Creditors Move Against Wife of Moriarty
The tangled financial affairs of political corruption figure W. Patrick Moriarty have taken an additional twist with the filing of an involuntary bankruptcy petition against his wife designed to prevent her from renouncing an inheritance potentially worth millions of dollars.
Moriarty, the former head of an Anaheim fireworks company, was himself ordered into bankruptcy by a federal judge last December. Moriarty allegedly funneled laundered cash to politicians to gain passage of a law favoring the marketing of his fireworks products. He has pleaded guilty to seven counts of fraud and agreed to testify against politicians he purportedly bribed.
For the record:
12:00 a.m. Aug. 23, 1985 For the Record
Los Angeles Times Friday August 23, 1985 Home Edition Part 1 Page 2 Column 1 Metro Desk 2 inches; 58 words Type of Material: Correction
In a story Wednesday on creditors filing an involuntary bankruptcy petition against Dorene Moriarty, wife of Orange County businessman W. Patrick Moriarty, The Times incorrectly quoted the lawyer for Moriarty’s trustee as saying he would file a motion asking to also be named as Dorene Moriarty’s trustee. In fact, the lawyer will not file such a motion, and her trustee will be chosen by the U.S. Trustee’s office.
Among the creditors leading the fight for Moriarty’s assets is California Canadian Bank of San Francisco, which says that Moriarty owes it $20 million stemming from defaulted loans. The bank was instrumental in forcing him into bankruptcy.
The same bank was instrumental Tuesday in the attempt to force Moriarty’s wife, Dorene M. Moriarty, who signed guarantees on some of her husband’s loans, into the same Chapter 7 bankruptcy position.
Dorene Moriarty stood to inherit between $1.5 million and $10 million from her brother, Donald E. Kettleberg, a Portland, Ore., attorney who died in May. But in an attempt to thwart her husband’s creditors, Dorene Moriarty has refused the inheritance.
If the renouncement is left unchallenged, an Oregon probate judge could allow the inheritance to go to the Moriartys’ children. James Stang, attorney for Richard M. Pachulsky, trustee of the Moriarty estate, said that Moriarty’s creditors have filed the bankruptcy petition in federal court in Los Angeles against Dorene Moriarty in an effort to add the inheritance to her husband’s assets.
Stang said the next step will be for Pachulsky to file a motion to also become Dorene Moriarty’s trustee, and to institute proceedings in Oregon to prevent distribution of the inheritance to the Moriartys’ children.
