UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
      
     RELEASE NO. 15749 / May 19, 1998 

     Securities and Exchange Commission v. Richard Carlos Powelson, individually
     and dba PBS Trust, Roger Frederick Kline, and Bryan Paul Shortsleeve, (M.D.
     Fla., Civil No. 98-949-CIV-T-23F)

          The Commission today announced the filing of a Complaint charging
     three individuals with securities fraud in the sales of a get rich quick
     infomercial scheme.  The Complaint filed on May 5, 1998 in the United
     States District Court for the Middle District of Florida names the
     infomercial creator, Richard Carlos Powelson, who lives in Kansas City,
     Missouri, and two salesmen, Roger Frederick Kline, and Bryan Paul
     Shortsleeve, who live in St. Petersburg, Florida with violating the federal
     securities laws by making false statements while selling to elderly clients
     investments in an infomercial created by Powelson to sell his real estate
     training program that is titled "How to Build a Fortune."  The scheme
     raised $1,096,000 from fifteen investors, the majority of whom live in the
     St. Petersburg, Florida area and the remainder live in Potage and Walled
     Lake, Michigan and Winona, Minnesota.

          The Complaint alleges that Powelson, Kline and Shortsleeve gave
     investors sales materials that falsely represented investors would receive
     150 percent return on their investment within six to nine months based on
     sales of 300,000 of Powelson's real estate training programs; however,
     Powelson had no reasonable basis for these projected sales and earnings,
     because he had never previously produced an infomercial.  He had only
     appeared as a speaker in earlier infomercials.
       
          The Complaint also alleges that the sales materials failed to disclose
     that Powelson filed personal bankruptcy in 1990 and had been barred from
     participating in real estate transactions with the Department of Housing
     and Urban Development.  

          Additionally, the Complaint alleges that the sales materials
     represented that only five percent of the money raised would be spent on
     marketing, when in fact, Kline and Shortsleeve received commissions of
     twenty percent which were not disclosed to investors.  Kline and
     Shortsleeve failed to verify the truthfulness of any of the statements in
     the sales materials.  

          The Complaint further alleges that Shortsleeve falsely represented
     that elderly investors were losing money on insurance annuity policies as a
     means to persuade them to invest in Powelson's infomercial

          The Complaint asserts the defendants' actions violated the anti-fraud
     provisions of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act and Section 10(b) of the
     Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5, seeks an injunction to stop
     them from future violations of the 


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     federal securities laws, and requests an order requiring them to 
     repay any money they obtained illegally and additional civil penalties.  No
     trial date has been set.















































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