Ex-CenTrust Kingpin Faces 100 Charges : Thrifts: The government expands a racketeering indictment against David Paul, whose Miami-based S&L;’s failure cost $1.7 billion.

A new 100-count racketeering indictment against former Miami savings and loan executive David Paul was filed Wednesday by the Justice Department, expanding charges returned against him by a federal grand jury last February.

Paul, the former chairman of CenTrust, was named in the superseding indictment along with William Berry, former head of the investment division of the failed thrift.

The new 134-page indictment accuses Paul and Berry of converting CenTrust into a racketeering operation. The charges, returned in Miami, were made available at Justice Department headquarters here.

Paul’s attorney, public defender Jim Gailey of Miami, said he had not seen the latest indictment “but they essentially have taken the earlier 22 counts and multiplied them by four, adding some tax charges not included in the first one. This is just another example of the government’s overreaching and heavy-handedness,” Gailey said.

There was no immediate statement from Berry.

In major criminal cases such as the S&L; scandal, it is not uncommon for prosecutors to replace initial charges before trial with a fuller, or superseding, indictment.

The new indictment accuses Paul of using $3 million of CenTrust money to cover “personal expenses in connection with the construction, furnishing and maintenance of his personal residences on La Gorce Island, Miami Beach and in New Milford, Conn.,” as well as expenses connected with his 95-foot yacht.

The fresh charges, like the earlier ones, also involve Paul’s alleged ties to Ghaith Pharaon, a reputed front man for the discredited Bank of Credit & Commerce International. Pharaon, who was CenTrust’s second-largest shareholder, was named a co-defendant in both indictments. The filings allege that the two perpetrated the bogus sale of $25 million in CenTrust bonds to BCCI in an effort to make CenTrust appear healthier than it was.

As the head of Florida’s onetime largest thrift, Paul became a symbol of excess in the nation’s savings and loan crisis after CenTrust was seized two years ago at a loss of $1.7 billion.

In recent weeks he declared himself indigent, saying the government had frozen his assets. He replaced his defense attorney, Aubry Harwell of Nashville, with public defender Gailey.

U.S. Magistrate Barry Garber of Miami, in a ruling designed to minimize costs to the taxpayer, ordered Paul to turn over property he owns in Orono, Me., to help defray his legal expenses.

Paul went to jail for several weeks on contempt charges earlier this year after refusing to relinquish documents subpoenaed by the grand jury. However, he recently purged himself of contempt by furnishing all the records and has been freed on bail.

Meanwhile, in a controversial legal move, Paul invoked his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination to prevent the government from asking him questions about his finances. Prosecutors said they want to know about $20 million in dividends and loans Paul is believed to have received from CenTrust during the 1980s, and about a bank account in the name of Paul’s wife, Sandra.

The federal Office of Thrift Supervision, which regulates the S&L; industry, has filed civil charges seeking $3.2 million in penalties from Paul for allegedly trying to evade an asset freeze after the seizure in February, 1990.