Judge Orders Keating to Pay U.S. $36.3 Million in Restitution

A federal judge has ordered former Lincoln Savings & Loan operator Charles H. Keating Jr. to pay $36.3 million in restitution to the government for directing the now-defunct Irvine thrift to make illegal loans.

Federal regulators said Friday, however, that they doubt they’ll get much money from Keating, who maintains he is broke.

Keating has civil judgments totaling more than $1 billion against him, and any assets found will go to the same parties--government agencies and investors who lost more than $285 million in the 1989 collapse of Lincoln and its parent company.

The most recent order stems from an Office of Thrift Supervision enforcement hearing, the results of which Keating had appealed.

U.S. District Judge Mariana R. Pfaelzer approved a recommendation from an OTS administrative law judge that Keating and his wife, Mary Elaine, pay the government $36.3 million, which represents losses on two Lincoln deals that the OTS says never should have been made. Investors would receive half of whatever the government recovers under the latest order.