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To: JEB who wrote (26953)	12/12/1998 11:05:00 AM
From: DebtBomb	Respond to of 119973

Barrons-TCTV The Ivana Channel, Part II Are crooks trying to boost Tel-Com shares? Barron's Magazine - 12/14/98 Friday morning, Ivana Trump's 5th Avenue Channel opened for business on the Internet, offering more than 10,000 items for sale. The site looked great. But also on Friday morning, several terrified investors told Barron's and the police that their families had been threatened by convicted criminals who accused the investors of selling short shares in Tel-Com Wireless Cable TV, the North Miami Beach firm that is running Ivana's Internet retailer. These investors said they were visited at their homes by Michael and Boris Vax, brothers who pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges in 1995. The investors said the Vaxes complained that unflattering press stories about Tel-Com, including one in last week's Barron's, had resulted in financial losses for a stock promoter named Charles S. Arnold, a former consultant to Tel-Com. The Vax brothers wanted to see that Arnold was compensated. "There will be a day of reckoning," Michael Vax allegedly told one person, who did not want his name in the paper, and who said he was not short Tel-Com stock, nor any other. "If you don't pay up," Michael Vax allegedly told one investor, "you should worry about your kids." Tel-Com shares slid last week from 10 to 7 before bouncing up to 11 1/2 . Vax, who hails from Kiev and is now 40 years old, was sentenced in an Atlanta federal court in March 1995 to 41 months in prison after pleading guilty in a racketeering conspiracy to evade $1.5 million in federal excise taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel. His 36-year-old brother, Boris, received a 15-month term after pleading guilty in the same conspiracy. Michael, but not Boris, is under supervisory release. Michael Vax has been described by law enforcement officers as an acquaintance of Russian mobster Vyacheslav Ivankov, who last year was sentenced to 10 years in jail by a Federal court in New York for extortion. In 1986, Vax was arrested, but never prosecuted, on murder charges after a shootout with other gasoline wholesalers in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Contacted by Barron's on Friday, Michael Vax confirmed talking about stocks to several investors Friday, but denied making any threats and denied talking about Tel-Com. "I am a businessman, not a mobster," he said. "I have no idea what's going on. I am not a violent person. You can take this to the bank." Jerome Selvers, Arnold's attorney, said it was "preposterous" that Vax was making threats on Arnold's behalf. "Mr. Arnold doesn't know anything about that accusation," Selvers said. Selvers confirmed that Arnold knows Vax, but Selvers said Arnold and Vax had never done business together. Ivana's attorney in New York, Gary M. Lyman, said that his client knew nothing about the Vax brothers. He added that she was "gung ho" on the prospects for her venture with TelCom, despite last week's revelation in Barron's that Arnold and other promoters who have been involved with Tel-Com had shady histories. Said Lyman, "This negative press really galvanized the Tel-Com team. They are intent on doing a terrific business."