Keating Cut His Pay to $1 a Year, Records Show : Bankruptcy: Court papers in the American Continental Corp. case show that other company officers cut their pay, too.

Charles H. Keating Jr., head of the bankrupt American Continental Corp. that owns Irvine-based Lincoln Savings, has cut his salary to $1 a year, it was reported Monday.

Records filed last week in the company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case show that Keating had carried through with a promise made last year to reduce his $400,000 annual salary to a token $1, the Arizona Republic reported.

Keating had said in a national television broadcast in January that he and his family were “flat broke.” He said his family had been ruined partly because of heavy investments in the company.

Federal officials and investors in American Continental have filed fraud and racketeering suits, seeking more than $1.3 billion from Keating and other American Continental officials.

Keating and other company officers reduced their salaries at the request of a committee of unsecured creditors of American Continental.

Along with Keating’s pay cut, the bankruptcy records show that Keating’s son, Charles H. Keating III, and his son-in-law, Robert Hubbard Jr., have been taken off the payroll. The younger Keating, an executive vice president, and Hubbard, a vice president, both had been receiving $250,000 annually as of last April.

The Republic said that federal investigators are trying to determine whether Charles Keating Jr. and other company executives may be drawing salaries from any or all of at least eight American Continental subsidiaries that are not covered under the bankruptcy proceedings.

Ronald Warnicke, a court-appointed examiner in the bankruptcy case, is expected to submit a report March 21 about the finances of the subsidiaries to U.S. District Court Judge Richard Bilby. Shortly after that, Bilby is to decide whether to replace Keating’s management with a trustee, who would run American Continental.

The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last April 13. A day later, the federal government seized Lincoln Savings.

According to the bankruptcy filing, the six top American Continental executives were being paid a total of $1.8 million a year. The new documents show only four executives being paid half that amount. They include President Judy Wischer, $350,000; Senior Vice President Robert Wurzelbacher Jr., $250,000, and Financial Vice President Andrew Ligget, $300,000.

The records also show that American Continental was paying huge monthly legal fees. These peaked for December, with $1.67 million; they were $814,137 for January. The report indicates that the company is paying five law firms and an accountant in connection with the bankruptcy case and the company’s battle with federal regulators over Lincoln Savings.

The report lists American Continental’s assets as $109.8 million for January, down from $155.3 million listed at the time of the bankruptcy filing.