North American S&L; Sentences Issued : Thrifts: The two defendants, whom the judge believed were minor players in a massive fraud, avoid jail.

The final two defendants in the North America Savings & Loan scandal were each sentenced Monday to serve one month in a halfway house and ordered to pay $35,000 in restitution and fines for laundering $1.5 million stolen from the now-defunct thrift.

Armando J. Vasquez, 53, and Frederick Youngdahl, 55, were convicted last month of bank fraud for submitting phony invoices to North America and then returning the money they received--minus a $25,000 laundering fee--to thrift Chairman Duayne D. Christensen.

U.S. District Court Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler in Santa Ana denied a request by federal prosecutors to imprison the men, agreeing with the defense that they were bit players in a fraud that is estimated to have cost taxpayers $120 million.

“I am extremely sorry that my actions, however small, hurt the public,” said Vasquez, a Costa Mesa architect. “I am ashamed.”

Youngdahl, a Newport Beach engineer, declined to comment in court.

Santa Ana-based North America was seized by regulators in 1987. The case was described by federal authorities as particularly egregious because the masterminds behind the fraud--Christensen and consultant Janet Faye McKinzie--spent much of the thrift’s money on extravagances such as Rolls-Royces and lavish parties.

In March, McKinzie was convicted of 22 of 26 counts against her, including racketeering, conspiracy, bank fraud, wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property. Stotler sentenced her to 20 years in jail, the harshest punishment meted out in California and the second-longest nationwide for an insider in the nation’s savings and loan debacle.

The former real estate agent and high-school dropout had contended that she was temporarily insane because she was under the influence of prescription drugs as well as Christensen himself, whom her attorney characterized as “the Jim Jones of the savings and loan industry.”

Vasquez and Youngdahl maintained that they too were taken in by Christensen, a major client of both men. Christensen was an unindicted co-conspirator in the North America trials, having died in a mysterious car accident just 9 1/2 hours before regulators seized North America.

Youngdahl’s attorney, Richard G. Hirsch, said his client was still in something of a fog about the transactions that got him into trouble.

“Mr. Youngdahl to this day is still somewhat under the spell of Dr. Christensen,” Hirsch said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul L. Seave told Stotler he didn’t believe the defendants’ stories.

“Each defendant, a successful entrepreneur, portrayed himself as an innocent dupe, totally ignorant of any wrongdoing--or even the possibility of wrongdoing--by Christensen,” Seave said in his sentencing recommendation. “The defendants’ stories, in the government’s view, were wholly incredible.”

Stotler denied a federal recommendation that the two men pay millions of dollars in restitution, saying that the $13.5 million that McKinzie was ordered to return in restitution and fines would cover the money stolen through the money laundering scheme.

“I do believe Mr. Vasquez when he says it won’t happen again,” Stotler said.

Monday’s sentencing marked the end of the federal government’s criminal prosecution of those involved in the North America fraud. Altogether, seven people were convicted.