Big Money, Bad Checks and a Trader Who Fell From Grace : Courts: Mark Weinberg is accused of bilking clients of $1 million. His case went to the jury last week.

The easy-money 1980s were kind to Mark R. Weinberg, a commodities trading Wunderkind who had dropped out of Beverly Hills High when told he couldn’t wear his beeper to keep in touch with clients.

Glib and witty yet disarmingly self-effacing, Weinberg had a circle of friends and clients that was widening dramatically; investors handed him up to $500,000 at a pop to trade in futures without bothering about a receipt.

His stature grew as he doled out hefty sums to the campaigns of Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston. Though Weinberg was just 30, his Beverly Hills home was the scene of star-studded receptions in the mid-1980s for Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale, U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey and other political luminaries. Former Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr. and others used Weinberg’s private jet as a chauffeur service.

Also, Weinberg, who enjoyed hanging out with FBI agents, got to play what he terms “junior G-man” by infiltrating the New York mob for his bureau pals. For several months in 1984, he wore a wire for the FBI as he gathered evidence on Matthew (Matty the Horse) Ianello, Anthony (Fat Tony) Salerno and other Genovese crime family members he lured into investing with him.

Finally, he sought to wrap all his good fortune into one package.

In 1988, Weinberg all but abandoned trading in sow bellies and foreign currency to produce a series of television shows titled “Crime Time,” financed in part by his wealthy friends.

On the show’s 40 completed episodes, prominent mobsters and former FBI agents, several of whom went to work for Weinberg, lightheartedly relive the war on organized crime. Top New York mob leader John Gotti agreed to make an appearance on a segment titled “Cooking with La Cosa Nostra,” Weinberg said, but scheduling problems prevented that. Actress Theresa Saldana and comedian Shecky Green were guests.

What a difference a decade makes.

Weinberg, 37, is now broke, suffering from heart problems, in jail unable to post $850,000 bail and facing up to 20 years in prison.

His former political friends are scurrying to avoid the fallout from his legal travails, while other onetime friends are in court accusing Weinberg of diverting their investment funds to his own use.

A jury in Van Nuys Superior Court began deliberations last week in the first of two criminal cases against him to reach trial.

Yet, Weinberg, who is representing himself in court, remains unbowed. He presented his case for innocence against charges of grand theft and bad check writing with the same chutzpah and wit that friends seem to admire so much.

Through five weeks of often complex testimony, Weinberg kept judge, jurors, prosecutor and courtroom observers chuckling, often securing laughs at his own expense.

When Deputy Atty. Gen. Tricia Ann Bigelow called a commodities industry expert to the stand to explain arcane industry rules, Weinberg declared: “Objection--boring.”

The introduction of redundant evidence demonstrating his financial recklessness also triggered objections from the defendant, who claimed the prosecution had already proved “beyond a reasonable doubt that I’m the world’s biggest schmuck.”

At one point last week, after court personnel assembled to read back testimony at the jury’s request, Weinberg, brought out from the prisoner lockup, broke up a tense courtroom by telling Judge John S. Fisher in mock seriousness, “I got here as soon as I could.”

A defense attorney reported that in the courthouse holding cell, bailiffs, who usually treat prisoners as if they had communicable diseases, kill time “talking and talking with Mark. They sure like the guy.”

Weinberg, charged with four counts of grand theft and eight of writing bad checks in the case now being deliberated by jurors, was accused in testimony of using that same geniality to bilk three wealthy clients out of nearly $1 million in 1988 and 1989.

The three testified that he had assured them he would keep their money for a few days to complete already-secured foreign currency trades, then return it with profits of up to 25%.

There is no such thing as a trade in which a profit is secured in advance, prosecution expert witnesses said.

Weinberg, instead, used the money to produce his television shows, none of which have been sold for broadcast, and also gambled away $500,000 in Las Vegas, witnesses said.

John Paul Jones De Joria, president of John Paul Mitchell Systems, a Santa Clarita-based hair products firm, said Weinberg cheated him out of $450,000.

Susan Aubrey, daughter of former CBS President James Aubrey, testified that Weinberg bilked her out of $100,000 that her father gave him on her behalf.

And Palmdale developer Dale Tittlemier similarly said he lost $300,000 that he gave to Weinberg to invest in a quick secured-profit deal.

When investors demanded their money, Weinberg gave them checks that bounced, then kept them at bay by saying that others had given him bad checks and that the matter would soon be cleared up, according to trial testimony.

In prosecutor Bigelow’s view, the $725,000 in bad checks from a New York firm that Weinberg blames for his check-writing woes were nothing more than a clever ruse. He solicited those rubber checks from a firm that was negotiating to invest in his TV shows, she said, then deposited them into his account so he could not be accused of criminal intent when he bounced his own checks.

