Ex-Lincoln Executive Pleads Guilty to Bank Fraud : Crime: Bruce Dickson, former president of the S&L;, turns on Charles H. Keating Jr. and agrees to testify against him.
The highest-ranking executive to turn against Charles H. Keating Jr. pleaded guilty in federal court Monday to bank fraud in the 1989 collapse of Lincoln Savings & Loan and agreed to testify against his former boss.
Bruce F. Dickson, 38, a former president of Irvine-based Lincoln Savings & Loan and a senior vice president and director of its parent company, entered his plea before U.S. District Judge Manuel Real in Los Angeles. The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Dickson, of Scottsdale, Ariz., is the most important of five associates so far to reach a plea bargain with federal prosecutors. He worked with Robert M. Wurzelbacher, a son-in-law of Keating who headed real estate activities, and was socially close to Wurzelbacher.
“Today’s guilty plea represents yet another significant step forward in the wide-ranging federal criminal investigation of Lincoln’s failure,” U.S. Atty. Lourdes Baird noted.
Dickson’s attorney, Michael J. Lightfoot, declined comment.
Comprehensive federal indictments are expected to be returned soon, perhaps this week, against Keating and other associates in connection with the nation’s biggest thrift failure. Lincoln’s collapse is expected to cost taxpayers $2.6 billion.
Keating, former chairman of Lincoln’s parent company, American Continental Corp. in Phoenix, was convicted last week in Los Angeles County Superior Court on 17 state counts of duping small investors into buying risky American Continental bonds at Lincoln branches.
Assistant U.S. Atty. David A. Sklansky said that Dickson, by his plea, admitted that he participated in a scheme to defraud Lincoln. Under the scheme, the thrift’s funds were funneled to third parties as loans and investments but were used to buy land or securities from Lincoln subsidiaries in straw purchases. Dickson aided the scheme, Sklansky by creating phony documents to conceal the true purpose of the loans and investments.
Federal thrift regulators as well as American Continental bondholders contend in civil lawsuits that Keating used the phony purchases to provide a false picture of Lincoln’s financial health and to allow Keating to siphon funds from the S&L.;
Others who have pleaded guilty to various federal charges are Robin S. Symes, a former Lincoln chairman; Ray C. Fidel, a former Lincoln president; Mark S. Sauter, a former American Continental staff attorney, and Ernest C. Garcia II, a Tucson developer and Lincoln borrower.
