President of Defunct Investment Firm Jailed After Missing Payment : Courts: Morris English Jr. was arrested after violating probation by failing to pay a former investor $55,000.
Nearly two years after federal and state officials launched criminal investigations of his defunct Torrance investment firm, Morris English Jr. this week spent his first night in jail.
Arrested by Torrance Police on a probation violation Tuesday, English failed to post $150,000 bail and was transferred to Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles, where officials said he remained Wednesday. He may stay in custody until a probation hearing in South Bay Municipal Court on Aug. 3 if he cannot post bond.
English, 51, is president of the Wellington Group, a now-bankrupt real estate investment firm that is being investigated by the state Department of Corporations, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI for alleged securities fraud. Investigators say the company may owe up to $50 million to as many as 1,500 investors statewide.
Although no state or federal charges have been filed, last year Torrance City Prosecutor Jesse Rodriguez, acting on behalf of two Torrance victims, charged English with one count of grand theft and seven misdemeanor counts of intentionally writing bad checks.
English has been on probation since April 17, 1991, when he pleaded no contest to one of the misdemeanor counts and promised to repay $80,000 to one of his former investors. South Bay Municipal Judge Josh Fredricks, who dismissed the remaining counts as part of a plea agreement, said he would sentence English to one year in jail if he failed to repay the investor.
English made an initial $25,000 payment last year and was given until last Friday to pay the remaining $55,000, Rodriguez said. English failed to make any further payments.
Explaining that his client has no money, defense attorney Stanley Bowman urged Judge Thomas P. Allen Jr. on Tuesday to release English on his own recognizance pending the August hearing.
But Rodriguez argued that English’s afternoon stay in the Torrance jail might prompt him to flee if released.
“Until now, Mr. English has never tasted . . . what jail is like,” Rodriguez said. “I have a reasonable suspicion, your honor, that Mr. English will not come back to this court . . . now that he sees the doors of the jailhouse are about to open and close on him.”
In addition to the misdemeanor case in Torrance, the federal bankruptcy court has slapped English with a $1,000-a-day contempt fine for failing to turn over Wellington records to investigators and a $90,000 punitive fine for hiding thousands of documents in a storage facility. The contempt fine, which continues to accrue, exceeds $300,000, officials said.
