State of Utah Versus Northwest Publishing, Inc.
December 10, 1997
STATE OF UTAH vs. JAMES B. VANTREESE; JASON VANTREESE; JAMES PERKINS
and THOMAS WOOD Criminal Case No's: 971019133/97101Y134/971019135 and
971019136
"NORTHWEST PUBLISHING COMPANY"
Ladies and Gentlemen:
On October 16, 1997, the Utah Attorney General's Office filed felony criminal charges against the
subject individuals for their activities involving Northwest Publishing Company. These charges
allege a total of 24 felony criminal counts involving communications fraud, securities fraud, tax
evasion and racketeering, all second degree felonies. Charlene Barlow and Robert Hunt, Assistant
Attorneys General, are designated as the prosecutors for this case. At the time these charges were
filed, an order sealing all charging documents was requested and ordered by the court, pending
the arrest of James Vantreese. On Monday, December 8, 1997, Mr. Vantreese was arrested and
is currently being held in the Salt Lake County Jail pending bail in the amount of $1 million. Bail
for each co-defendant has been set at $500,000.
The defendants will have several initial appearances at court before a "preliminary hearing" is
scheduled. The purpose of the preliminary hearing is for the State to provide proof to the assigned
Judge that we have sufficient evidence to subject the defendants to a jury trial. Since we anticipate
that some of you may be required to testify at this hearing, we will be in individual contact with
those of you who have been selected as a witness in this case.
In the charging documents, the State of Utah has alleged that from on or about October 1992 to
on or about May 1996, NPI and the named defendants received in excess of 10.5 million dollars
from authors with whom NPI had contracted to edit, publish and market their books. The State
further alleges that the publishing contracts signed and entered into by NPI with the authors could
not have been fulfilled, and in each instance, the defendants failed to provide publishing services to
the authors pursuant to the terms of the contracts. In return for NPI's contractual promises, the
authors were required to pay on an average of between $2,000 and $9,000 each as their
percentage of the publishing costs.
After the defendants received the proceeds from the authors, the State alleges that the checks sent
by the victims to Northwest for "co-publishing" contracts were endorsed for deposit to a check
cashing business in Salt Lake City. James Van Treese, Jason Van Treese, James Perkins and/or
other employees routinely took the co-publishing checks to the check cashing business where they
were cashed. The cash was then normally returned to James Van Treese who would then deposit,
or cause to be deposited, various cash sums to any one of the Northwest Publishing accounts.
However, the State has found that the majority of the cash obtained remained with James Van
Treese and Jason Van Treese who routinely took large sums of cash to Wendover, Mesquite and
Las Vegas, Nevada, for gambling purposes. In addition, the State alleges that James Van Treese
organized two additional corporations, "JBV Investments" and "Dec-Star," to which funds from
the various Northwest Publishing accounts were transferred.
The filing of these charges concludes a three year investigation involving agents of the Utah
Attorney General's Office, the Utah Department of Public Safety Criminal Investigation Bureau,
the Utah State Tax Commission and the United States Postal Inspectors.
At this time, Utah Attorney General Jan Graham has asked that we express to you her
appreciation for your patience, cooperation and assistance on behalf of the State of Utah in this
case. We will attempt to keep you informed as this case progresses. In the interim, should you
have any questions, you may contact me, Ms. Barlow, Mr. Hunt or Lt. Lynch at (801) 366-0310.
Paralegal Consumer Rights Division
CONSUMER RIGHTS 160 EAST 300 SOUTH ·
BOX 140872 · SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH 84114-0872 ·
TEL: (801) 366-0310 FAX (801) 366-0315