S&L; Chief Directed Fraud, Aide’s Lawyer Says at Trial

The dead man did it.

So concluded defense attorney Richard (Racehorse) Haynes during closing arguments Thursday in the seven-week-long trial of Janet Faye McKinzie, who is accused of looting North America Savings & Loan in Santa Ana with the help of the thrift’s president, Dr. Duayne D. Christensen.

Haynes told jurors in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana that Christensen--a former dentist who died in a mysterious car crash just 9 1/2 hours before regulators seized the institution--was the mastermind of a plot to steal tens of millions of dollars from North America.

Christensen and McKinzie lived a lavish style, spending freely on everything from extravagant parties with Sammy Davis Jr. as entertainment to trinkets such as a $500 gold paper clip.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Paul Seave portrayed the couple in his closing arguments as a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde, working together to carry out complicated schemes to defraud the thrift. The jury is expected to begin deliberations in the case today.

McKinzie, 40, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to 26 counts of racketeering, bank fraud, wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property. If convicted, she faces more than 200 years in prison.

Haynes said McKinzie was “a washed-out zombie” simply taking orders from Christensen, who was allegedly plying her with massive doses of prescription drugs, including anti-anxiety medications such as Xanax.

Haynes, one of the nation’s leading defense attorneys, called Christensen the Jim Jones of the savings and loan industry, a reference to the cult religious figure who led more than 900 followers into mass suicide in Guyana.

Christensen “was able to make people believe things that weren’t true,” said Haynes. “He could make them put the cyanide in the Kool-Aid. That was Dr. Christensen.”

But prosecutor Seave balked at the notion that North America’s 1987 collapse was only Christensen’s doing.

“The bottom line is Dr. Christensen was a crook,” said Seave, “and the defendant was his right-hand man.”

He told jurors McKinzie was completely aware of what she was doing, taking the lead in two schemes to defraud North America of more than $16 million. He produced document after document that the prosecution has said were falsified at McKinzie’s instruction to cover up the schemes.

“For her counsel to suggest she was insane at the time,” said Seave, “is preposterous.”

Federal prosecutors showed jurors a memo allegedly from McKinzie that supposedly ordered the forging of some bank documents.

“Put in sealed envelopes so it looks professional and I’ll open. Be sure to sign good,” McKinzie allegedly wrote.

“Does this sound like someone who has a bad memory, is confused, intoxicated, acting like a robot?” Seave asked jurors. “Dr. Christensen was not there, behind her, moving her arms, moving her lips. . . . The evidence is overwhelming (that) the defendant knew exactly what she was doing.”

Haynes appealed to the jury to acquit McKinzie. “Take the manipulative hands (of Christensen) off the body and soul of this woman and let her go home,” he said.

The North America trial represents the government’s first use of RICO (the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) against a failed S&L; on the West Coast. RICO was used so that the government could freeze the proceeds from a $10-million life insurance policy Christensen had bought for McKinzie.

North America was shut down in 1988, costing taxpayers $120 million.