Ousted Anaheim Banker to Sue Regulators : Lawsuit: Gerald J. Garner and 4 ex-directors contend federal officials wrongfully seized a healthy bank.

Ousted banker Gerald J. Garner is asking former directors and shareholders of failed American Commerce National Bank to join him in suing federal regulators for the alleged wrongful takeover of their institution.

Garner, who was the Anaheim bank’s chairman, sent a seven-page letter Aug. 14 to some of the bank’s 300 shareholders asking them to add their names to the lawsuit and to help pay the litigation costs. The proposed lawsuit, which has not been filed yet, is expected to seek damages from the regulators for its action April 30 in seizing what some bank officials said was an apparently healthy bank.

Garner could not be reached Wednesday for comment.

One former director, Santa Ana lawyer Duffern H. Helsing, said he would join such a suit because he thinks the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency improperly seized the bank and wiped out what shareholders say is more than $10 million in equity owed to them.

At least three other former directors--Dr. Galal Gough, Dr. Stanley Kaller and Garner’s wife, Joan--also have said they’ll join the legal action, which will be handled by Frank P. Barbaro, a Santa Ana lawyer who also was a shareholder.

But former directors Eugene Alterman and Judy Mandel said they and former director Norman Charney don’t expect to participate.

“Gerry has his course of action, and I’m not saying it’s wrong,” Alterman, a Fountain Valley jeweler, said of Garner. “It’s just that my avenue is different.”

Barbaro said that the lawsuit, which has not been drafted yet, will focus on an allegation that regulators violated the U.S. Constitution by wrongly taking property without due process.

“If they were upset with Garner, they could have removed him; they could have removed the board,” Barbaro said. “They had a dozen alternatives. Why destroy about 300 shareholders when it’s totally unnecessary?”

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates nationally chartered banks, seized the apparently healthy Anaheim bank on April 30, accusing Garner and other directors of lying, concealing records and wasting the bank’s assets.

The comptroller’s office said at the time that it thought the bank’s condition was “much worse” than it appeared. The agency removed the directors and top officers, and it is now seeking to ban them from the industry for their alleged “weak, abusive and self-serving” activities.

Sworn affidavits filed with the comptroller’s office by former insiders allege that Garner was out of control as he ran roughshod over banking laws as well as employees. Dr. Donald Daniel, a director ousted by Garner in 1987, alleged that Garner traded cash for the director’s checks to various Garner enterprises in an apparent money-laundering effort.

The comptroller’s office has been continuing its investigation as other regulators liquidate the bank.