Loan to Former FBI Official Investigated : Yablonsky Borrowed $40,000, Got $80,000 in Error, Lender Says

A federal grand jury is investigating Joseph Yablonsky, the outspoken former head of the FBI’s Las Vegas office, over an extra $40,000 that a savings and loan association said it mistakenly advanced to him when he obtained a $40,000 loan, according to law enforcement sources.

Yablonsky kept the extra $40,000 for three years before beginning to pay it back last year, the sources said.

Chuck Dixon, senior vice president of Nevada Savings & Loan Assn. in Las Vegas, played down the matter as “a lot of hoopla over nothing.” He said it resulted from a computer error in which a $40,000 home equity loan Yablonsky obtained in 1981 was funded twice.

Yablonsky’s wife, Wilma, said he had contacted an attorney about the investigation Monday and would not comment. “I don’t know where this all started,” she said. “It was taken care of last year.”

The transactions were referred to a grand jury for possible larceny charges after the Justice Department’s public integrity section looked into the matter, according to a department source. Spokesmen for the department and the FBI declined comment.

Computer Accident

According to Dixon and others familiar with the incident, the Yablonskys took out a $40,000 home equity loan from Nevada Savings & Loan in 1981 and the amount was placed in a savings account at Nevada Savings. Dixon said a computer accidentally credited the full amount of the loan to the Yablonskys again.

“Our audit picked it up about six months ago,” Dixon said. He said he then met with Yablonsky, whom he quoted as saying: “I agree. I owe you the money.”

“He’s paying it back--the whole thing, plus interest,” Dixon said. “We added it on to another loan.”

“I got the impression Joe is like I am,” Dixon added. “My wife does most of the financial dealings. His comment to me was: ‘I don’t know. I don’t handle it.’ ”

He said Yablonsky had not uttered “one word of protest” over the transaction.

Yablonsky retired in December, 1983, as special agent in charge of the FBI’s Las Vegas field office after 30 years with the agency.

He was censured and placed on probation by FBI Director William H. Webster after an investigation revealed that he had sought a background check on the military records of Nevada Atty. Gen. Brian McKay during the 1982 campaign for that office. McKay later defeated B. Mahlon Brown, a former U.S. attorney and close friend of Yablonsky.

‘King of the Sting’

Yablonsky, who became known as “the king of the sting,” infuriated Nevada’s power structure when his agents investigated numerous local politicians under what was called Operation Yobo.

His investigation of U. S. District Judge Harry E. Claiborne also was controversial. Claiborne was initially charged with bribery, filing false tax returns and lying on federal disclosure forms, but the government dropped the bribery charges after a jury could not reach agreement. He was convicted last August of two counts of filing false income tax returns, sentenced to two years in prison and fined $10,000.

Dixon, referring to the controversy stirred by Yablonsky, said a number of people in Las Vegas “would love to hang him from the yardarm.”

Times Staff Writer Robert Welkos contributed to this story.