$90.7-Million Prudential Pact With Investors Wins Judge’s Approval : Courts: The settlement, covering 114,000 of those who sued the firm, ends a large part of the securities fraud scandal.

A federal judge called an end to one big part of Prudential Securities Inc.’s limited partnership scandal Friday, approving a $90.7-million class-action settlement for a large group of investors, though he said he would have wanted them to get more.

U.S. District Judge Marcel Livaudais Jr. approved Prudential’s settlement with the roughly 114,000 investors in the Energy Income Funds oil and gas limited partnerships who remained in the suit.

About 130,000 mainly elderly investors put $1.44 billion into the partnerships from 1983 to 1990, with the vast majority suffering heavy losses.

After nearly three days of hearings, Livaudais surprised lawyers by approving the settlement from the bench. Stuart C. Goldberg, an Austin, Tex., lawyer who was the last main foe of the settlement, had argued that investors deserved far more--about $780 million--because of evidence of “deliberate, premeditated, systemic securities fraud” by the nation’s fourth-largest brokerage firm.

But Livaudais noted that under federal law, he had the authority only to approve or disapprove the settlement, not to dictate changes.

He pointed out that the overall settlement package is far more generous than one he derailed a year ago--and that many investors are anxious to receive their money.

And while the judge said he would have liked Prudential to pay more, he added that he had to take into account the possibility that investors might lose if the case went to trial.

Prudential lawyer Scott Muller had made clear that if Livaudais rejected the settlement, Prudential was prepared to wage an all-out legal battle to deny all the investors’ claims.

“We would have no choice but to fight it, and fight it with every resource that we have available,” Muller said in court.

Goldberg said he had not yet decided whether to appeal the judge’s decision.

Prudential says the settlement means investors will end up with, on average, about 88 cents for every dollar they invested, including proceeds from last year’s sale of the partnerships to Parker & Parsley Petroleum.

But some state regulators have said that many individual investors will receive much less. And Goldberg noted that the $90.7 million--about a third of which will go to attorneys’ fees and expenses--is far less than the commissions and fees Prudential charged the investors, an estimated $388 million.

“We are very pleased to have achieved another important step in putting the partnership problems of the ‘80s behind us,” Prudential Securities President and Chief Executive Hardwick Simmons said in a written statement.

Prudential’s legal problems are not over, however.

Kenneth Vianale, a New York-based federal prosecutor who is conducting a criminal investigation of Prudential Securities and its parent, was present throughout the hearings as a spectator. He was accompanied by postal inspectors who are helping in the inquiry. Thousands of Prudential limited partnership investors are also pursuing arbitration claims against the firm.

In testimony Friday on behalf of aggrieved investors, William F. Jordan, a Florida State University accounting professor, said Prudential had issued false prospectuses, lied about how much of investors’ money actually went to buy properties and returned investors’ money to them disguised as profits.

Prudential witnesses disputed the allegations.