Security Pacific Foreclosing on Keating’s Phoenix Home

A California bank has begun to foreclose on the home of Charles H. Keating Jr., the financier whose scandal-ridden Lincoln Savings & Loan has come to symbolize the crisis in the national thrift industry.

A notice filed by Security Pacific National Bank of Los Angeles said Keating’s home in the swank Phoenix suburb of Paradise Valley is scheduled to be sold at public auction on Aug. 15. The notice was filed Wednesday with the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office.

During a speech Wednesday in Washington, Keating said the bank acted because of his failure to make mortgage payments for four or five months.

“I’m not saying that because I’m proud of it,” Keating said.

He brought it up, he said, to counter accusations that he has hidden millions of dollars.

“If I were the crook that they say I was, and if I were the greediest man in the world, by golly, you’d have to also call me the most stupid, because nothing that I supposedly took or stole or was so greedy about has stuck to any of my palms, my pocketbook, or my children.

“We are broke.”

Keating has said he has been financially ruined by battles with the government and its April, 1989, takeover of Lincoln Savings, formerly controlled by Keating’s American Continental Corp.

Security Pacific holds a trust deed that secures the $2.2-million first mortgage on Keating’s home.

The 4,422-square-foot, one-story home is assessed at a full cash value of $923,045 as of December, 1986, according to tax-assessor records.

The home was built in 1987 and includes a three-car garage, guest quarters and four bathrooms.