Tarzana Man to Be Tried in Counterfeiting

A Tarzana businessman who federal authorities say is a major organized-crime figure was ordered Tuesday to stand trial in Los Angeles federal court on charges that he distributed counterfeit money while free on bail awaiting trial on similar charges.

U.S. District Judge William P. Gray set the trial for Jack M. Catain Jr. for Nov. 4.

Last April, Gray dismissed the original charges that Catain, in late 1981, had conspired to distribute $1.5 million in $50 and $100 counterfeit bills.

Gray said at the time, after hearing testimony from physicians, that the ordeal of a trial might kill Catain, 56, who suffers from a variety of heart ailments.

Two weeks after that ruling, however, federal prosecutors obtained another grand jury indictment charging Catain with distributing $50,000 in notes from the same batch of counterfeit bills in 1984 and 1985--while free on bail from the original charges.

Catain’s attorney, James A. Twitty, attempted to persuade Gray that his client is still too ill to stand trial and asked that the second case be dismissed.

However, the government prosecutor, Edwin P. Gale, who heads the Los Angeles office of the Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Strike Force, presented a series of witnesses during a three-day hearing who testified that Catain was relatively vigorous.

Gray noted that witnesses said Catain conducted business daily; participated in his own civil litigation; made a threatening telephone call, a tape recording of which was played in court, and indicated to some associates that he was exaggerating his disabilities to avoid prosecution.