Wymer to Be Tried Sept. 15 on Charges of Stealing $113 Million

A federal judge Monday set Sept. 15 as the date Newport Beach investment adviser Steven D. Wymer will stand trial on charges he stole $113 million from clients.

Prosecutors allege that the money disappeared while Wymer was supposedly investing it in federal Treasury bonds for about 100 cities in Iowa and California, including Orange.

It isn’t clear where the money went, since prosecutors are still trying to trace it. It is likely, they say, that not all of the money will be recovered and cities like Orange, which lost $7 million, will have to absorb at least some of their losses. Orange gave the $7 million up for lost and wrote it off the city’s books earlier this month.

Wymer, 43, and his companies managed a total of $1.2 billion for his clients, most of which were cities. He piled up that much business by promising cities larger-than-usual returns on their investments.

Wymer says he is innocent of the 30 charges of securities fraud and money laundering the government has preferred against him; he lost the money in bad--but legitimate--investments, he maintains. He is free on $650,000 bond. As part of the bail agreement, Wymer wears an electronic monitoring device on his ankle.

At a meeting Monday in Los Angeles between U.S. District Judge Richard A. Gadbois Jr., prosecutors and Wymer’s lawyers, Gadbois urged both sides to get “this thing to move along.”

Wymer’s lawyers told the judge they would need several months to sort through 100 boxes of documents FBI agents seized from Wymer’s companies, Institutional Treasury Management Inc. and Denman & Co.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, told the judge that the trial could take up to six weeks and that the government may call as many as 40 witnesses, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Jean Kawahara.

Prosecutors are calling this one of the biggest cases of fraud they have seen. While 10 California cities are out about $45 million, the case has caused the most fallout in Iowa, where it is a major scandal. More than $65 million is missing in Iowa, and the president of the state Senate resigned recently after admitting he had been on the staff of one of Wymer’s companies.

Meanwhile, in a minor procedural matter, the receiver for Wymer’s companies Monday got permission to put them into bankruptcy, and a lawyer for Wymer said the receiver would probably file soon.