SUCCESS AT ANY COST?

Douglas P. Blankenship was one of four children born to a coal miner’s family in Argo, a hill town of 175 people in the Pine Mountains of eastern Kentucky. After his graduation from Eastern Kentucky University, Blankenship left the hills for good in 1972 and moved to California.

Over the years, he acquired all the trappings of the good life--a closet full of handmade silk suits, a gold-colored Rolls-Royce and a $1.5-million home overlooking the ocean in Capistrano Beach.

But a 300-page indictment charges that Blankenship used the title on his residence and other property to secure substantial loans, totaling as much as $25 million, from a variety of lenders.

Today the 45-year-old Blankenship is imprisoned in Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, awaiting a criminal trial on charges of racketeering, bank and mail fraud and fraudulent transportation. A judge has allowed one creditor to foreclose on Blankenship’s Capistrano Beach home, seizing all his possessions. But the Rolls-Royce--which he was driving at the time of his arrest--has suddenly disappeared, leaving federal investigators hunting for it.