SEC Freezes Anaheim-Based Tiffany Escrow

Among the unwitting victims of the First Pension Corp. collapse, you can count Jeff Cleveland and his escrow company.

Cleveland is secretary and chief financial officer of Anaheim-based Tiffany Escrow Co., which has the misfortune of having been owned by Terri Cooper, the wife of First Pension Corp. principal William E. Cooper. But she sold the firm two years ago and it has operated independently ever since, Cleveland says.

Nevertheless, when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday requested and received a federal court injunction freezing the assets of Cooper, his partners and his firms, Tiffany Escrow was caught in the net. The SEC listed Tiffany as a subject firm and had its assets frozen too.

“This has hit me cold,� Cleveland said late Friday afternoon, about an hour after he received word that his firm was financially immobilized.

Because the SEC had moved deliberately without informing the targets--in order to keep them from moving assets out of its reach--he only learned about it when a customer tried to wire funds into Tiffany’s account at Monarch Bank in Laguna Niguel. The bank told the customer that it could accept no transactions involving the account. By then Cleveland’s lawyer was out of reach and the chances of getting the freeze lifted before the weekend were dim.

“This will just put me out of business,� Cleveland said, noting that his firm was handling about 150 to 200 escrows, most of them on Orange County residential property. He could not say how much money was at stake, or whether escrows in Tiffany’s hands can close before the freeze is lifted.

Terri Cooper remained on the management roster of the company, listed as president, until recently though her real involvement with the firm ended last year. Tiffany agreed to list her as an officer as long as deals she had brought in remained alive, Cleveland said. It was only when First Pension declared bankruptcy April 22 and its problems surfaced that he took immediate steps to excise her from the list, Cleveland said.