Subject: Lectra Business Products' Fund Raising Investigated 
Date: Published: 7/24/92 (27 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Lectra Business Products'
    Fund Raising Investigated

    HARRISBURG, Pa.  -- A Philadelphia video and camera marketing
 company is under investigation in several states for distributing
 fund-raising canisters to stores claiming to raise money for AIDS
 research.
    Pennsylvania's attorney general has sent the president of Lectra
 Business Products Co., Jerry Silverman, a letter ordering him to
 stop collecting funds because he isn't registered with the state.
 Officials in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts are also
 probing the company's fund-raising efforts.
    A company spokesman said Lectra has had an "arrangement" to turn
 over 10% of the money it collects from about 20,000 canisters to the
 New York-based American Foundation for AIDS Research.
    The company produced copies of letters from the charity thanking
 it for $5,361 in previous donations from the proceeds of sales of
 its film developing books.  But the foundation said it hasn't seen
 any of the money from the canisters and never approved that project.

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