TV Financial Adviser Arrested, Charged With Filing False Police Report

R. G. Reynolds, a Burbank radio-television financial adviser currently under federal investigation, was arrested this week after apparently having had the tables turned on him in a homemade “sting” by two former employees working with U.S. postal inspectors.

The pair used the bait of a $1-million quick bonanza to get back about $125,000 that Reynolds had borrowed from them, court documents alleged.

After failing to reap his expected gains, Reynolds swore out a complaint accusing Richard Mena and his brother, James, of stealing $850,000 from him.

But this move backfired late Monday when Burbank police arrested him on a misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report. Reynolds, 40, was released several hours later on $500 bond. Callers to his former business number Tuesday reached a telephone company message informing them that the number is no longer in service.

While the Menas were dealing with Reynolds to get back their money, they were cooperating with U.S. postal inspectors as witnesses in a previously reported investigation of Reynolds, according to court records.

According to authorities and Leo Grizzaffi, the Menas’ attorney who devised what police called a sting, the two men led Reynolds to believe that he was going to receive $1 million on an “investment” arranged by the Menas with a crime “family” in Florida.

As reported previously, postal inspectors raided Reynolds offices April 2 and seized potential evidence in the U.S. attorney’s investigation of him. An affidavit filed in court then by postal inspector Charles M. Yarton called Reynolds’ operation a “boiler room fraud.”

The probe was started last year by California and federal securities regulators.

Collapse of Network

Since early this year, Reynolds’ broadcast network on radio and television stations around the country has collapsed as complaints from investors piled up. He is heard now only on KPZE radio in Anaheim.

The Burbank charge revealed new details of cooperation by former Reynolds employees with federal authorities.

Burbank Municipal Court records show that Reynolds filed a police report March 20 claiming that the Menas had stolen $700,000 in stock and securities, as well as $150,000 in gold and silver coins.

On March 26, Reynolds filed a civil suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court seeking recovery of the $125,000 he had “lent” them, about $10,000 of which he had wired to them in Florida. He said in a declaration to the court that the Menas promised to pay his company $850,000 within seven days.

The Menas’ attorney said in an interview Tuesday that all the money they had received was owed them by Reynolds.

Dan Griller, a deputy district attorney, who had declined to issue a warrant against the Menas on Reynolds’ complaint, said Tuesday: “There was no crime in getting back what was theirs.”

Homes Mortgaged

According to the Burbank police report, which was filed in court, Yarton told police that the Menas met Reynolds at one of his financial seminars about a year ago, and they became friends in ensuing months and were hired as his public relations consultants.

Last September, they lent him $195,000, which they obtained by mortgaging their houses and borrowing from family and friends, the report went on, adding that $120,000 plus interest was payable on or before Feb. 28. The report continued:

“As time went on, it became more and more apparent . . . that (Reynolds’) business was involved in fraudulent sales/investment schemes. Together with their attorney it was decided to ‘offer’ Reynolds an ‘investment’ in which he could make a great deal of money in a short period. . . . “

The Menas “alluded to being involved in a Cuban organized crime family dealing in narcotics and needing to launder larger sums of money through a legitimate business,” the police report said. Reynolds turned over $130,000, the court documents allege.

Times Staff Writer James Bates contributed to this story.