Producer-Director Pleads Guilty in Theft, Fraud Case

A producer and director from Sherman Oaks pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges of grand theft and defrauding a moving company by writing a bad check.

Dirk Wayne Summers, 46, who has produced documentary films and once produced and directed a Las Vegas stage show with comedian Jonathan Winters, is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Richard G. Kolostian in Van Nuys Superior Court on Dec. 16. He faces a maximum of a year in prison on each of the two counts.

Summers admitted that he defrauded Bank of America and the Starving Students moving company by writing a bad check for $2,958 on April 19, 1984.

He also admitted to stealing $2,000 from Frank G. Summers, who is not related. Frank Summers testified during a preliminary hearing last year that he wrote Dirk Summers a $2,000 check on Jan. 11, 1983, as an advance toward a future business partnership and fully expected to have his investment returned.

Dirk Summers had originally faced 22 counts in five cases. The charges included grand theft, grand theft auto, passing bad checks and receiving stolen property. One charge alleged that Summers used another person’s credit card to charter a jet in 1986. Another alleged he wrote 10 bad checks, ranging in value from $40 to $234, to supermarkets for groceries.

Summers’ attorney, James H. Barnes, tried unsuccessfully Oct. 26 to have the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office taken off the cases and replaced with the state attorney general’s office.

Barnes charged that Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael E. Consiglio had a conflict of interest and was overzealous in filing charges against Summers. He said Consiglio was friendly with a San Fernando Valley stockbroker who had a bitter relationship with Summers.

Relationship Soured

The stockbroker, Maurice Rind, was Summers’ business partner in 1984, but the relationship soured and Summers testified against Rind in a case before the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1985, Barnes said.

Consiglio filed four of the five cases against Summers. Kolostian refused to remove the cases from the district attorney’s office, but did order the office to replace Consiglio with another prosecutor.

Consiglio has been on paid administrative leave since July 24 while the Los Angeles Police Department investigates his relationship with Rind, an investor in the defunct ZZZZ Best carpet-cleaning company. Police Chief Daryl F. Gates has said police are investigating possible links between ZZZZ Best and a money-laundering operation tied to organized crime.