Sentencing for Businessman Is Postponed : Courts: New date is set for Michael E. Parker of Newport Beach, who was convicted of defrauding a Beverly Hills thrift.
LOS ANGELES — Sentencing for Michael E. Parker, a prominent Newport Beach businessman convicted in federal court here of defrauding Columbia Savings and Loan, has been postponed.
Sentencing for the man dubbed “the king of greed†by a federal prosecutor had been set for Monday. The new date is Aug. 23.
The postponement is at least the second in the Parker case. Sentencings are routinely delayed in federal court.
A jury convicted Parker in April on 36 counts of fraud, tax evasion and money laundering in connection with the sale of $11 million worth of inflated or phony investments to Columbia Savings, a Beverly Hills thrift. He faces at least 15 years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines.
Parker filed for personal bankruptcy on July 2, the day after his landlord won a lawsuit to evict him for not paying his $5,500-a-month rent. A judge ordered Parker to pay $12,000 in back rent for a house on the Balboa Peninsula that he had rented since April last year.
When he filed for bankruptcy to fend off the eviction, Parker listed debts of more than $20 million. He has not yet listed his assets nor has he provided a statement of his financial affairs.
The creditors he listed include the U.S. Justice Department, which Parker says is owed $11.3 million--presumably restitution for the Columbia scam. The others are: the Internal Revenue Service, $3.5 million; his criminal lawyers, $1.7 million; his ex-wife, $1.5 million in alimony; his current wife, $1 million; his old company, Parker North American Corp.--now in bankruptcy--$2.9 million, and attorneys who represented him in a number of civil suits, $575,000.
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