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Orlando-- American Family Publishers, one of the -nation's two largest sweepstakes companies, was accused by the Florida Attorney General today of preying on the elderly through deceptive magazine solicitations and by selling names of senior citizens and retired people who enter sweepstakes to operators of other contests.

Advocates for the elderly have long contended that magazine sweepstakes and similar contests take advantage of senior citizens 'With deceptive and confusing Ianguage. But a civil suit filed today by the office of Attorney General Robert A. Butterworth was the first formal accusation of such conduct. The suit asserted that. the sweepstakes company designed its mailings to appear to be official documents and used two celebrities, Ed McMahon and Dick Clark, as spokesmen specifically to take advantage of the elderly and other vulnerable people. The company was also accused of double billing customers and using collection agencies to try to collect unenforceable debts.

The suit disclosedfor the first time that American Family Publishers was able to identify the age range of sweepstakes entrants and sold the names of the elderly and retirees to other contest operators. Often fraudulent telemarketers bilk older consumers after buying their names from mailing list providers. The suit did not link American Family Publishers lists to any fraudulent operations. But it said that last year the company advertised for sale or rent the names and addresses of 349,542 people age 55 or over who had entered sweepstakes and the names and addresses of 118,081 retirees who had entered.

In addition to preying upon the elderly, the solicitations are designed to prevent consumers from making reasonable buying decisions, and the average consumer has been and continues to be deceived by the deceptive solicitations and fraudulent billing practices, the suit said. The accusations were made in an amended complaint filed in state court in Tampa. The complaint expanded charges of deceptive practices brought against the company last year. American Family Publishers settled similar suits brought by other states but has been unable to settle with Florida.

In addition to American Family Publishers, the complaint added new defendants, including Time-Warner, the world's largest entertainment company and part owner of American Family Publishers, and Time Inc. Susan Caughman, chairman of American Family Publishers' parent company, and Timothy Adams, president of Time Customer Services, which handles billing, were also named as defendants.

Jeanne Meyer, a spokeswoman for American Family Publishers, said that the suit was unfounded and that the company never made targets of elderly consumers.

"A.V.P. is a mass marketer and the charges regarding the elderly are not true," Ms. Meyer said. "The Attorney General has spent months trying to prove something that is not true."

She also said the company did not sell lists of people who entered contests, selling only the names of people who did not order magazines.

Peter Costiglio, spokesman for Time-Warner and its subsidiaries, called the suit unreasonable and unwarranted.

"It appears to be an action to intimidate and harm reputations," Mr. Costiglio said. "It is pure and simple an unreasonable exercise of the Attorney General's power."

About one third of all new magazine subscriptions are generated through sweepstakes, which offer multimillion-dollar prizes to lure people into buying magazines.

In two articles last summer, The New York Times described how American Family Publishers and the other big company, Publishers Clearing House, among others, have been accused by consumer advocates of using official-sounding language and gimmicks to trick people into buying magazines to enter contests. Often mailings describe recipients as officials winners though they have not won anything. Studies have shown that the elderly are most li ly to believe that they actually won the money, though the same letter may have been sent to millions of people. In some cases, elderly people have spent their life savings entering sweepstakes.In settling deceptivepractices suits with 32 states and the District of Columbia, the company said it would stop telling people they had won contests unless they had actually won and emphasize that no purchase was necessary to enter a contest.

But today's suit made clear that the Attorney General did not believe that the company comp ie , saying a mailing on Sept. 23 created the false impression that solicitation documents were official or legally binding.