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Non-Tech : LVEN:NASDAQ--Las Vegas Entertainment Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Janice Shell who wrote (173)	6/13/2000 1:27:00 AM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 228

I found this historical tidbit of interest: Offshore Alert, 30 June 1998: "As alleged frauds go, it would be hard to conceive of anything more audacious than creating your own phony country, promoting it as a major offshore financial center and charging people for bank and insurance licenses, IBCs, trusts and even bar qualifications. And why not throw in an 'international stock exchange' with several listings of fake companies with fake trading, all displayed on an elaborate web-site? Yet that's exactly what the people behind the Dominion of Melchizedek appear to have done, with some apparent success, judging from the fact that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in the US has had to go so far as to warn people not to do business with any 'banks' claiming to be based in DOM, as the 'country' is known, and has closed down DOM 'banks' operating in the US, including at least one from an address on Wall Street." "In Hong Kong this year, an Austrian baker who tried to cash checks totaling $500,000 drawn on Asia Pacific Bank of Melchizedek was jailed for six months for fraud. According to US press reports, DOM was invented by convicted swindler Mark Logan Pedley of California, who may have since faked his own death. Anyone wishing to see the amount of work gone into creating the Melchizedek illusion should visit www.melchizedek.com, which is a website registered to David Korem of Foster City, California." -- Offshore Alert, 30 June 1998 Edition, at p. 9. quatloos.com ===== Faked his own death? Has anyone checked with the Melchizedek coroner's office to verify this? ;^) - Jeff

To: Janice Shell who wrote (173)	7/24/2000 5:30:36 AM
From: EL KABONG!!!	Respond to of 228

kvbc.com News 3 Investigators: El Rancho Follow-Up The deal is done; it's doomsday for another strip property and that's great news for locals and visitors alike that've been anxiously waiting to erase the eyesore on the strip. The El Rancho will be gone in the blink of an eye. Turnberry is the company putting up luxury condos just to the east. About a month ago News 3 was the first to tell you Turnberry entered into a purchase agreement to buy El Rancho and Tuesday escrow has officially closed sealing the deal to get rid of el rancho for good. The shuttered El Rancho. The Vice President of Turnberry, Jeff Soffer says, "It's definitely not a beautiful thing to look at this run-down, decrepit hotel there." Travis Moen and Helen Anderson say, "It's been there a long time." Keeping tourists wondering and nearby businesses waiting. Connie Witt says, "This El Rancho is a blight on the whole neighborhood." Hoping for change that seemed like it might never come. Louise Goranson says, "I'm hoping with your documentation and everything that something can be done with it." Now that Turnberry's bought this blight, something will be done. Soffer says, "It was a good opportunity for us and the sellers were anxious to do something with it." Myrna Williams says, "So, having that cleared off and the prospect of having a very fine property there is very exciting to me because I represent that area and people live in close proximity to that area so it's exciting to me and it's very exciting to the surrounding property owners. An impending implosion is the likely result of our exclusive 10-month investigation. Soffer says, "There was a lot of muddy waters within the company that owned it." We exposed 8 years of decay, dozens of health and safety violations, government inaction and allegations of investor fraud, a mystery that will soon be just history, it's better days forever memorialized in the casino legends hall of fame. Soffer says, "I think that the county will be really happy that we're taking it down. It's not something that belongs in Las Vegas anymore. It doesn't give a good image." Chris and April Frank from Richmond, Virginia say, "There's a lot of opportunity for improvement here. It seems like there's a lot of work to be done also so I hope they get to it soon. It looks like maybe they should just rip the whole thing down, start all over again." KJC

To: Janice Shell who wrote (173)	8/2/2000 4:46:57 AM
From: EL KABONG!!!	Respond to of 228

dailynews.yahoo.com Tuesday August 1 6:56 PM ET Financier Robert Brennan Arrested By JEFFREY GOLD, Associated Press Writer FREEHOLD, N.J. (AP) - Disgraced financier Robert E. Brennan, who appeared in TV commercials urging investors to buy penny stocks before regulators labeled him a cheat, was arrested Tuesday and charged with bankruptcy fraud. Two indictments were unsealed with Brennan's arrest, both relating to his cashing of $500,000 in casino chips five years ago. These are the first criminal charges Brennan has faced in a career marked by frequent clashes with securities regulators. He was arrested at his Colts Neck home. State prosecutors had claimed this year in a civil proceeding that Brennan attempted to hide a half-million dollars he got from cashing chips at the Mirage casino in Las Vegas. The state suggested Brennan, 56, was improperly shielding assets to keep them from being used to pay off the $45 million he agreed to pay to aggrieved investors. Brennan responded that the matter had been ``examined in minutia'' four years ago and was only raised ``to smear and embarrass me.'' The five-count state indictment includes charges that Brennan failed to declare the money, and a six-count federal indictment charges him with making false statements in a bankruptcy proceeding. ``We're going to defend this case,'' Brennan said. ``I don't intend to go anywhere.'' He is to enter a plea on the federal charges Thursday, and to the state charges on Sept. 11. His lawyer, Michael Critchley, said he would plead innocent. Brennan appeared in state Superior Court, where the judge set bail at $250,000. Brennan posted bail and was immediately taken into federal custody. Brennan appeared later before a U.S. magistrate in Newark, who released him under house arrest and gave him two days to post a $500,000 bond. Brennan became nationally known in the 1980s through television commercials for his First Jersey Securities Inc. in which he stepped from a helicopter and told investors to ``come grow with us.'' He declared bankruptcy in 1995, when a federal judge in New York ruled that he cheated First Jersey investors and ordered him to pay what is now more than $78 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC charged Brennan employed ``boiler room'' tactics at First Jersey and manipulated the market in low-cost, high-risk shares of little-known companies - the so-called ``penny stocks'' - to fleece people who were pursued by a high-pressure sales force. Brennan also settled a lawsuit brought by New Jersey by agreeing to pay $45 million to investors. That suit said that after closing First Jersey in the late 1980s, Brennan secretly controlled two other brokerages to run similar penny stock scams. But the SEC and New Jersey authorities say Brennan has consistently sought to hide his assets overseas. The state indictment could carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison. Each of the six federal charges carries a penalty of up to five years in prison. KJC