Debra Wong Yang
United States Attorney
Central District of California
United States Courthouse
312 North Spring Street
Los Angeles, California 90012
May 10, 2005
Thom Mrozek (213) 894-6947
Los Angeles, CA - A former Newport Beach resident who fled the country in 1999 after federal authorities executed a search warrant at his allegedly fraudulent Internet company arrived in the United States today after being taken into custody last month in Thailand.
Eugene M Carriere, who turned 56 yesterday, was being escorted by special agents with the FBI, when his airplane landed in New York this morning. Carriere is scheduled to make his first court appearance this afternoon in United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
Carriere was charged with mail fraud and money laundering by a Los Angeles federal grand jury in an indictment returned in late 2002. The indictment alleges that Carriere and another man, James S. Eberhart, operated a Newport Beach company called YES Entertainment Network, Inc. Using telemarketers at outside firms and written promotional materials, Carriere and Eberhart solicited investors by claiming that YES was creating and maintaining an 18-channel, multimedia, family-oriented website. Prospective investors were told that YES would generate profits through the sale of advertising on the website.
Once YES received money from investors, 45 percent of those funds were given to the outside telemarketers as a sales commission, according to the indictment, which goes on to allege that the remaining investor funds primarily went to Carriere and Eberhart. Telemarketers allegedly raised approximately $11 million in the YES scheme, and Carriere and Eberhart allegedly transferred at least $3.9 of ill-gotten gains to an account at a Hong Kong bank before they fled the country.
Eberhart is a fugitive who is currently being sought by authorities.
Two other men indicted as part of the investigation into YES have already been convicted and sentenced. Earlier this year, Richard Hines, 60, of Long Beach, was sentenced to 142 months in prison by United States District Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler. The final defendant, John Temple, 65, of Chino Hills, was sentenced to 70 months in prison. Hines and Temple were co-owners of a Beverly Hills-based telemarketing operation known as the Satellite Capital Group. When they pleaded guilty, both Hines and Temple admitted raising millions of dollars from the sale of at least four different fraudulent investments, including YES, and keeping 45 percent or more of the investors’ monies for their personal use.
This case is the product of an extensive investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Postal Inspection Service.
Release No. 05-071
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