For those who may have not heard there is a good chance that there will no longer be a Team Supreme. The founder is being investigated in an 8 million $ fraud case. This came in the Sterling Rockfalls news paper today. He is accused of taking $8 million from investers (not in Team Supreme) and not investing any of it.
Just a heads up for next year
wow……that is sad news. I surely hope it’s NOT true. 
I finaly got a chance to read the artical that was in tonights news paper. He admitted to the feds that “over the past 9 years I have taken in 8 million from 40 different people that I did not invest.” He also admitted to making up papers to show that he had invested thier money in some kind of certificates. I know the feds are all over his house and his offices.
I know his son and I know him and it came as a huge shock to me. I have heard that he had signed Team Supreme over to his son. But I am sure that the fed’s are going to close that down and sell it off.
Well…that would appear to be the death of Team Supreme.
I have a hard time believing the Feds won’t tear it down and sell it for scrap. Even with the fact that he signed it all over to Chase.
That is sad news. We are losing another tourney trail in the area. If they are in fact finished all that is left in this area will be BWSTA and MSBC. Neither of these are really very big and do not draw that great of numbers.
Well the news came as a shock as I was getting phone calls all day about it, but again what do you expect, it sounds like it was actually over 8 million but that is what he is going to admit to. It’s unfortunate that team supreme more than likely will be finished but what about the money he stole from his investors they were the ones hit the hardest by this whole mess.
Amwatson there is always the fishers of men tourney trail. fomntt.com 
Unreal??? Well, if they don’t continue, another will pop up to fill the void.
Does anyone have a copy of the article??? I would LOVE to read the actual article, I am sure there is something lost between what you have posted and what everyone is thiking. I suspect it is for the worse. Even if they are around next year I would suspect a very different organization.
jc
Here is the link. Nevin Gillette
The link doesn’t work for me.
Me neither. It appears you have to have an account with them to read the paper 
Hmmm – it pulled right up for me at first and now they want a user id and password – a subscription
Team Supreme: owner update 10/4/2006
http://www.bassfan.com/docktalk.asp?archive=c
As reported previously by BassFan, Team Supreme owner Nevin Gillette is accused by the state of Illinois of running a Ponzi scheme and faces charges levied by the Illinois Dept. of Securities (DOS).
The term Ponzi scheme describes a situation where an investment broker receives funds from investors, but never invests them. Instead, he or she uses part or all of those funds to pay “dividends” to previous “investors” who believe their money has been invested. According to the state, Gillette faces one count of fraud in the offer or sale of securities, and one count of failure to disclose civil litigation.
According to DOS documents obtained by BassFan, Gillette allegedly admitted to running the Ponzi scheme for a period of 9 years, and identified 40 clients from whom he’d received over $8 million to invest in guaranteed interest certificates. Gillette allegedly told DOS that those funds were never invested.
The DOS securities compliance audit of Gillette was performed Aug. 24, and charges were levied Sept. 28. A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 29. Gillette’s securities license has been suspended, pending the hearing. He faces a potential monetary fine of up to $1.6 million, plus additional legal costs and revocation of his securities license.
Team Supreme tournament trails does not appear in the notice of hearing, other than a reference that notes Gillette’s ownership of the trail. DOS senior attorney James Nix told BassFan: “I can’t comment to whether Team Supreme came up in our investigation or not. We did take an action against Mr. Gillette, and there’s a public order on that, but other than saying he owns Team Supreme, (the order) doesn’t indicate anything else.”
BassFan also asked Nix whether Gillette could face criminal charges with a potential for jail time. Nix said: “I can’t comment on whether or not there are any criminal investigations.”
Team Supreme is a BassFan Army-sanctioned trail, which means its competitors may qualify to fish the Skeeter BassFan Army Weekend Warrior Championship (WWC). Team Supreme’s status as a sanctioned trail is currently under review.
Al Smith, VP of member programs at BassFan, said: “We will honor the Team Supreme fishermen who’ve qualified this year for the upcoming 2007 WWC, but the involvement of Team Supreme in the future will be conditional to the outcome of the investigation. At this point, we’re not sure what the future status of the trail will be.”
Messages left for Team Supreme by BassFan were not returned. The main Team Supreme phone number has since rung through with no answer.
> In addition to its tournament business, Team Supreme also operates Team Supreme Tackle and sponsors several professional anglers.
wow, i would have never guessed something like this would happen…he seemed like a pretty good guy. if this is indeed the end of team supreme i’m going to be upset i loved the way those tournies were run….what about this weekends tournament? is it still on?
