Late Claims Put Pressure on Prudential : Securities: $660-million settlement fund is likely to come up short. Firm faces other major legal battles.

With today the deadline for most investors to file claims against a Prudential Securities settlement fund, the brokerage had been hoping to put its massive limited partnership scandal behind it.

But a surge of last-minute claims makes it virtually certain that Prudential will have to lay out substantially more than the $660 million it has already paid into the settlement fund set up under an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, agency officials said Monday.

And the firm still faces other major legal hurdles, including a large class-action civil racketeering suit working its way through federal court in New York, a major state case in Texas and hundreds of individual claims.

“There are still a lot of things Prudential has to address,” said Clint Krislov, a lawyer representing investors in the class-action suit.

The SEC settlement pool was set up after Prudential agreed in October, 1993, to resolve civil charges of securities fraud stemming from its sale of more than $8 billion in limited partnership units, mainly to retirees and other small investors. Although the investments were heavily promoted as safe, most investors suffered major losses.

Last year, under an agreement with the Justice Department, Prudential admitted criminal wrongdoing but escaped prosecution provided that it does not violate securities laws again.

As of last Thursday, 165,000 claims had been received, according to Irving Pollock, independent administrator of the SEC settlement pool, with the number expected to rise to at least 170,000 when all the paperwork is received.

That would be roughly half of the 339,000 investors eligible to file claims, up from the 152,000 who had made claims as of the beginning of November.

To date, more than $420 million has been paid out, leaving about $240 million in the settlement pool. But if offers to investors continue at the levels to date, the fund would have to pay out an estimated $714 million.

Charles Perkins, a Prudential spokesman, said that, with today’s deadline, “the bulk of this issue has been resolved.” Perkins said there is no way to accurately estimate how much more the firm will have to pay into the fund, and he declined to speculate whether Prudential ultimately may have to pay substantial judgments or settlements in the other pending litigation.

Parent firm Prudential Insurance poured $365 million into the brokerage unit last month, in part to cover possible additional costs from investors’ claims.

Lawyers representing individual investors in separate arbitration actions complain that the brokerage is continuing to play legal hardball, aggressively fighting the claims even though it has admitted criminal wrongdoing.

For example, Stuart C. Goldberg, a Texas lawyer who filed 106 “simplified” arbitration cases in January, 1993, on behalf of investors with small claims against the firm, said the cases are still pending, even though such cases normally are resolved in 60 to 80 days.

Goldberg said Prudential has fought the cases so aggressively that the brokerages’ legal fees often exceed the amount of the claims.

Perkins denied that Prudential has used unfair tactics. “I think it’s ironic that plaintiff’s attorneys criticize anyone for exercising their legal rights,” he said.