Troubled Past of Defendant in FBI Sting Emerges : Courts: Alan J. Weston, one of three charged with money laundering, was a personable academic who lost jobs after sparking controversies.

The man first identified as a doctor when he was arrested last month in a money-laundering scheme is actually a self-employed financial consultant who left academic posts in three states after a series of controversies.

The troubled resume of Alan J. Weston, 52, charts the path of a personable professor who became a college dean and president at two campuses in Southern California, only to be fired from both jobs.

Former colleagues remember him as an academic who hatched moneymaking schemes as readily as scholarly articles. The schemes ranged from a theme park in Memphis to an energy-saving light bulb device to the sale of two Southern California campuses, according to college officials.

Weston and two alleged associates, Rabbi Abraham Low and Sharlesetta Brown, a Lomita woman, pleaded not guilty Monday to 20 charges of bank fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and possession of a forged security.

In indictments filed last week, the government alleged that Weston introduced an undercover FBI agent to Rabbi Low, who promised to launder as much as $5 million a week in drug-tainted cash. Weston also was named as an intermediary in the theft and forgery of cashier’s checks. Prosecutors have not said how the three met.

After the brief hearing Monday, the three were led off in chains. Weston blew kisses to a friend and said, “I love you. I love you.”

Weston’s attorney declined to comment on the case or his client’s career.

The first scheme surfaced in 1975, when Weston resigned from Memphis State University after failing to gain tenure.

A university spokesman said officials there lost faith in Weston after he spent 3 1/2 weeks in Switzerland when he should have been teaching. A Memphis newspaper reported that the purpose of the trip was to seek Middle East financing for a proposed $100-million theme park and hotel.

An audiologist and speech pathologist with a doctorate from the University of Kansas, he was then hired at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he became dean of the School of Allied Health Professions.

“He was a strong type, sort of dominating. He was very, very sure of himself,” said Fred Pairent, the current dean.

Pairent credits Weston with winning a federal grant of $100,000 or more a year to train minority students, funding that has been renewed for the last 11 years.

But Weston came under fire in 1979. A campus audit echoed a story in the Milwaukee Journal revealing that he and two other professors used university phones and offices to market an energy-saving button for light bulbs. Officials repeatedly tried--and failed--to oust Weston from the dean’s post.

Four times, Weston went to court and saved his job. Eventually cleared by a vote of the Board of Regents, he was demoted two years later. A university vice chancellor complained that Weston had improperly set up a summer teaching job for himself and tried to recruit students for nonexistent degree programs.

In 1986, Weston and his wife filed for bankruptcy, citing debts of almost $620,000 to 38 creditors, according to reports in Milwaukee newspapers.

Weston hit the headlines again in 1987 while still at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee as a tenured professor, when it was reported that an ex-mobster wanted to invest in a health system Weston was developing.

He was quoted in a Milwaukee paper as saying that he was “absolutely floored” by the news.

Soon after, the professor quit his post and came to Los Angeles, where he was named academic dean at Cleveland Chiropractic College in January, 1988, despite a lack of chiropractic training.

The burly Weston, 6-foot-1 and 194 pounds, was a charismatic man, a faculty member recalls: “You walked away wanting to hug him.”

But a hug is the last thing Weston can expect from officials at the 480-student Vermont Avenue campus, where he stayed just under a year.

“He did not comply with college policies and procedure and that resulted in our lack of trust and confidence in Weston,” said a senior administrator, who did not want to be identified. “He was asked to resign and he did.”

During Weston’s reign, there was talk of moving the 85-year-old chiropractic college to a new site and acquiring other professional schools. The idea was to expand into physical therapy, psychology and related fields. But the administration decided against it, and Weston was ousted.

“He was a guy with big ideas,” another faculty member said. “He was always trying to get the school into doing a lot of sophisticated business doings. It was grandiose and there wasn’t a lot of detail about how it was to be done.”

Weston moved on in 1989 to become president of the 21-year-old Pasadena College of Chiropractic, which had been in bankruptcy.

Weston changed the name of the school to the Southern California College of Chiropractic, outlined a new program of post-graduate courses and raided Cleveland Chiropractic for teachers and students. The school had moved from Pasadena to Pico Rivera in 1986.

Enrollment went from 100 to 160. Members of a newly appointed Board of Directors were hopeful.

But an anonymous tipster alerted Gene Schumann, a Tulsa, Okla., chiropractor who was then chairman of the Board of Directors, that the school had bought two Ford Thunderbirds and a Mustang. Schumann’s name was on the contract but this was the first he had heard of the transaction, Schumann said in an interview.

An investigation turned up a paper trail of other unauthorized expenditures, including $4,800 for airline tickets to fly Weston, his wife and a friend to Canada for a vacation, Schumann said.

In all, the investigation uncovered more than $100,000 in unauthorized expenditures by college officials, Schumann said.

By the middle of 1989, Southern California Chiropractic was back in bankruptcy. No criminal charges were filed.

The school fired Weston and called sheriff’s deputies to remove Weston and two associates from the campus, Schumann said, because of questions over how he had handled the school’s finances.

“The damage that was done took its toll, but the school was able to recover,” one campus official said. The school now has 128 students.

After leaving Southern California Chiropractic, Weston became a financial consultant, according to prosecutors.

The publicity surrounding the current case has complicated the life of Alan E. Weston, a Westside financial adviser who ran unsuccessfully for the Santa Monica City Council this year. Although his middle initial is different, he said people have confused him with the man arrested.

At one point the address of Alan J. Weston on file with the county registrar-recorder was 590 N. Vermont Ave., Cleveland College’s Los Angeles campus.

But in 1989 he changed his address to 134 S. Alta Vista Blvd. in the Fairfax district, voting records show.

According to property records, the house on Alta Vista was owned by Congregation Yechiel Yehuda. Yechiel Yehuda is the name of the post-graduate Talmudical academy set up by Rabbi Low, head of a prosperous congregation of ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Although a U.S. magistrate judge originally denied bail for all three defendants, Low’s attorneys went to court Wednesday and persuaded U.S. Judge Robert Takasugi to set bail for him at $500,000.