Bankers Will Face Additional Charges

Olen B. Phillips and Phillip L. Chase, whose banking fraud trial ended in a mistrial, were charged Wednesday with additional counts of filing false loan applications.

The indictment by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles accuses the two men of understating their debts when applying for loans from banks in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.

In addition to those allegations, Phillips, 53, and Chase, 51, are scheduled to be retried March 1 on charges of defrauding state regulators by loaning money back to themselves in an attempt to keep their failing Thousand Oaks bank afloat.

In December, jurors deadlocked over eight counts in the government fraud case and acquitted Chase on one count of filing false documents.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Brent Whittlesey said the additional charges came as a result of an investigation conducted by FBI agents since the mistrial.

According to the indictment filed in U.S. District Court, Chase allegedly filed false financial statements in seeking loans from a Bank of A. Levy branch in Ventura County and from Community Bank in Pasadena in 1988 and 1989.

In those applications, Chase understated his debts by $1.2 million to $4.9 million, according to a source familiar with the case.

Phillips of Oak View allegedly filed false statements in applying for loans from County Savings Bank and Charter Pacific Bank, both in Ventura County, and to Community Bank in Pasadena, the indictment said.

He understated his liabilities by $750,000 to $1.4 million, the source said.

United Community Bank of Thousand Oaks, of which Chase was the chairman and Phillips a board member, was shut down for lack of funds in 1989, and has since cost taxpayers $9.5 million to cover federally insured accounts, prosecutors said.

Richard Marmaro, Chase’s attorney, called the new indictment “a vindictive move by the prosecutor who was disappointed that a majority of the jury on the first trial believed my client to be innocent.”