Weinberg’s contention in court that loan repayment and payroll checks that he bounced were a form of IOU and were not supposed to have been cashed by the recipients was “just too convenient,” the prosecutor said. “He knew that under California law, an agreement to hold a check is a defense” against bad check writing.

Weinberg’s assertion that he never promised clients a secured-profit investment is countered by the testimony of numerous witnesses--both friends and foes of Weinberg--Bigelow said, adding, “Do you believe him or do you believe everybody else?”

Bigelow told jurors that he had employed his charm and amiability to establish a long record of “lying, cheating and swindling” and “probably feels he can con you too.”

Weinberg, bemused at the guile attributed to him by Bigelow, told jurors that “no one is that clever.”

He contends that the three investment victims are altering key parts of their testimony to advance pending civil suits against him.

Tittlemier and Susan Aubrey gave him money through intermediaries, Weinberg said, so they must have misunderstood or been misled about his intentions. He noted that James Aubrey continues to be a business partner of his in entertainment ventures and has not complained that his daughter, for whom he served as intermediary, was swindled.

He was seeking short-term loans, not investments, Weinberg said, just as when he borrowed money from “Shylocks”--mysterious characters with nicknames like Joe Cadillac who hung around his office and had cash to lend, according to testimony.

He directly challenged all key parts of De Joria’s testimony. The hair products magnate was lying when he claimed to be making an investment and not a loan, Weinberg said.

He also said De Joria was lying when he said that he held a $300,000 pay-back check from Weinberg for 22 days in 1989 because he was busy and forgot to deposit it, not because he had agreed to hold the check until Weinberg signaled that he was able to cover it.

The defendant introduced as evidence five good checks totaling $510,000 he had written to De Joria in 1987 and 1988, each of them cashed within two days.

“Now, you the jury have to decide who is telling the truth here,” said Weinberg, who claimed throughout the trial that he has a long record of truth-telling.

“I don’t deny any of these transactions,” he told jurors. “But I definitely deny any criminal intent.”

He admitted gambling away half a million dollars at Las Vegas casinos, but asserted that was no crime.

He noted that he did not leave town when his checks bounced and creditors demanded repayment, but instead continued putting his own money into his television productions, ultimately losing his $1.1-million house to foreclosure.

Weinberg also argued that it was misleading to point to a pattern of conduct from the transactions at issue, claiming they were only a small part of his financial activities from 1988 and 1990, when an average of about $500,000 passed through his bank account each month.

To further buttress his claim for personal veracity, Weinberg called Bradley and Reiner to the stand to tell jurors about their relationships with him, thereby rebutting prosecution witnesses’ claim that he falsely boasted of high-placed friends to lure investors into high-risk ventures.

Bradley, who got $84,000 in campaign funds from Weinberg in the mid-1980s, said he was fond of Weinberg and introduced him to Mondale. The mayor also said that he invested in high-risk futures through Weinberg for five years, ending their relationship in 1987 after he lost money.

Reiner, who faces a reelection primary in three months and who unsuccessfully sought to avoid testifying, said that he and Weinberg and their wives socialized as a group and went to the 1984 Olympics together. The district attorney said he broke off contact in 1985 on learning that Weinberg was the subject of a criminal investigation.

Reiner refused to give reporters details on the probe, which did not result in charges filed.

(The state prosecutor’s office took over the case after Fisher ruled that Reiner’s staff had a conflict of interest because the defendant had given Reiner’s campaign $206,000 in 1984, plus a $50,000 loan that was not repaid until last fall, after Weinberg was charged and had complained in court about not being repaid.)

Cranston, who received $54,000 in campaign funds from Weinberg, was on call throughout much of the trial, court officials said, but was never called.

Present and former FBI agents took the stand to verify Weinberg’s stories of mob-infiltration efforts, which the bureau had refused to confirm or deny for seven years despite several press reports based on unidentified sources. The agents said Weinberg’s work led to no arrests, although most of the targeted mobsters are in jail on other convictions.

Special Agent Robert M. Hamer, who said he remains a friend of Weinberg although he disclaimed knowledge of the particulars of the pending case, also said that agents in 1985 notified Weinberg that phone taps indicated that Genovese family members were planning to kill him for his undercover work.

Weinberg said he brought the covert work out in court to prove he had not been falsely boasting about his law enforcement ties and because if the mob was going to murder him “they would have whacked me by now.”

And in a rare serious mood, he added: “It’s either take my best shot or 10 years” in prison, the maximum sentence he faces in the first case.

A preliminary hearing in the second case, in which he faces 12 more counts of grant theft and bad check writing, is scheduled for Monday in Van Nuys Municipal Court.