Ex-Developer Guilty in S&L; Conspiracy

Former Woodland Hills developer Michael R. Goland was convicted on Tuesday of conspiring to secretly take over a Santa Monica savings and loan using $900,000 borrowed from state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana).

Goland was found guilty by a federal court jury after a three-week trial in which prosecutors said he bought a controlling interest in Viking Savings & Loan by funneling $1.1 million through 10 friends and business associates posing as independent investors.

The verdict marked Goland’s second federal conviction in less than a year. Last May, another federal jury found him guilty of making illegal campaign contributions to a minor-party candidate in an effort to tilt the 1986 U.S. Senate race toward Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.).

Goland, 44, was convicted of 20 counts of conspiracy and filing false documents with federal regulators in his 1986 takeover of Viking. He faces a maximum of 100 years in prison and $5 million in fines.

Assistant U.S. Atty. George B. Newhouse said Goland tried to take over Viking, then a one-branch thrift on Wilshire Boulevard, so he would have a source of financing for real estate ventures and so he could make loans to pro-Israel candidates for federal office.

Prosecutors said Goland believed that regulators would reject an application to acquire Viking if he was named a major shareholder. Before the purchase, Goland had expressed interest in purchasing at least three thrifts in Texas, Pennsylvania and California, they said.

Goland borrowed the lion’s share of the money used to take control of Viking from Robbins, a longtime business associate, prosecutors said. However, there was no evidence that Robbins knew how the money would be used, Newhouse said.