.B. fell, says she didn't see Young express any remorse for the suffering he caused.
- [22:04]
B.B. Fell
I think Robert Young is guilty of knowing that his treatments were fake. I think he's guilty of knowing that he would hurt people and not help them when he gave them to him. And I think it was absolutely a foreseeable consequence that people who subjected themselves to him and his theories and his treatment would die. So I Absolutely think he's guilty.
- [22:31]
Larison Campbell
So for those who feel they want to stop Robert Young, how can it be done? Investigator Jim Clark thinks there may be only one way to do it.
- [22:39]
Robert Young
I mean, the only thing that we can do is just keep prosecuting him and hope that, you know, finally the courts say, okay, this is your second time, third time, fourth time. You know what? You're not learning your lesson, so it's time for you to do a lengthy prison sentence.
- [22:56]
Larison Campbell
But Robert Young doesn't run the Miracle Ranch anymore. As far as we know, he isn't administering IVs, although it seems he is still advising people to drink baking soda for their cancer instead of getting conventional medical treatment treatments. So whether that punishment will ever come is doubtful. In his Miracle Ranch days, Robert Young didn't act alone. He had his employees, of course, and many of them regret their involvement. A few remained his loyal followers and narrowly avoided prosecution. And then there's Young's family. His son Alex, who had worked on the ranch as a massage therapist, is still working with his dad. He was the one playing the sound bowls and schlepping Young's books and supplies at the Conscious Life Expo. And Robert Young has sat on a podcast that his relationship with some of his family is good and even implies that they told him to try to move past his problems.
- [24:08]
Robert Young
If I could rewind the clock and do anything different, the answer is absolutely not. Does it pain my heart to know that what happened to me also affected those who care about me and love me? So in taking consideration of that, dad, your work is important, but we need you. We love you.
- [24:40]
Larison Campbell
So what about Shelley Young? We reached out to her multiple times, and she didn't get back to us. But it seems like she was both complicit in her husband's actions and his victim. He humiliated her. He was mean to her. He cheated on her blatantly and often. After everything that happened, she moved back to Utah permanently. Unlike Robert, she left the wellness sphere completely. Now it seems she teaches at an art studio in Alpine, Utah. Others who were at the ranch didn't stop believing in alternative medicine. Even those who grew to hate Robert Young, like Dessa the Cleaner.
- [25:21]
Jane Bottely
I believe in alternative medicine. I'm not one that follows medicine. I cured myself with cancer with essential oils and vibrational work.
- [25:32]
Larison Campbell
Dessa draws a line between what she sees as legitimate alternative medicine and Robert Young's criminal actions. She thinks Young was legitimate at the beginning.
- [25:44]
Jane Bottely
He might have started out wanting to help people, but I think sometimes we get consumed with our own consumption. And, you know, maybe it just steamrolled him. And so now he just had to play the part and make money. Money, money, money.
- [26:04]
Larison Campbell
Caroline Robitaille doesn't think it was all about the money, though. He's looking for fame. I think more than money. He wants to feel needed and wanted and loved. And he thinks he can do it through this and be the smartest boy in the room and the, you know, the one that's gonna heal you. And that's why I think he really believes this stuff. And I think he's lied to himself for so long that he's bought into it. But Don thinks it's simpler than that.
- [26:36]
Dawn Colley
He's a narcissist. We know this. And he's a pathological liar. And so it's like, how do you sit there and tell someone like me, a stage one cancer patient, that? And now I'm stage four and living a tortured, you know, for the most part, existence, if it wasn't for my extreme positive nature. But I suffer, suffer greatly. And my whole family has to deal with it. And how do you look at a young woman and steer her away from, from what could save her? And how do you sit there and say, do my protocol, pregnant or not, and knowing that you haven't cured one person, you haven't cured one single person.
- [27:27]
Larison Campbell
Whether or not Robert Young believes in what he's selling, the results are the same. People suffered, people died. Dawn is one of the few cancer patients who survived Young's protocol.
- [27:39]
Dawn Colley
So and so dead, so and so dead, everyone dead. I'm the only like one still alive.
- [27:46]
Larison Campbell
What keeps dawn going, her will to survive is her children. And she wants to stick around as long as possible for her youngest son Jonathan, the one she was pregnant with on the ranch. That adorable blonde toddler drinking green juice in a testimonial for Young's website.
- [28:05]
Dawn Colley
He's 13. He's going through puberty. He's going through a really rough, just 13, having to, For him to have to see his mom. He says it's. He just wants me to walk. I fell today. It was just really sad. And I wasn't falling. I just screamed his name.
- [28:45]
Larison Campbell
Dawn doesn't know how much time she has left. She got a prognosis of three to four years about six years ago. That's thanks to new treatments that didn't even exist back when her oncologist gave her a stage four diagnosis.
- [29:03]
Dawn Colley
He said, your type of cancer, which I was told was the worst, is also, is now because of modern day advancements, the best to have mine is now the best.
- [29:17]
Larison Campbell
The types of chemotherapy that exist, right.
- [29:19]
Dawn Colley
Like I'm on one right now that wasn't didn't even exist when I first got diagnosed metastatic.
- [29:31]
Larison Campbell
But the treatments only work for so long, as anyone who's lost a loved one to cancer knows. As we were finishing this podcast, truly in the final weeks, dawn was admitted to the hospital with an infection. Days passed without any news. Then Caroline called. She told me that Dawn's cancer was back and the doctors at the hospital didn't have any treatments left to give her. Realistically, Caroline said she only had a few weeks to live. So dawn went home on hospice and not long after that, she passed away. I wish I had a better ending for you. I wish I could tell you that with new treatments for breast cancer being developed, dawn had a reason to hope. But I don't. All I can say is I hope this story makes it clear that it's one thing to believe in miracles. It's another to tell people to risk their lives for them. Doctor Miracle is a production of Campside Media, Sony Music Entertainment and Dorothy Street Pictures. The show was hosted by me, Larison Campbell. I reported it with Lily Houston Smith, our producer and also our field recordist. Shoshi Shmulovitz is our managing producer and editor. Our executive producers are Vanessa Gregoriadis and me, Larison Campbell. From Sony Music Entertainment. Our executive producer is Catherine St. Louis. Our sound designer and mix engineer is Michelle Macklem. Studio recording by Ewan Lai Trimuin. Story editing by Amy Padula. Fact checking by Julia Case Levine. Additional help from Rachel Yang and Rajeev Gola. Campside Media's executive producers are Vanessa Gregoriadis, Josh Dean, Adam Hoff and Matt Sher. Thanks to Emma Siminoff and the Campside's operations team, Doug Slaywin, David Eichler, Destiny Dingle, Ashley Warren and Sabina Mara. Thank you also to mo Felix and Dr. Robert Gaines, whose interviews did not make it into the show, but whose stories and insights were invaluable. And thanks to the team at Dorothy Street Pictures, Julia Nottingham, Becky Reed, Jess Watts, Debbie Lowe and Lily Kaplan. Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please tell a friend. It really does help spread the word. One final note, Dawn Colley passed away on May 30, 2024. We're grateful to her for sharing her story.