Jury Chosen for Woman Accused in Thrift Failure

A 12-person jury was selected Tuesday to hear the case of former real estate broker Janet F. McKinzie’s involvement in the collapse of a tiny Orange County thrift. Opening arguments in the case are scheduled to be heard today.

McKinzie faces 40 counts of bank fraud, conspiracy and racketeering and could receive more than 200 years in prison if convicted on all counts for her role in the 1987 failure of North America Savings & Loan in Santa Ana.

Federal and state officials have charged McKinzie and the thrift’s founder and chairman, former Westminster dentist Duayne D. Christensen, with looting North America and its depositors of $16.6 million in a case regulators have said is one of the worst examples of insider fraud to emerge from the nation’s thrift debacle.

On Tuesday, 12 jurors and four alternates were selected. U.S. District Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler said the case could take anywhere from six to 10 weeks.

McKinzie’s attorney, flamboyant Texan Richard (Racehorse) Haynes, intends to use the defense of “diminished capacity,” claiming his client was an unwilling participant in the alleged fraud because Christensen was plying her with prescription drugs.

Christensen, who is named as an unindicted co-conspirator, died in a mysterious car crash just 9 1/2 hours before regulators seized North America.

On Tuesday, prospective jurors were shown a list of eight drugs McKinzie allegedly used, including Valium and several anti-anxiety medications including Xanax and Centrax.

In an interview after the jury selection, Haynes characterized McKinzie as “one small, frail female charged by the government with a litany of serious federal offenses.”

McKinzie, 40, left her job as a real estate broker in the early 1980s to work as an assistant and consultant to Christensen. She is now being tried on 27 of the 40 counts against her. The remaining counts will be tried in a separate criminal trial.