Dennis Levine Accuser Finds Tables Turned : Real estate: Would-be Southern California developer Thomas Brechtel says the ex-kingpin of Wall Street duped him out of money. Now others say Brechtel cheated them.

Some of Thomas Brechtel’s former colleagues and ex-friends could not believe what they were seeing on “60 Minutes” one recent Sunday evening.

The former Broadway salesclerk and would-be developer was telling CBS correspondent Ed Bradley how he and his brother-in-law were supposedly duped out of tens of thousands of dollars by Dennis Levine, the Wall Street inside trader who was promoting a book about his rehabilitation after prison.

Brechtel and Randy Jochim, a small-home builder, went to Levine last year for help in financing an ocean-side luxury home development in Dana Point. Instead, they said, Levine, formerly an executive with Drexel Burnham Lambert, introduced them to a series of purported con men stretching from Las Vegas to Panama and then charged them a finder’s fee for the favor.

When the money failed to materialize, the Dana Point deal--seven homes selling for $1 million plus--was dead in the water.

Brechtel’s acquaintances weren’t that surprised by the failed deal, but they were amazed that he’d go public with his accusations. The reason: Brechtel is a defendant in several lawsuits that raise questions about his own business dealings.

“I couldn’t believe how Tom could sit up there and tell the world he got ripped off by this guy when he was doing this to me,” said Roberta Todrzak, a South Bay woman who says Brechtel duped her out of $62,500. “And he has done this to other people.”

The Todrzak case is just one of several lawsuits that raise questions about Brechtel’s business dealings. He vigorously denies the various accusations.

“None of this stuff is true,” Brechtel said. “The only thing I’ve done wrong is become a friend of Dennis Levine’s.”

“The Secret Life of Dennis Levine” on “60 Minutes” Sept. 22 was part of a grander story about how Jochim, a former carpenter, and Brechtel, a salesman in the men’s clothing department at the Broadway for 12 years, hooked up with a Wall Street felon in a tragicomic attempt to develop one of the few remaining oceanfront properties on the Southern California coast.

“We’re small businessmen who had maybe saved up a little bit of money for our children’s education,” Brechtel said last month. “Then we encountered Dennis Levine, big-time New York mogul.”

Levine adamantly denies misleading Brechtel and Jochim and says they understood the risks of seeking money from unconventional lenders. In this case, the former trader led them to a white-collar crook and a Las Vegas financier with purported ties to organized crime, according to the Brechtel-Jochim lawsuit.

Now Brechtel and Jochim have retained San Francisco lawyer Melvin Belli to represent them in a $20-million lawsuit against Levine. They have also consulted well-known Orange County publicist Peter Maddox to help them with follow-up stories in newspapers around the country.

“I said to them there is no guarantee here,” Levine said. “This is such a frivolous action. It’s a high-profile publicity stunt.”

The Salesman

Tom Brechtel’s employment history has little to do with home-building.

From 1975 through 1987, Brechtel worked as a salesman at the Broadway, according to store records. He says he was never promoted because of “sexual discrimination on the job.”

“I’m involved in a discrimination suit against them on that very point,” he said in a 1988 sworn deposition. Broadway officials said last week that they are unaware of any suit involving Brechtel.

In the same deposition, Brechtel also said he did “immigration consulting” for some Greek citizens “who own a hamburger stand.”

Brechtel didn’t list his jobs as a clothing salesman or immigration consultant on the resume he gave Levine.

“He worked in a Broadway store? I’m stunned,” Levine said. “He sold himself as a lawyer with real estate, deal-making experience. . . . Tom did his own legal work” on the Dana Point property. “I said, ‘This is a very legally complicated transaction, Tom.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m a lawyer.’ ”

Todrzak and one of Brechtel’s former business partners have both testified under oath that they thought Brechtel was a lawyer.

But he isn’t.

Though Brechtel graduated from California Western School of Law in San Diego and once drove a Datsun 280ZX with the license plate LAW BIZ, he has failed three times to pass the California State Bar exam, according to the 1988 deposition.

