Newport Beach Firm, Owner Fined by NASD : Securities regulation: The company, however, resigned from the association and ceased serving as a broker 13 months ago.

Russell R. Diehl and his company, Diehl & Co., have been fined $25,000 each by a securities regulatory group and suspended from trading stocks and bonds for 30 days for failing to maintain adequate net capital and proper financial records.

But it’s unlikely that the fines will be paid or the suspensions served because the Newport Beach company resigned from the National Assn. of Securities Dealers and stopped acting as a broker 13 months ago--before the exchange took action against it.

NASD’s action arose out of a 1988 incident in which both Diehl & Co. and a Laguna Beach man were victimized by former Huntington Beach stockbroker David O. Naulin, who was later convicted of securities and mail fraud and was sentenced last fall to a year in prison.

Naulin bounced a check for $97,000 to pay for expired futures contracts, forcing Diehl and one of his sales agents to put up $150,000 in promissory notes with the stock brokerage company that cleared Diehl & Co.’s trades.

The association charged that the personal notes didn’t let Diehl & Co. off the hook, that the company didn’t properly account for the amount owed to the clearinghouse and that the firm, therefore, did not have sufficient net capital to engage in the transactions.

Diehl disputed the association’s contentions, pointing out that audits of his firm showed what happened to his company in the Naulin situation and how it was resolved. The NASD action was the fourth disciplinary move against Diehl & Co. since it started as a broker-dealer in 1982.