==========================================START OF PAGE 1====== U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSI0N Litigation Release No. 15209 / January 8, 1997 SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION v. MICHAEL CARNICLE, MICHAEL HANSEN, WILLIAM STRAUGHAN, RANDY GLAD, LIONEL REIFLER, HOWARD RAY and ARIE FROM, Civil Action No. 1:95-CV-0110C (D. Utah). The Securities and Exchange Commission ("Commission") announced that on December 27, 1996, Judge Tena Campbell of the United States District Court for the District of Utah issued a Final Judgment of Permanent Injunction and Other Relief by consent against defendant Arie From ("From") enjoining him from future violations of the antifraud provisions of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder and ordering him to pay a $10,000 civil penalty. The Commission's Complaint alleges that, from December 1991 through mid-March 1992, From and six other defendants attempted to use shares of two new registered investment companies known as Public Funding Portfolios, Inc. and American Vision Funds, Inc. (the "Funds") as collateral for millions of dollars of margin loans from securities brokerage firms nationwide with knowledge that the publicly quoted net asset values for the shares in the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers had been grossly inflated. The Commission's Complaint alleges that the defendants became shareholders of the Funds by selling grossly overvalued assets to the Funds. These unmarketable assets, with a total purported value of $165 million, consisted of stock and promissory notes issued by shell corporations and nonexistent shares of a Liechtenstein trust. The Complaint further alleges that after infusing these essentially worthless assets into the Funds, the defendants, while seeking margin credit, misrepresented material facts to brokerage firms concerning, among other things, the net asset values for the Funds' shares and the liquidity of the Funds' assets. The Funds were based in Los Angeles, California prior to their dissolution by court order on March 31, 1992 in an action brought by the Commission. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Public Funding Group, Inc., V. Thayne Whipple II, American Vision Funds, Inc. and Public Funding Portfolios, Inc., Civil Action No. 92-1646 WDK (EEx) (C.D. Cal.).