Partner of Slain Promoter Goes to Trial on Fraud Charge : Court: Judge excludes mention of Mickey Thompson’s murder, but a dispute between the off-road entrepreneur and Michael F. Goodwin will figure in the case.

The former business partner of murdered off-road racing promoter Mickey Thompson went on trial in federal court here Thursday on charges that he and his ex-wife made false statements to three banks in order to secure hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans.

The joint trial of Michael F. Goodwin and Diane Seidel marks the end of a six-year federal investigation into the couple’s finances. Both have pleaded not guilty to one count of bank fraud--that they made false statements to federally insured financial institutions--and 14 other counts of aiding and abetting each other to make the allegedly false statements.

Goodwin is the only person publicly named by authorities as a suspect in the March 16, 1988, slayings of Thompson and his wife in front of their 13-car garage in the San Gabriel Valley. Thompson was the first American to break the 400-m.p.h. land speed record, and the race promotion company that still bears his name continues to stage racing events at stadiums across the country.

This week, Sgt. John Yarborough, a Los Angeles Sheriff’s homicide detective who has been investigating Thompson’s murder for seven years, said Goodwin has never been eliminated as a suspect.

“It is still an open case,” said Yarbrough.

Thompson’s relatives say they are still hopeful that the murder will be solved.

Collene Campbell, Thompson’s sister and a San Juan Capistrano councilwoman, said their seriously ill mother’s dying wish is to see the murder solved. “The one thing she wants before she dies is to bring Mickey’s killer to justice, and we are still hoping for that.”

Goodwin, 50, has repeatedly denied any involvement in his ex-business partner’s murder.

And U. S. District Court Judge Gary L. Taylor has made it clear that he does not want to revisit Thompson’s murder in this trial. Taylor told the prosecutor and defense attorneys that he planned to “defuse in advance the chance that anybody on the jury may remember the murder” by instructing jurors to ignore anything they may have heard of the killings.

But a business feud between Thompson and Goodwin, who at one time were the joint promoters of off-road stadium racing events, will play a significant role in the trial.

In her opening statements, Assistant U. S. Atty. Elana Shavit Artson said the charges arose out of a $500,000 line of credit that Goodwin and Seidel obtained from Southern California Bank in April, 1986, to promote motorcycle sporting events.

Artson said the couple, since divorced, failed to repay the $500,000 because Thompson put a freeze on gate receipts--from one of their racing events--that the Goodwins had planned to use to repay their debt to the bank.

After a bitter court fight between the two business partners, Thompson obtained a state court judgment in April, 1986, against Goodwin and his Stadium Motorsports Corp. in the sum of approximately $500,000.

As a result of the Thompson judgment, Goodwin declared personal bankruptcy, Artson said. He and Seidel subsequently applied for loans totaling $375,000 from three other banks by submitting several financial statements that failed to disclose the outstanding Southern California bank loan as a liability, according to the prosecutor.

But Goodwin’s attorney, James Frieden of Los Angeles, denied any wrongdoing. In his opening statement, Frieden told the jury the “the whole charge is a misimpression.”

Frieden said Goodwin and Seidel had made full disclosure about the Southern California Bank loans to the other banks. He said he also planned to introduce evidence during the trial that the banks’ officials knew all about the liability.