I fished the Team Supreme circuit last year and went to the Championship. I have talked with Nevin. IMO. He is very full of himself and took a lot of money from the anglers. The pay outs were not right!!!!!! 
You were not the only one who’s felt that way Tim. I’ve heard a lot of that from the guys in the La Crosse area.
Yeah I think the payouts were a little over 60-65%. Does that sound right?
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Yeah I think the payouts were a little over 60-65%. Does that sound right?
Yep, right in that ballpark. However in their defense, they did have sticker drawings and other give-aways.
It’s a sad day, so let’s try to keep the negative posts to minimum. 
Thanks guys!
Wow,
I am amazed at all the people who are coming out now saying that the Team Supreme Trail was a rip-off. Why didn’t you make your feeling known before all this happened?
Go add up the payouts on the website. I just took a random tournament and came up with a 82.7% payback without the sticker and patch giveaways. The reason the payouts are down is because they dropped the entry fee and still garunteed about the same for first place. It dosen’t seem to me that any of this is out of line due to the fact you can not run a company like team supreme on membership fees alone.
It is unfourtunate that many have been taken advantage of but why drag Team supreme into it?
I agree, kinda weird to see the bashing of Team
Supreme. It was only a year or less ago everyone was saying Team Supreme was the was to go and that the “other” river circuit was crap. I have no favorite.
Nobody can claim that this was not the best run tournament in the area time and time again. They did everything for the fish and I can honestly say made many of the other circuits step up to the plate so to speak.
jc
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Nobody can claim that this was not the best run tournament in the area time and time again. They did everything for the fish and I can honestly say made many of the other circuits step up to the plate so to speak.
jc
That is a fact.
I wasn’t trying to drag their name through the mud. The perspective on my posts was based on what I have been hearing and what I interpreted the payouts to be. Math never was my strongest skill…. 
JC. I agree that the tournaments were run excellent! They were very professionally run. I did the math on the pay outs and came up with about 65%. If I am wrong, then I am wrong. I did not say I did not like Team Supreme, I said I did not like the pay outs!
I just feel very sorry for the people Nevin took advantage of and took there retirement!!!!!!!!
So anyways, do you guys think another circuit will fill the void if in fact Team Supreme folds or doesn’t do the River circuits again? I kind of wish there was a more localized circuit that had different divisions and had a local championship if any. I like fishing a circuit and being committed to one but I don’t like knowing part of my entry is going to a championship that I am not interested in fishing for various reasons. So having a better payout due to no championship or, having the same payouts but knowing the championship would be at the end of the year on the same waters would something I would like and I would bet would be popular.
I know of a couple circuits like this that run on MN waters and they do really well. Having one on the river would be cool IMO.
It seems like these river circuits come and go often. I believe there is too many circuits to chose from and many, including myself, cherry pick the ones they want, and all the different circuits suffer from medium to low turnouts and they leave because its not profitable. Any other thoughts?
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It was only a year or less ago everyone was saying Team Supreme was the was to go and that the “other” river circuit was crap…..
Team Supreme was ‘the’ tourney trail in my area to truly test your skills against the best. If you wanted to see how good you really were, that was the tourney to fish. Sure, there are the MSBC’s, BWS’, so on so forth. They, to some extent don’t draw the top tier fishermen.
I went back and tried to recheck my math based on the last tourney, and it looks like I was quite wrong on their payout percentage. From what I can read, they had 39 boats @ $110. That totals $4290. They paid out $3460 and some change. That leaves about $830 left over. A good chunk of that helps pay the tourney director. Bottom line, is there isn’t much left at the end of the day.
I agree Eric. It would be noce to hace a total river circiut that would also have the championship the same year on the river. Like the Silverado does. I hope if something does happen to T/S, someone does step up.
Blue, I agree. I fished the Northstar occasionally htis year and all of the year before. I think it was weird and frankly stupid to take the Northstar and basically run it out of the same pools as the Supernorth except for a couple. Thats the only reason I didn’t fish many this year. I wonder what the point in that was?? I’m sure to draw more anglers but it was also pulled off alot of other good anglers home waters that I’m sure would have fished a bunch more if they would have left it where it was.
I ‘think’ they did that because the Super North was drawing better numbers in the PdC area. Nevin had told me in a phone conversation, they were having better turn-outs in the Lansing/PdC events. Better than the La Crosse tourneys. Having some of the North Star events overlap the Super North area drew anglers from the La Crosse area north because it’s a shorter trip to Tremp. than it is to PdC.
That’s just my opinion.
I hope, if TS is no longer available as a tourney circuit, something does take its place.
Although I can’t complain. I haven’t fished a tourney this year… 
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