The Region - News from Aug. 4, 1985

Former Los Angeles oil executive Ronald Arthur Louden, 43, has been sentenced by Senior U.S. District Judge A. Andrew Hauk in Los Angeles to spend six months in jail and do 500 hours of community service. He had been convicted of conspiracy to defraud the government and to cause banks to file false currency transaction reports. The charges involved a scheme using a Hollywood-based film production company to illegally funnel millions of dollars to Panama. Assistant U.S. Atty. Brian A. Sun said Louden and a wealthy Panamanian businessman devised the scheme in order to export money derived in the United States. Banks were given false information about the origin of the currency. Authorities were alerted when $850,000 in cash deposited at a Los Angeles bank for transfer to Panama was found to include some counterfeit currency. In the 1970s, Sun said, Louden was vice president of one of the largest crude oil trading companies in the world, C. R. Rittenberry & Associates.