Vanishing Act : Missing: Boss, His Family and Funds Entrusted to Him
A few days before Christmas, real estate syndicator John A. Wojcicki left his Newport Beach corporate offices, telling employees that he was going on vacation. He instructed his staff not to open his mail while he was gone.
Shortly after Christmas, and again in early January, he telephoned employees and associates and asked about business. But he did not give a forwarding address or a telephone number.
When he failed to return, according to court records, employees became curious and started making discoveries, including the following:
- Of several hundred unopened letters on Wojcicki’s desk, about two-thirds were found to contain foreclosure notices on properties in which public limited partners had invested an estimated $2 million with Wojcicki.
- Wojcicki and his wife, Virginia, who worked in his businesses, had withdrawn about $124,000 from various bank accounts of the businesses, most of it in the last half of December. The bank accounts were in the name of Dynavest Corp., Newport Capitol Group Inc., CTC Communications Inc., Diversified Realty & Investment Co. and Professional Corporate Offices Inc. but also included accounts holding rents collected for a number of limited partnerships using the name Dyna-Fund.
- Some company records are missing, leaving the condition of the businesses difficult to assess.
Dorene Wolf, senior trial counsel for the state Department of Corporations, which was called into the picture in January by Wojcicki employees, told a Los Angeles Superior Court judge Jan. 22 that Wojcicki “abandoned the businesses after raiding several bank accounts.”
The unregistered partnerships, in which about 50 persons invested starting in 1982, are in disarray, and more than 100 of the properties acquired to produce income for them have already gone into foreclosure proceedings, Wolf said.
Injunction Issued
Both Wojcickis have been accused by the state in a civil suit of scheming to defraud the investors in the limited partnerships. Among other things, the suit alleges that properties bought for the partnerships were transferred in 1985 into an entity called Peacock Properties Co. whose “nature, organization, structure or principals” could not be determined by the state.
This week, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David A. Thomas granted a preliminary injunction against the absent Wojcickis, forbidding them to dispose of any of the business assets.
The court ordered that the Wojcicki firms remain in the hands of a receiver appointed in January and barred lawsuits against the businesses while he investigates their tangled affairs.
The state has still not been able to locate Wojcicki. Corporations Department investigator Ruben Fontes told the court that Wojcicki told one associate that he was taking his family to Mexico and that after that he called the associate three times, the last time on Jan. 8.
According to a reconstruction of events by investigators, the couple took Wojcicki’s son and daughter by his first marriage on a Mexican vacation. Virginia Wojcicki’s mother, a resident of Ontario, Canada, told Fontes that she joined them there during the Christmas period.
The Wojcickis apparently returned to Southern California by early January. On Jan. 6, according to his former landlord, Wojcicki agreed to vacate his Irvine residence, on which the lease had expired.
Two days later, Wojcicki returned his daughter to her mother’s home, where she lives. The son remained with his father, who has legal custody of him.
On that same day, a high school friend saw the son, who said he was going to live in Europe with his father. On Jan. 12, the son called the principal at Corona del Mar High and said he was dropping out of school.
Fontes said he was unable to find anyone in Wojcicki’s old neighborhood who knew where he had moved.
The receiver is trying to sort out the companies’ affairs and will report to the court on the condition of the public’s investments.
