Iowa Towns Trust, Biggest Victim in Wymer Scam, Will Recover $7 Million : Lawsuit: Insurance pool that includes Stanton will give up part of $100 million embezzled by Newport Beach investor.

As a small army of lawyers and accountants traces $100 million embezzled from towns in California and Iowa by investment adviser Steven D. Wymer, the biggest victim said Wednesday that it will soon get some of its money back.

The Iowa Trust, which invests money for 88 Iowa towns, said it is recovering $7 million that had been in the account of an insurance program for California towns.

Wymer, a 44-year-old resident of Newport Beach, admitted when he pleaded guilty in September that he had shifted funds among his customers to cover losses on bad investments. He recruited dozens of towns and cities as customers by promising to invest their money for big profits.

The Iowa Trust is by far the biggest loser: It is out $75 million. The trust is party to a lawsuit to decide who owns $27.5 million in accounts set up by Wymer at the brokerage Shearson Lehman Bros.

One of those accounts held $8 million in the name of Coachella Valley Joint Powers Insurance Authority, a pool by which 23 towns insure themselves. Most of them are in the Southern California desert, but the authority also includes the Orange County city of Stanton.

It was the authority that settled part of the case out of court recently by agreeing to turn over the $7 million to Iowa Trust, keeping only the remaining $1 million in the account for itself.

“This will be the first money that’s actually come back to the state,” said Bill Roach, a spokesman for the Iowa attorney general, who is representing the trust.

The trust is still trying to negotiate a settlement with the desert towns of Palm Desert, Indio and La Quinta over the remaining $19.5 million in the Shearson Lehman accounts.

Many of Wymer’s victims are taking each other to court in a vast tangle of lawsuits over who owns the $75 million that has so far been found out of $174 million his victims lost.

The Coachella Valley insurance authority, for instance, is itself out $7 million after agreeing to give most of the money in the Shearson Lehman account to Iowa. The authority will soon launch some of its own lawsuits to recover the $7 million, said its lawyer, Austin Gibbons of Palm Desert. He would not say whom the authority is likely to sue.

But the insurance authority didn’t throw in its hand in the Shearson lawsuit until after 40 depositions were taken by lawyers and “a review of literally tens of thousands of documents,” Gibbons said.

Wymer, meanwhile, is out on bail awaiting sentencing in federal court in Los Angeles Jan. 15. He has been ordered to pay more than $208 million in restitution.

Wymer also faces a prison sentence of more than 100 years. Prosecutors say he is more likely to be sentenced to between 20 and 25 years.