OTHER NEWS - Aug. 18, 1994

Video Phone Promoter Charged With Fraud: The Orange County defendant, who continued soliciting investors after he was jailed for contempt of court, was charged with 30 counts of criminal fraud and money laundering. The federal grand jury indictment, handed down in Los Angeles, alleges that Michael Gartner, 32, masterminded a $12-million securities fraud by selling hundreds of shares in a nonexistent video phone system he said would link major business centers in Los Angeles and Orange counties. Gartner, who used infomercials and phone solicitations, allegedly once showed a TV audience an empty cabinet covered with blinking lights that he said was a working prototype of a “photonic switch” developed by his Costa Mesa-based Interlink Data Network. Neither Gartner nor his attorney could be reached for comment.