“I’ve never told anyone I’m an attorney. I’m a graduate of law school,” Brechtel said. He added that since Todrzak and her ex-husband “bought suits from me” at the Broadway, the couple must have known he was not a lawyer.

Kevin McLean, one of Belli’s assistant attorneys, downplays Brechtel’s lack of experience, saying “every successful person started somewhere unless they inherited the money.”

Oddly enough, the same people who testified under oath that Brechtel told them he was a lawyer also said in depositions that they believed he was about to inherit a sizable trust fund from a wealthy uncle in New Orleans.

Brechtel denies there was a trust fund or that he told anyone there was one.

“I really can’t tell you how people think of these things,” he said.

Legal Problems

Roberta Todrzak had just hired a private investigator to track down Brechtel when he suddenly appeared on her television screen.

Todrzak, who once lived with Brechtel and his wife, Linda, says she gave Brechtel $90,000 to hold in safekeeping until she could reclaim it after settlement of a contested divorce. Brechtel failed to return most of that money, according to a lawsuit she filed late last year in Los Angeles Superior Court.

After the “60 Minutes” broadcast, Todrzak began worrying that some of the money that went down a hole in Panama might be hers.

“I thought maybe some of my money was in the $200,000 they lost,” she said. “That was my money to get after my divorce was final so me and my daughter could start a new life. I was conned.”

Brechtel, who said he was unaware of the lawsuit, called it “a totally unwarranted claim.” He said Todrzak “spent all that money and proof of that could be given.” He would not elaborate.

Now that Brechtel has gone on national TV, some of his former associates are redoubling efforts to retrieve money they say he took from them.

Joseph Oleson, Todrzak’s ex-husband, has reactivated a dormant lawsuit against Brechtel. In 1988, Oleson sued the Brechtels and Todrzak, asserting that, as his partners in an Upland tanning salon, they had misappropriated more than $75,000 in company funds. The defendants in that case have denied the charges.

Fred Janz Realty in Diamond Bar is suing Brechtel in Los Angeles Municipal Court for nearly $3,000 in back rent that it says he owes for office space used in 1988 and 1989.

Back then, the Brechtels were selling tanning equipment and passive exercise machines under the name Future Tech. He had planned on starting a car wash, according to a deposition, but that didn’t work out.

Janz’s leasing agent claims the Brechtels “moved out in the middle of the night.”

Brechtel says he is unaware of the Janz lawsuit and denies the allegations.

“We were on a month-to-month lease and we left in the day, not in the middle of the night,” Brechtel said.

One reason Brechtel is unaware of at least two lawsuits against him is because his opponents say process servers cannot find him. His Coto de Caza home is in foreclosure and is scheduled to be sold at public auction on Dec. 17, according to Steve Hawkins, a spokesman for Brechtel creditor Great Western Bank.

Brechtel won’t disclose where he is living now except to say it is in Orange County. “People can (make) allegations any time,” Brechtel said. “It doesn’t warrant that they’re true.”

Ritz Cove II

Brechtel-Jochim Group was incorporated last year when the two men began to search for financing for their Ritz Cove II development in Dana Point.

Although only one of the two partners had much home-building experience, and although the company’s Mission Viejo “executive office” is nothing more than a private post office box, a promotional brochure made grand assertions:

“Today homes throughout Southern California give dramatic testimony to the uncompromising standards of design and quality that are hallmarks of homes by the Brechtel-Jochim Group,” the brochure said, adding that the company “enjoys a degree of loyalty that is without precedent.”

Jochim, 37, and his wife, Ann, have built about half a dozen homes--ranging in price from $500,000 to $1 million--in the San Gabriel Valley, according to Ann Jochim. Jochim’s resume, provided to Levine, indicates that he has worked as a construction supervisor for a Walnut company and as a carpenter for a Buena Park firm.

Jochim did not return several phone calls seeking comment, but records indicate he got his contractor’s license last January, which allows him to build large real estate projects. He does not appear to have encountered legal difficulties in his work. A search of court records in Southern California turned up only one lawsuit involving Jochim--a personal injury suit involving a collision between his boat and a jet skier.

