Shine Vernon Legal Team and California Co-Counsel Thomas D. Mauriello File Three...

Shine Vernon Legal Team and California Co-Counsel Thomas D. Mauriello File Three
New Schwab YieldPlus Arbitration Claims, Seeking Recovery of Over a Half Million
Dollars in Losses -- SWYPX, SWYSX, SCHW, SWYCX

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 5, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Thomas D. Mauriello, California
co-counsel with the Shine Vernon legal team, recently filed three new
arbitration claims on behalf of California investors who collectively lost more
than $500,000 in the Schwab YieldPlus Fund (SWYPX, SWYSX, SCHW) and the Schwab
California Tax Free YieldPlus Fund (SWYCX).

Schwab marketed its Schwab YieldPlus Fund and Schwab California Tax Free
YieldPlus Fund to retirees and other conservative investors as safe ultra
short-term bond funds and alternatives to cash.

However, the Funds' managers over-concentrated the Funds with risky mortgage-
and asset-backed securities in the case of the YieldPlus Fund and, with auction
rate securities in the case of the California Tax Free YieldPlus Fund. This
exposed the Funds to huge undisclosed liquidity risk and other risks and
ultimately caused investors steep losses of their principal, the new claims
assert.

"With each new claim we investigate and file, we are expanding our understanding
of the scope of Schwab's recklessness and misrepresentations with respect to
these particular funds," Mauriello said. "We are putting a great deal of effort
into these investigations and the resulting claims to obtain recovery for the
individual investor."

The Shine-Vernon legal team, headed by former SEC enforcement attorney Thomas
Shine and longtime investor rights' attorney Chris Vernon, has interviewed more
than 100 investors as part of its Schwab YieldPlus investigation. The team
consists of six law firms throughout the United States.

The team has filed arbitration claims on behalf of investors in Florida,
California, Texas, New York, Missouri, Minnesota, Illinois and Hawaii. While the
attorneys on the team have high-level, nationwide experience in securities
arbitrations, the firms are small enough to offer personalized attention and
care to each client throughout the arbitration process.

These latest claims were filed on behalf of baby boomers and retirees, including
an engineer, a journalist, a judge, and two real estate professionals. Two of
the claims will be heard in San Francisco while the third will be heard in San
Diego. These claims come on the heels of $1 million in investor claims filed by
the Shine Vernon legal team in July.

The new claims assert that the reckless actions of the fund managers of the
Schwab YieldPlus Fund and Schwab California Tax Free YieldPlus Fund compromised
the Funds' liquidity and exposed investors to substantial risk of losses, while
Schwab was marketing these funds as a safe alternative to cash.

This set the stage for the catastrophic freefall of the Schwab YieldPlus Fund,
as net assets plunged from a high of $13.5 billion in July 2007 to just $679
million on May 31, 2008. Schwab reports that as of May 31, 2009, the YieldPlus
Fund's assets were at $161.72 million. The Schwab California Tax-Free YieldPlus
Fund experienced a similar decline in total managed assets, decreasing from
$1.201 billion as of July 31, 2007 to $156.68 million (down 86.96%) on August
31, 2008.

The claims include the following allegations:

-- In SEC filings and direct communications with shareholders and prospective
investors, Schwab misrepresented the Schwab YieldPlus Fund as an ultra
short-term bond fund. In reality, the fund was heavily weighted with floating
and variable rate bonds with long-term maturities, which gave the fund a
weighted average maturity equivalent to an intermediate term bond fund. During
the second half of 2007 and in 2008, when the fund was declining in value, these
misrepresentations created the false illusion that if investors held on to their
positions for the next six months to a year, the bonds held in the fund's
portfolio would mature at face or par value and the fund and its shareholders
would recover most of their unrealized losses.

-- Unlike its peers in the Morningstar ultra short bond fund category, the
Schwab YieldPlus Fund failed to maintain adequate cash on hand to meet investor
redemptions. Schwab YieldPlus Fund had only 6.5 percent of its portfolio in
cash, while its peers in the ultra short-term bond fund category averaged 27
percent of their positions in cash. As more and more investors sought to sell
their shares, Schwab had to sell illiquid securities held in the portfolio at
distressed prices;

-- Schwab's senior management changed the Schwab YieldPlus Fund's investment
policy in September 2006 to allow for a higher concentration in riskier
mortgage-backed securities and asset-backed securities, without obtaining
shareholder approval or clearly disclosing this major shift to investors;

-- Schwab's management failed to adequately disclose that investors had
withdrawn $2.8 billion from the YieldPlus Fund in August 2007. Full and explicit
disclosure didn't come until November 30, 2007 -- by which time the Fund's net
assets had dropped to $8 billion, down from $13.5 billion as of July 31, 2007;

-- Schwab ignored the warnings of securities and banking regulators about the
risky nature of mortgage-backed securities and collateralized mortgage
obligations, including warnings to refrain from deceptive advertising of such
securities including comparisons to certificates of deposits;

-- Schwab embarked on a self-dealing marketing campaign to avert redemptions of
Schwab YieldPlus by Charles Schwab retail clients, quietly selling 2.9 million
Schwab YieldPlus Fund shares from other Schwab proprietary mutual funds during
the period January 31, 2008 to April 1, 2008, while indicating in marketing
materials, newsletters, talking points, and other investor communications that
unwitting Schwab retail clients should hold their shares.

For information, contact:

- Thomas F. Shine, a former Securities and Exchange Commission Division of
Enforcement attorney (Florida, 800-838-8320, www.thomasfshinelaw.com);

- Christopher T. Vernon, an investor rights attorney who represents investors
throughout the United States (Florida, 239-649-5390, www.vernonhealy.com)

- Thomas D. Mauriello, an investor rights attorney who represents investors
throughout the United States (California, 888-612-1961, www.maurlaw.com)

- Timothy J. Dennin, a former Securities and Exchange Commission Division of
Enforcement attorney and former assistant district attorney (New York,
212-826-1500, www.denninlaw.com).