Ex-UCSB Chancellor, Wife Arrested in Insurance Case : Income Tax Evasion Also Cited

Accompanied by their lawyer, a public relations representative and band of friends and supporters, former UC Santa Barbara Chancellor Robert A. Huttenback and his wife, Freda, surrendered to authorities today and were booked on suspicion of embezzlement, insurance fraud and tax evasion.

Appearing voluntarily at the Santa Barbara County Jail at 9:45 a.m., Huttenback, 59, and his wife, 55, were photographed and fingerprinted and released on their own recognizance without having to post bail, according to Sheriff’s Deputy Tim Gracey.

Though urged by their public relations representative not to comment, Huttenback told reporters that he found the whole experience “humiliating and degrading.” The couple then was whisked away in a maroon Lincoln Continental driven by merchant banker J. Cornelius O’Keefe Sr.

The arrests, which stemmed from an investigation launched in October, 1986, at the request of a grand jury, are the latest and most dramatic development in several years’ worth of troubles for the award-winning historian and former head of the University of California’s Santa Barbara campus. Last July, Huttenback was asked to resign from the Santa Barbara post largely because of difficulties with faculty and a dispute over the unauthorized use of university funds for the Huttenbacks’ personal residence.

Tax Evasion Charged

Now the former chancellor and his wife are being charged with income tax invasion for failing to report on their state tax returns improvements to their house that resulted from those unauthorized expenditures. The couple are also being charged with embezzlement and fraud in what the investigator in the case says was an insurance scam designed to finance a trip to Europe.

As outlined by Detective Owen B. Thomas, the Huttenbacks reported the loss of $8,000 worth of silver to their insurance company, collected the money to pay for a trip to Italy and then “found” the silver without ever informing the insurance company of that fact. Morever, the investigator said there was “no evidence” that the Huttenbacks purchased silver while in Europe and that, if they did, they failed to report it to U.S. Customs.

In a March 5 letter to Patrick McKinely, assistant district attorney in charge of the case, the Huttenbacks’ lawyer called the charges absurd--”replete with false statements, omissions and erroneous conclusions.”

Huttenback did call the insurance company to report the recovery of the silver and can produce a phone bill documenting that a call was made on that date, his attorney, George Eskin, said. An insurance company official said the $8,000 did not have to be returned because there were still pieces missing that were valued at least at that amount, Eskin argued. What’s more, even though there was no legal requirement whatsoever that the Huttenbacks use the money to replace the silver, they in fact did so and can produce receipts and appropriate customs declarations, he said.

Amount Unknown

As for their failure to report as income for tax purposes university money that was used to renovate the Huttenbacks’ kitchen, Eskin argued that Huttenback still does not even know how much was spent on his kitchen because the work was done by a former university employee who has pleaded no contest under a plea-bargain agreement to numerous counts of embezzlement at the university.

In an interview Saturday in Los Angeles before his arrest, Huttenback categorically denied that he was guilty of the charges against him and said that he was being “victimized” by people who were out to get him.