{"id":7848,"date":"2014-12-08T12:14:44","date_gmt":"2014-12-08T20:14:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=7848"},"modified":"2014-12-08T12:14:44","modified_gmt":"2014-12-08T20:14:44","slug":"fugitive-head-bogus-yes-entertainment-scam-sentenced-10-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjnotebook.com\/?p=7848","title":{"rendered":"Fugitive and Head of Bogus \u201cYES\u201d Entertainment Scam Sentenced to 10 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"James<\/a>
James Eberhart<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 A former Newport Beach resident who was a fugitive for well over a decade was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison for running a fraudulent Internet company that bilked hundreds of victims out of approximately $13 million, officials said.<\/p>\n

U.S. District Court Judge Cormac J. Carney sentenced\u00a0James Eberhart,<\/strong> 73, and ordered him to pay $12,838,045 in restitution to more than 800 victims across the country, according to authorities.<\/p>\n

Eberhart pleaded guilty in September to two counts of mail fraud. He was arrested Malaysia in 2012 after he was a fugitive for more than 12 years.<\/p>\n

In the late 1990s, Eberhart and co-defendant Eugene M. Carriere<\/strong> operated a fraudulent Newport Beach company called YES Entertainment Network, Inc.<\/p>\n

According to court documents, they used dozens of \u201cboiler room\u201d telemarketing firms and a Hollywood celebrity spokesman to raise millions of dollars by telling investors that YES was creating an 18-channel, multimedia, family-oriented website that would carry various forms of entertainment programs.<\/p>\n

Investors were told that YES would generate profits through the sale of advertising on the website, and that their investment funds would be used to build and market the website.<\/p>\n

Eberhart and Carriere also told investors that the company planned an initial public offering of its stock for the fall of 1999, which would potentially make early investments worth millions of dollar, court documents indicate.<\/p>\n

These claims were false. Only 1 percent of investor funds were used to build the YES website, which was little more than a fa\u00e7ade used to reassure investors.<\/p>\n

No money was used for advertising, but approximately 45 percent of the funds were used to pay sales commissions to the telemarketers. Most of the rest of the money was wired to bank accounts in Hong Kong and Singapore that Eberhart had formed with the help of an attorney.<\/p>\n

In late 1999, while Eberhart was under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an earlier investment fraud scheme, and shortly after FBI agents had executed search warrants at the offices of telemarketing companies affiliated with YES, Eberhart, Carriere, and another employee destroyed company documents and fled the country.<\/p>\n

Carriere Fugitive With a Custom 58-foot Yacht<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carriere was a fugitive for six years before being arrested in Thailand in April 2005, officials said.<\/p>\n

In 2007, authorities said Carriere plead guilty to two counts of mail fraud and was sentenced to three years in federal prison and ordered to pay $12,838,045 in restitution.<\/p>\n

In addition to Carriere, five other defendants \u2013 including the owners of telemarketing operations used by YES \u2013 were indicted, pleaded guilty, and were sentenced to as much as 142 months in federal prison.<\/p>\n

Eberhart remained a fugitive until May 2012, when the FBI Legal Attach\u00e9 in Kuala Lumpur, acting on a tip that Eberhart was residing in Malaysia, coordinated with Malysian authorities to arrest him.<\/p>\n

At the time of his arrest, Eberhart was living on a custom-built, 58-foot yacht, which he has entered into sailboat races.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said that after Eberhart fled, he asked a Costa Rican family to legally adopt him \u2013 at age 58 \u2013 so that he could become a Costa Rican citizen, which would prevent the Costa Rican government from extraditing him to the United States.<\/p>\n

The FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service investigated this case.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SANTA ANA, CALIFORNIA\u00a0\u2013 A former Newport Beach resident who was a fugitive for well over a decade was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison for running a fraudulent Internet company that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":257,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3],"tags":[1046],"class_list":["post-7848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home-main-slider","category-u-s-department-of-justice","tag-entertainment-scam"],"yoast_head":"\nFugitive and Head of Bogus \u201cYES\u201d Entertainment Scam Sentenced to 10 Years<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Fugitive and Entertainment Scam Defendant Sent to Prison\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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