Bank Sues Ely, Wife for Unpaid Bills, Loan : Trustee: The lawsuit is seeking more than $12,500 allegedly owed on credit cards and $4,000 on a cash reserve account.

Ventura Community College Trustee Tom Ely, involved in one lawsuit in Nevada over alleged gambling debts, is also being sued by the Simi Valley Bank for more than $16,500 in unpaid credit card bills and a personal loan.

The lawsuit, which was filed Jan. 31, is scheduled to be heard today in Ventura County Municipal Court, according to the lawyer representing the bank.

Ely and his wife, Ingrid, are accused in the suit of not paying $12,487 in MasterCard and Visa credit card bills secured through Simi Valley Bank. The couple is also alleged to owe $4,000 plus interest on a cash reserve account, which is similar to a personal loan.

According to the lawsuit, the Elys applied for and received the credit cards at the bank April 25, 1988. The suit alleges that the Elys have failed to make payments on the balance due on each card since Sept. 12, 1989. Each card had a credit limit of $6,000 with an annual interest rate of 14.88%.

The lawsuit also alleges that the Elys have not made payments on their $4,000 cash reserve account since Sept. 11, 1989.

Ely, 54, a Simi Valley resident, is attending a conference in Burlingame of the California Assn. of Community Colleges that lasts until Friday and was unavailable for comment Wednesday.

Susan C. Jay, an attorney representing Simi Valley Bank in the lawsuit, declined to talk about the case.

Ely, a candidate for the 4th District supervisor’s seat, has been the subject of controversy since it was revealed last month that he owed $3,000 to the Edgewater Hotel and Casino in Laughlin, Nev., and that he had been sued in February by the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas over $8,000 in gambling debts.

Ely subsequently paid the $3,000 debt to the Laughlin casino, but has contested the Golden Nugget lawsuit partly on the grounds that he is “indigent.”

In addition to the gambling allegations, the district attorney’s office recently began a criminal investigation of Ely for possible misappropriation of college district funds after investigators received a copy of an audit of his district expense records.

The Board of Trustees commissioned the audit after learning of Ely’s gambling activities and after a disclosure that he used a district telephone to call casinos and hotels in Las Vegas.

Ely last week denied that he charged more than $8,400 in questionable expenses as the audit showed. The audit also listed another $6,978 in claims submitted without proper documentation.

Ely said that the audit was flawed because it did not follow district travel policies and that the district actually owes him $600 for business-related calls he made on his home and car phones.

The Board of Trustees is expected to take up the matter at its April 24 meeting.

Ely said this week that he owes less than $20,000 to Nevada gambling casinos and told The Times that he is more than able to repay the money, explaining that his financial situation improved recently after he had described himself as “indigent” in an April 3 response to the Golden Nugget lawsuit.

In the legal document, Ely asked the court to consider that he is “suffering from greatly diminished income.” He said he plans to pay his debt with money he expects to receive from his insurance company for an automobile accident he was involved in last year.