Arrest Warrant Issued for Tarzana Bookmaker

An arrest warrant was issued Thursday for a Tarzana man who checked into a hospital shortly before he was supposed to testify before a grand jury reportedly investigating loan activities at an Orange County bank.

U.S. District Judge Manuel Real, acting on a request by the Justice Department’s Strike Force on Organized Crime, signed the warrant for the man, Morton Goodman, a convicted bookmaker.

U.S. District Judge Pamela Ann Rymer had ordered Goodman and a Los Angeles businessman to testify Thursday before the grand jury. Rymer granted immunity to both men after they refused to testify. Witnesses can be forced to testify if granted immunity from prosecution.

A strike force prosecutor, Ariadne Symons, said Goodman’s attorney informed her that Goodman checked into a hospital Thursday, but that it was her understanding that “there’s nothing wrong with him.”

Personnel at the Veteran’s Administration Medical Center in Sepulveda confirmed that Goodman was admitted to the cardiac care unit there. A nurse there said he was “feeling better,” but would not disclose details of his condition.

Two other men scheduled to appear before the grand jury under grants of immunity, Page and Theodore Kelly of Palm Springs, testified as scheduled. They refused to discuss their testimony.

Prosecutors have not divulged the target of the panel’s investigation. But Laurence Ring, an attorney representing Page, said the grand jury is investigating about $1 million in loans made by Tustin-based Sunwest Bank.

Ring said Page Kelly received a $25,000 loan from Sunwest Bank for a business venture. Page “just happened to have known some of the same people who are being investigated,” Ring said. “They want to question him about what he knows about some other people.”

A year ago, Sunwest Bank’s new owners sued the former chairman and four directors claiming that they negligently operated the bank and misrepresented its condition before selling it for $10.75 million. The bank and its parent company, Centennial Beneficial Corp. of Orange, also sued the accounting firm of Ernst & Whinney.

The suit, filed in Orange County Superior Court, said damages exceeded $5 million. Centennial alleges that the directors, before selling the bank in June, 1985, falsely represented that the bank was profitable.

Goodman pleaded no contest in April, 1985, to two counts of bookmaking. He was one of 20 suspects arrested the previous October, when law-enforcement authorities raided 22 locations in what was described as an effort to prevent organized crime families from muscling in on bookmaking operations in Southern California.