Arizona couple plead guilty to scam, stocking guns for civil war
Jackson Healy
PHILADELPHIA (CN) — An Arizona couple pleaded guilty on Monday to a yearslong health hoax involving a made-up medical procedure that cost sick and dying patients over $2 million — all while the husband purportedly prepared for a civil war against the government.
Mary Blakley, 76, and Fred Blakley, 61, made their admissions of guilt in Philadelphia federal court after prosecutors charged the duo with mail and wire fraud in January.
Prosecutors said the couple — from Lake Havasu City, Arizona — first began their scam in 2006. Between then and 2025, Mary Blakley owned and operated several purported medical clinics across Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada and Utah with the help of her husband, despite neither of them having medical licenses in those states.
Across the fraudulent clinics, the Blakleys promoted a signature service known as the “full body scan.” The service was advertised as utilizing a noninvasive device, powered by “smart chip technology,” to detect and cure various cancers, “clean” the lungs and brainstem, and conduct colonoscopies and electrocardiograms.
In reality, the practitioners used regular ultrasound machines that were incapable of performing any of the advertised medical procedures.
The Blakleys typically charged clients $300 per full body scan, according to prosecutors. In an attempt to avoid getting caught, prosecutors said, the couple kept no client records and demanded that clients pay out of pocket, favoring cash and check payments.
In addition to the full body scans, the Blakleys often prescribed clients creams and drugs with equally dazzling promises, such as cancer treatments. However, these prescriptions were also shams — the creams were officially labeled as cosmetics, and many of the drugs sold were fenbendazole, an animal dewormer not approved for human consumption by the Food and Drug Administration.
Mary Blakley also habitually lied to clients about her background, falsely claiming she had developed pharmaceuticals for Merck and hanging a fake Ph.D. in nuclear physics on the wall of her clinic office.
The 19-year-long scheme wasn’t the Blakleys’ first legal trouble involving drugs, however. In 1997, the couple were convicted in federal court for manufacturing methamphetamine.
‘People are the only thing that gun’s ever gonna shoot’
While he and his wife ran the health scam, prosecutors said, Fred Blakley kept busy stockpiling about 39 firearms and over 48,000 rounds of ammunition. The Blakleys originally kept much of Fred’s arsenal in their home, but after Mary Blakley’s son moved in while on parole from a rape conviction, the duo relocated the stash to a garage on their pastor’s property, according to prosecutors.
From this workshop, Fred Blakley manufactured, assembled, stockpiled and sold weapons and accessories ranging from scoped rifles and suppressors to semiautomatic shotguns and — by Fred’s own admission — a fully automatic AR-15, according to prosecutors.
Fred Blakley could not legally own firearms due to his and his wife’s prior methamphetamine manufacturing conviction, but he amassed his hefty hoard of guns for what he believed was an upcoming civil war against the government, prosecutors said.
“I don’t hunt animals,” he told undercover FBI agents in one instance. “People are the only thing that gun’s ever gonna shoot.”
“Every bullet I have has a ‘D’ on it,” he said in another recording. “My anger is so immense toward these people, I mean I’d just kill ‘em without even — without any thought of remorse.”
Fred Blakley’s macabre thoughts weren’t just daydreams, though — in another recording, he told agents that he was “planning on shooting some humans” when the time was right, prosecutors said.
“We’re gonna have to go to war with our own government … a civil war,” he said, according to the prosecutors. “You better arm up good. I’ve got thousands of rounds of ammunition, and I’m ready to rock.”
Additionally, prosecutors said they obtained a recording of Mary Blakley admitting her knowledge of Fred’s workshop and arms trade, telling one undercover agent that her husband was “arming America.”
Mary and Fred Blakley are currently in custody at the federal detention center in Philadelphia and are scheduled for sentencing in April. Mary Blakley faces a maximum possible term of 25 years in prison, while Fred Blakley could see up to 40 years imprisonment.