Keating Tardily Offers Listing of Personal Assets
Charles H. Keating Jr., facing the possibility of being cited for contempt of court, filed an accounting of his personal finances with federal regulators late Tuesday, a day after missing a court-imposed deadline to do so.
Keating, former chairman of American Continental Corp., the parent of failed Lincoln Savings & Loan in Irvine, had been ordered last week by U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson to comply with a government order to disclose his assets to the Office of Thrift Supervision.
Because Keating failed to make that filing by the Monday deadline, regulators had been considering asking Wilson to issue a contempt citation, OTS spokesman William Fulwider said.
Fulwider would not comment as to whether the contents of Keating’s filing had fully satisfied the requirements of the order. The information is confidential, Fulwider said.
Attorneys for Keating were not immediately available for comment.
Keating, who made a fortune in Arizona real estate and bought Lincoln in 1984, has said publicly that he is broke. The OTS had ordered him to prove it and partially froze his assets in connection with its efforts to recover $41 million from Keating and five associates.
Keating resigned last week as chairman and chief executive officer of American Continental after U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin dismissed his challenge to the federal takeover of Lincoln. In his ruling, Sporkin said Keating looted Lincoln.
The collapse of Lincoln is expected to cost taxpayers more than $2 billion.
The accounting came after the OTS got a court order enforcing its administrative action from U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson in Los Angeles last week. The court also ordered Keating not to send any money out of the country and to give 48 hours’ notice before spending more than $5,000.
Keating earned huge salaries, lived lavishly and contributed heavily to politicians while he headed American Continental, a Phoenix development company that owned Lincoln.
He contends that he never broke any laws. Government officials are making him a scapegoat to conceal their own failure to prevent the S&L; disaster, Keating says.
The OTS and lawyers for Keating are due back in Wilson’s court in Los Angeles on Monday.
The judge has indicated that he is likely to extend his orders against Keating, which initially were made in the form of a 10-day restraining order.
OTS officials said last week that regulators want to know if Keating transferred money out of the country because he had traveled extensively in Switzerland and the Bahamas in the last few years. Keating says he has never transferred funds overseas.