Brechtel, 33, questioned about his role in building homes with Jochim, said he was “a project manager” who is just “learning the trade. . . . I’m not a contractor.” He said that sometimes his role on a job is “hammering nails.”

Levine claims he sensed Brechtel was a bit green.

“Randy (Jochim) characterized himself as the builder of the two,” Levine said. “Tom (Brechtel) was the deal maker. . . . Randy always appeared to me as a straight shooter.”

Brechtel’s lack of experience didn’t stop him from trying to develop Ritz Cove II.

“I’ve seen plastic surgeons with no experience go out and build a home,” Brechtel said. “I don’t think it takes that much effort to go out there and schedule subcontractors.”

The Levine Connection

Brechtel and Jochim might never have met Levine had it not been for a neighbor in Coto de Caza. Hearing that Brechtel was in need of financing, the neighbor recommended Levine, his cousin, for the job.

Five years ago, after making $12 million in illegal profits, Levine was convicted of trading stocks using illegal, non-public information. The Wall Street executive assisted federal investigators in building a case against fellow traders Ivan F. Boesky and Michael Milken, then spent 17 months in prison.

Shortly after being set free, Levine established a financial consulting firm in New York called the Adasar Group. Brechtel and Jochim, lacking the experience required by most major lenders for a project the size of Ritz Cove II, decided Levine’s contacts in the financial world might help them raise the $32 million they needed.

The three men traveled to Panama City in April, 1990, and met with financiers at Morgan Gundy International and Pan-Global Securities Marketing Corp. at the Caesar Park Marriott Hotel.

“It (the hotel) is full of young businessmen like Randy and I going in on almost an hourly basis to see this lender,” recalled Brechtel. “It’s like a revolving door.”

Pan-Global agreed to provide Brechtel and Jochim $32 million in loans in exchange for an up-front fee of $49,500. But once the money was delivered, Pan-Global reneged on the deal, according to the Brechtel-Jochim suit.

Levine is no stranger to high finance in out-of-the-way places. He set up two accounts at a branch of a Swiss bank in the Bahamas during the 1980s, one under the code name “Mr. Diamond” and the other under the guise of a Panama-nian corporation he created. Those bank accounts were used to trade stocks on inside information he gleaned from friends and associates around Wall Street.

Once the Panamanian deals fell through for Brechtel and Jochim, Levine introduced them to shady financiers in Florida, according to the Brechtel-Jochim lawsuit. Those contacts didn’t pan out either, costing the men precious time and money.

The Brechtel-Jochim suit now claims the two men lost more than $400,000--twice the original estimate--and Levine took in more than $20,000 in finder’s fees.

Despite all of his problems, Brechtel has hung on to his dreams.

“Given the money today, we could do the project and be very successful at it,” he said.

And “60 Minutes,” for its part, doesn’t have any regrets.

Roy Brunett, a spokesman for the long-running news show, said the program’s producers are “comfortable with our reporting and stand behind the story as reported” but added that “we were not aware of the detailed allegations (The Times) presented to us.”

Though Brechtel had brought his accusations to “60 Minutes,” producer Ruth Streeter said the segment’s focus was always on Levine.

“Whatever Tom Brechtel’s background is does not dismiss the charges that were made against Dennis Levine,” she said. Brechtel “could have been an ax murderer but does that mean Dennis Levine still has the right to do what he did? That was the story.”

Where the Money Went

Thomas Brechtel and Randy Jochim claim they have lost more than $400,000 doing business with Dennis Levine. The losses they claim include:

Amount Purpose $10,000 finder fees paid to Levine $49,500 upfront fees to Pan-Global Securities Marketing Corp. $75,000 non-refundable deposit to Dana Point landowner $50,000 to Atlantic International Finance to find a joint venture partner; split with Levine $25,000 travel expenses $12,000 fees to find a legal custodian $5,750 filing charges

Source: Thomas Brechtel

Los Angeles Times