WHITE COLLAR CRIME DOES PAY**

 Scores of S&L defendants haven't
 paid fines.

 WASHINGTON - A former sav-
ings and loan executive
spared himself from prison
when he agreed in 1990 to a
plea bargain that included a $l
million penalty payment. But both
he and prosecutors knew then he
didn't have the money to pay up.
 And he isn't alone. An Associ-
ated Press review of federal court
records found 109 S&L defendants
who  reached  plea  bargain
agreements have paid just $577,540
of the $133.8 million they owe.
 The five defendants with the
largest restitution orders hadn't
paid a penny toward their legal ob-
ligations through July 1992, while
others are making nominal pay-
ments as small as $30 a month, the
AP review found.
 One person has even asked a court
to terminate the $2 million order
he agreed to in 1989.
 The former president of
Dallas-based Commodore Savings
Association has paid just $3,000
toward his restitution.
 "There is no way I will ever see
a milliion dollars." he said, noting
he earns just $15,000 a year in a
sales commission job. "The restitu-
tion orders in these cases are
thrown around like there are nick-
els and dimes involved."
 He originally faced 10 years
in prison on charges of mis-
application of bank funds but in-
stead got five years' probation and
community service. By the time his
case was settled in October 1990,
he had already filed for Chapter 7
bankruptcy protection.
 "They all knew I had no money
then," he said.
 Ira Raphaelson, the Justice De-
partment's former special prosecu-
tor  who  coordinated  the
government's attack on S&L fraud,
acknowledged there's little chance
the government will reclaim most
of the fines even though they have
occasionally trumpeted them in
press releases and reports to Con-
gress as a sign of their success.
 "It misleads the public to sug-
gest that there will be a substantial
recovery," Raphaelson recently
told a congressional commission.
 In an interview with AP, Ra-
phaelson said prosecutors often
agree to the plea bargains to avoid
costly trials and ask for the large
penalties simply hoping "there will
be a lottery winning or an insur-
ance settlement."
 That has happened only twice
among the 2,600 S&L cases to
date, he said.
 Overall. the government has re-
covered just 4.5 percent of the
$846.7 million in fines and restitu-
tion orders assessed in the 2,603
S&L criminal cases from October
1988 through the end of 1992,
according to the General Account-
ing Office, the investigative arm of
Congress.
 The recovery rate for defendants
involved in plea bargains is a min-
uscule 0.43 percent, the AP analy-
sis of the Justice document
showed.
 More than two dozen plea bar-
gain defendants listed in the Jus-
tice Department report drew no
prison time at all and those who
did serve time spent fewer months
behind bars on average than car
thieves, the AP review also found.
 The average prison term for an
S&L convict is 21 months, while
the average car thief convicted in
federal court spends 28 months be-
hind bars.
 Though prosecutors can try to
revoke probation for defendants
who fail to pay up, the Justice De-
partment has forgone a get-tough
approach and left it instead to
overburdened probation and pa-
role officers to collect the money.
 George Calhoun, a senior Jus-
tice Department prosecutor, said
an aggressive approach would do
little because "in a good number
of the cases . . . they've pretty well
been stripped clean by the time
they get to court."
 Among the defendants:
  A former head of Home Plan Savings
and Loan Association in Iowa who
admitted stealing nearly $2 million
from his thrift, has been paying
just $30 a month toward the $1.85
million in restitution he was or-
dered to pay in 1989. He
served two years, two months in
prison under a plea agreement that
spared him from a maximum of
five years in prison.

  A consultant who helped swindle
the failed State Federal Savings and
Loan in Corvallis, Ore., has yet to pay
a penny of a $l million restitution
order after pleading guilty to bank
fraud in 1991. Originally facing a
maximum of five years in prison,
he spent six months in a halfway
house.
  A former president of Victor
Federal Savings and Loan Association
in Muskogee, Okla., has petitioned a
federal court to eliminate the $463
in monthly payments he agreed to
make toward a $2 million restitu-
tion order. He originally
faced 15 years in prison for misus-
ing bank funds. Under a plea
agreement,  he served  seven
months in a federal prison camp.
He has repaid less than $10,000.
 Congressional investigators, not-
ing the S&L debacle is estimated
to cost taxpayers $300 billion over
40 years, insist the Justice Depart-
ment has not been aggressive
enough in tracking down convicts'
assets and forcing them to make
good on the fines.
 "What you have in these cases is
not just the government being de-
frauded on taxes, but of course,
depositors losing their money too.
And now they are footing the bill
through their taxes," said Harold
Valentine, an analyst for the GAO.

Outstanding, S&L fines:

The government fined 1O9 Savings
and Loan defendants in plea bargain
agreements. Of those fined, only a
small percentage have made some, if
any, restitution:



Fines paid        Fines Owed
$577,540,00       $133,222,460.00
0.43%             99.57%

Top five S&L offenders:

Name*; banking institution;
prison term; fine; amount paid
1. ---------------, Puget Sound
   National Bank. Tacoma, Wash.;
   3 yrs;  $19,950,943;   $0

2. ------------------,
   Bullmount Mortgage Co. of
   Camden, S.C., and other
   institutions;
   9 yrs;   $11,849,507:  $0

3. --------------, City Federal
   Savings Bank. Jersey City, N.J.;
   1 yr,   $10,788,873;    $0

4. -------------------, Puget
   Sound National Bank, and
   institutions in six other states;
   2 yrs.,    $9,972,500;   $0

5. --------------, Peoples Heritage
    Federal Savings AND Loan
    Association of Salina, Kan.;
    14 yrs.;  $8,000,000;   $0

*note: Names have been removed.

**from an Article by:
RICKARD KEIL
The Associatcd Press
(The Nashua Telegraph, 25 Feb. 93)

