Attorney Charged in Brookside S&L; Case
A Los Angeles attorney was charged Wednesday with helping the ex-chairman of now-defunct Brookside Savings & Loan Assn. secretly sell a piece of real estate to his own thrift.
The prosecution of David R. Altshuler, 42, marks the fourth case arising out of the investigation into Brookside’s failure, one of the Justice Department’s top 100 savings and loan fraud investigations nationwide.
Three other men, including former Brookside Chairman Michael S. Moers, have pleaded guilty to fraud in connection with their activities at Brookside and another failed thrift, Westwood Savings & Loan Assn.
Altshuler is charged in an “information” (a document similar to an indictment), which may only be done with his consent. But there was no word whether he had entered into a plea bargain with prosecutors, as the other three did.
According to the two-count information, Altshuler helped Moers and his associates hide the fact that they were selling their own interest in a valuable piece of West Los Angeles real estate to Westwood Savings and Brookside.
Brookside paid about $1.7 million to a “straw man,” who acted as a conduit for the property and money, according to court documents.
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