Jury Finds Urich Not Guilty on All Charges in Major Check-Kiting Case
Controversial Whittier oil millionaire Jack R. Urich was acquitted Tuesday of all charges that he participated in a multimillion-dollar check-kiting scheme that resulted in the collapse of a Nevada bank and involved other giant banks in California and elsewhere.
Urich, president and chief executive of UCO Inc., an oil, construction and shipping concern, was found not guilty by a jury in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas on 27 counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy.
A federal grand jury had accused Urich and six other men of conspiring with the late Joseph V. Agosto, a reputed organized crime figure, to fraudulently juggle millions of dollars among commercial accounts in Bank of America, Crocker National Bank, Wells Fargo Bank and other banks in Nevada, Hawaii, Mexico and Canada.
The scheme resulted in the collapse of Las Vegas-based Mineral Bank of Nevada and a loss of more than $1 million to San Francisco-based Crocker, now owned by Wells Fargo & Co., the grand jury indictment charged.
However, Urich’s attorney, Stanley Greenberg, said Tuesday that he argued during the two-month trial that Urich was “an unknowing and unwilling participant” in the scheme. UCO lent money to Agosto--whom Urich considered to be a personal friend--that Agosto used in the check-kiting scheme, Greenberg argued. But Urich had no idea the money was being used illegally and instead thought Agosto was using the funds for foreign currency trading, Greenberg argued.
Four of the other six men charged along with Urich had already pleaded guilty in the case, while another defendant, Richard Fenner, a former officer of Mineral Bank, was found guilty Tuesday on 20 counts in connection with the scheme, Greenberg said. Another defendant, Jaime Zurcher, is in jail in Mexico on charges relating to the check-kiting scheme, Greenberg said.
Urich, who declined comment on the verdict, faces no other criminal charges in connection with the Agosto check-kiting scheme, said David Moynihan, an assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case.
Urich, 52, has been a controversial figure since 1977, when he unsuccessfully attempted to invest $6 million in the Tropicana on the Las Vegas Strip in one of the most controversial casino licensing cases of the 1970s. Casino regulators cited Urich’s relationship to Agosto, who died in 1983, as one of the reasons for denying Urich’s license.
Urich and his connections with Agosto also had been the subject of an aborted investigation by Los Angeles police and the federal Organized Crime Strike Force.
