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Pastimes : Investment Chat Board Lawsuits -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (4188)	2/21/2003 6:15:29 PM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12465

Re: 2/20/03 - [PPD/Westergaard] NY Post: Pre-paid Legal Has Own Legal Woes PRE-PAID LEGAL HAS OWN LEGAL WOES New York Post; New York, N.Y.; Feb 20, 2003; JOHN CRUDELE; February 20, 2003 -- THE top producer for Pre-Paid Legal Services is being sued for fraud by Illinois and has a cease-and-desist order against him in the state of Washington. Here's some more stuff I learned about the company, which is already under investigation by at least three government agencies for both its business practices and its relationship with Gotham Partners, a prominent Wall Street hedge fund. Among other things, authorities are looking into whether Gotham pumped up Pre-Paid's stock late last year before selling it. Authorities can now add this to their investigation. A guy named Dean Tucci is on the top of Pre-Paid's so-called Players List, which is comprised of its top recruiters and salesmen. According to Pre-Paid's Web site, Tucci earned 1,419 points for bringing in salespeople to Pre-Paid - which offers people legal services for a monthly fee - and for selling the service to customers. Tucci was sued for fraud in 1999 by the state of Illinois over businesses he ran called Argus Dental Plans and Argus Health Plans. The suit - which is pending - alleges that Tucci's companies took money out of potential customers' checking accounts while they were supposedly in a free trial period. Then Argus refused to refund the money. The Insurance Commission in Washington state also went after Tucci and Argus for allegedly taking money from people without providing them with the contracted services. Tucci was ordered to stop doing business in the state in March 1999. There is no way to know if Tucci has done anything wrong while working with Pre-Paid. Pre-Paid didn't return my calls requesting information about Tucci. And the company has not put me in touch with Tucci. A toll-free phone number that once belonged to Tucci's former company, Argus, is now answered by an operator for Pre-Paid. A few days after I phoned that number, someone returned my call and tried to get me to subscribe to Pre-Paid's services. I declined. Copyright 2003 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved. pqasb.pqarchiver.com