Ex-Torrance Investment Official Charged With Grand Theft

Morris D. English Jr., president of a now-bankrupt Torrance investment firm that is the object of federal and state fraud investigations, has been charged in Torrance with grand theft and writing bad checks.

English, 50, is president of the Wellington Group, which is being investigated by the State Department of Corporations, the U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI for alleged securities fraud. Investigators examining the company say it may owe up to $50 million to as many as 1,500 investors from San Jose to San Diego.

South Bay Municipal Court records show that English turned himself in to Torrance police on April 1 after a city prosecutor filed one misdemeanor count of grand theft and seven misdemeanor counts of intentionally writing bad checks. English was booked on the charges and released on $250 bail.

He is scheduled to appear April 30 for arraignment and faces up to eight years in state prison and $8,000 in fines if convicted.

Neither English nor his attorney could be reached for comment.

All of the charges involve investors Elvin Field, who put $80,000 in Wellington, and Elva Derryberry, who invested $50,000 with the company.

According to court documents, Field, of La Mirada, filed a complaint at the Torrance Police Department in January after several weeks of trying to get Wellington to return his money. Interest payments on the money, which was to have been invested in a second trust deed loan, had stopped in September.

Field told police that English had given him a check on Dec. 13 for $28,088.89 to repay a portion of Field’s investment. When Field tried to deposit the check at his bank on Dec. 20, it bounced. Court documents show that there was $388.41 in the account when English wrote the check.

After Field complained, English allegedly asked officials at Tokai Bank in Torrance to pay the check on the promise that he would make a deposit to the account in a few days to cover it. Bank officials refused.

Then, on Jan. 4, English gave Field two more checks, each for $25,937.57. When Field deposited them on Jan. 9, they also bounced. Court documents say that on Jan. 4 there was $1,011.85 in the Wellington account.

Derryberry, of Alta Loma, began demanding payment after interest checks that had been deposited directly to her Security Pacific Bank account stopped arriving in September.

Wellington mailed two checks for $620.50 each to Derryberry’s account on Dec. 17, court records show. They, too, bounced. Although court documents show that the Wellington account had $11,117.50 in it on Dec. 17, the account was overdrawn by $460.03 on Dec. 18.

On Jan. 11, when the Wellington account was overdrawn by $14.02, English issued Derryberry a new check for $1,241. It also bounced.

A police investigator noted in court documents that English told him most of the checks were postdated by two weeks to one month from the date they were issued, to allow time for Wellington to get money into its checking account.

English told the investigator that he did not remember details of either Field’s or Derryberry’s original investments.