LV hypnotist being probed

David Strow

Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2001 | 10:03 a.m.

Las Vegas hypnotist and former Strip headliner Marshall Sylver is the target of a criminal investigation, the Nevada attorney general's office announced Tuesday.

The attorney general's office said it served a search warrant on Sylver's home office Tuesday. Officials were searching for information related to Sylver's company, Sylver Enterprises, and the "Millionaire Mentorship Program," a self-help financial seminar offered by Sylver.

Tracey Brierly, deputy attorney general with the attorney general's Office of Consumer Protection, emphasized charges had not yet been brought against Sylver.

"This is just a means of getting more information," Brierly said. "We hope to obtain information that allows us to bring charges or dispel allegations. We found this was the best method of obtaining cooperation and information."

A press release issued by the attorney general's office Tuesday said it suspects Sylver committed theft by obtaining money under false pretenses and racketeering, both felonies. It is also searching for evidence of violations of the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, a misdemeanor.

A decision on whether charges will be filed "depends on how much documentation is found," Brierly said.

Sylver and his attorneys could not be reached for comment.

Sylver, whose promotional materials call him "the world's foremost hypnotist," has a public image spanning a broad array of outlets.

In recent years he's headlined at the Sahara and Stratosphere, made guest appearances on David Letterman, Rosie O'Donnell and Sally Jesse Raphael, and appeared in infomercials airing nationwide.

The infomercials hawked a series of self-help tapes designed to teach viewers how to harness the power of hypnosis to improve themselves personally and professionally. He claimed to have sold more than 1 million tapes through his infomercials.

But the program that is drawing the attention of the attorney general's office is the the "Millionaire Mentorship Program," a 10-week program designed to teach skills "essential to the creation of wealth." Sylver promoted this program through television commercials and on a talk show he once hosted on Las Vegas radio station KKVV-AM, Brierly said.

KKVV, a Christian talk format radio station, discontinued Sylver's show about eight months ago, station General Manager Fred Hodges said.

"We had no problem with him, and when he went off the air, it was because of a scheduling problem," Hodges said.

Sylver has held at least six "Millionaire Mentoring" seminars, Brierly said, and the attorney general is investigating whether seminars were held in other states.

The attorney general's office says a key sales pitch in the program was Sylver's guarantee to refund the $5,000 seminar fee if participants didn't double their money in three months.

But the attorney general's office said it has received at least 12 complaints from customers who claimed they were refused refunds by Sylver after they failed to double their investment by following the program.

The mentors provided by the program purportedly reported to Sylver, but in many cases reported instead to one of Sylver's "underlings," the attorney general's office claimed. In many cases, the attorney general's office said, mentors in the program were participants in former Sylver seminars working to pay off the cost of their seminars.

But Sylver is the only current target of the investigation, Brierly said.

"He is the owner, the operator, the creator ... he's the one that advertised and promoted the fact they would be given mentorship training," Brierly said. "It was his representation that induced people to fork over the $5,000."

All information on the Millionaire Mentorship Program had been removed from Sylver's website by Tuesday afternoon.

The investigation comes less than four months after Sylver hauled a former customer into state court, claiming the customer was engaged in a campaign to smear his reputation.

The former customer, Sean Roach, was accused by Sylver of "engag(ing) in a malicious campaign of lies, stalking and personal attacks to cause (Sylver) emotional distress." The lawsuit claimed Roach had called up Sylver's customers and shown up at Sylver's events, trying to get customers to stay away from Sylver's seminars.

Roach had accused Sylver publicly of "professional misconduct, personal dishonesty and immoral sexual behavior," the lawsuit said.

Though the lawsuit was filed in July, Sylver's attorneys had yet to file forms indicating they had served the lawsuit on Roach, and no response to Sylver's allegations has yet been filed with the court. Roach couldn't be reached for comment.

But Roach is emerging again as a figure in the criminal investigation; Brierly said he is one of the 12 former customers who has complained to the attorney general's office.

"He is one of many (complainants)," Brierly said.