Keating Is Called a Near-Saint by Letter Writers : * S&Ls;: Supporters, detractors of the ex-Lincoln Savings boss make impassioned pleas to the judge for justice.

It began as Charles H. Keating Jr.’s private plea for testimonials to counter “vicious and vindictive” bureaucrats and “sinister” politicians he accuses of plotting to humble him.

But the letter from the former Lincoln Savings boss leaked out this month. And as Keating awaits sentencing April 10 for swindling investors, a battle has broken out in letters to the judge who will hand him probation, 10 years in prison, or something in-between.

“The character assassination of Mr. Keating and his family is unfair and unfortunate,” wrote supporter Raymond G. Tiedje of Phoenix, contending inept regulators and Congress made Keating a “fall guy” for the national savings and loan crisis.

Others writing to Lance A. Ito, the judge who presided over Keating’s trial in state court here, depicted a monster who fed on the helpless and elderly.

“Judge: Kindly do your job. Put this man in jail, where he belongs, and throw away the key,” wrote V.L. Lemley of Scottsdale, Ariz.

“He is an out-and-out crook, has no conscience, and cares nothing about the people’s lives he has ruined,” wrote Ann Tucker of Phoenix, contending that Keating “has millions tucked away.”

“Hell is waiting for him,” she concluded.

By last Friday, Ito had received 20 letters, 12 from Keating supporters, eight from detractors.

Friends and family of the Arizona developer and financier portrayed a devoted father, devout Roman Catholic, an honorable lawyer and tycoon of rare drive and vision, an anti-pornography crusader unswayed by death threats, a philanthropist, a near-saint ensnared by Gestapo-like regulators.

“I do not believe I know an American family that is more closely knit, more loving, than the Charlie Keating family,” wrote former Texas Gov. John B. Connally.

Connally, a friend of 15 years, credited Keating with selflessly helping straighten out the “financial mess” of Connally’s 1979-80 presidential run.

“He is one of Mother Teresa’s great benefactors who comes to visit him every time she is in the states. Charlie Keating is a man who loves his fellow man, has a great sense of humor, has unbelievable capacity to inspire and lead people and to make friends,” Connally told Ito.

“It’s hard sometimes to pray for our government and country when we don’t even get to say goodby to our papa,” wrote Keating’s 7-year-old granddaughter Christina Marie Boland, using a pet name for him. “Please don’t destroy our family.”

The pro-Keating letters present a case for the former American Continental Corp. chairman that jurors never heard at his trial. His lawyer, Stephen C. Neal, put on no defense, saying prosecutors presented “not a shred of evidence” linking Keating to fraud.

The jury convicted Keating on Dec. 4 of 17 counts of duping small investors, many of them elderly Lincoln depositors, into thinking that risky junk bonds from his American Continental were safe.

About $250 million in bonds became worthless when his companies collapsed in April, 1989. Bailing out Lincoln cost taxpayers a record $2.6 billion, regulators say.

Keating and his allies maintain that figure is inflated, the latest lie from the bureaucrats he once delighted in ridiculing.

“Mr. Neal did a fine job with one exception,” wrote Jess A. Rodrigues, the former owner of Saratoga Savings & Loan, another seized thrift.

“He made a major mistake by not putting on a case against the regulators. It was the chance of a lifetime for the public along with the uninformed jury to understand the real cause of this problem and to recognize the incompetence, arrogance and Gestapo-like tactics of the regulators.”

Actually, Neal will have plenty of chances to present that case. Keating faces myriad civil and criminal charges, including a second trial in August on federal charges of fraud and racketeering carrying a prison term of up to 510 years.

To his family, that prospect seems a nightmare. His daughter, Kathy Hubbard, writing Ito, described “an authority figure who is kind but driven; organized but flexible. Proud, loving, caring . . . interested, curious and searching.”

Hubbard said that as a child in 1957 she served soft drinks to Keating’s Citizens for Decent Literature, a pornography-fighting group later renamed Citizens for Decency Through Law.