Family S&L; Found Negligent; Broker Gets $900,000

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury has awarded $900,000 to an Altadena real estate broker after concluding that Family Savings & Loan was negligent when it failed to prevent a former teller from defrauding the depositor of $1.2 million.

The real estate broker, Wilbert B. Simms, has alleged that the teller, Nghia Thi Sabol, lured him into a fraudulent business partnership when she was teller at Family’s Pasadena office in 1980. She accepted money from Simms as part of a bogus plan to make short-term loans to Vietnamese immigrants in Southern California, according to the civil complaint. Under the plan, Sabol was to invest her own funds with Simms in loans that were to pay high interest.

Simms’ attorneys argued that Family Savings management should have been aware that Sabol had written checks for large sums against insufficient funds on a thrift account while she was employed there. The complaint alleged that management ignored “suspicious” conduct by Sabol and contends that managers should have warned Simms to be cautious. The complaint also alleged that Sabol was allowed “unfettered access” to Simms’ bank records. Family Savings contested the negligence claims.

Simms sought damages of $1.6 million. However, after reviewing evidence presented during the three-week trial, the jury concluded that Simms was partially negligent and provided a lower damage award.

In 1986, Sabol was convicted of grand theft in Los Angeles Superior Court and sentenced to seven years.

Between 1980 and 1982, Sabol persuaded Simms to provide cash, jewelry and real estate equity to finance the lending scheme, the civil complaint said. Sabol used a forged Family Savings passbook to delude Simms into believing that she had deposits of about $500,000, according to the complaint.

Simms handed over some of the money to Sabol through her teller’s window at the branch office, and she continued to take money from Simms after leaving her position at Family Savings, the complaint said.

Executives at Family had no immediate comment on the case. The loss was the latest in a series of legal problems at Family Savings. Oliver A. Trigg Jr., ousted as the thrift’s chairman in 1988, was ordered to sell his shares in Family Savings after a lengthy federal investigation into possible fraud at the thrift.