Texas Financier to Settle S&L Case

WASHINGTON (AP) - Texas financier Charles Hurwitz  has agreed to pay
$206,000 to settle regulators' charges he violated federal  rules
governing thrifts, the Office of Thrift Supervision announced Friday.  


The agreement came more than a year after a judge  rejected the federal
agency's efforts to force Hurwitz to pay some $820 million  in damages for
the 1988 failure of a savings and loan, United Savings  Association of
Texas.  

The regulators had alleged that Hurwitz and five  other executives of
Houston-based United Savings Association duped them and  violated rules
governing thrifts. United Savings was taken over by the  government after
its collapse.  

 But U.S. Administrative Law Judge Arthur Shipe  recommended in September
2001 that all charges against Hurwitz and his  Houston-based industrial
company, Maxxam Inc., be dismissed and that the federal  thrift agency not
receive any monetary damages.  

 The $206,000 that Hurwitz, Maxxam and another  company he controls,
Federated Development Co., agreed to pay is in the form of  restitution to
the government, not damages. Hurwitz and the two companies also  agreed to
restrictions on any future activities with a federally insured  depository
institution.  

 Hurwitz and Maxxam  ^T which owns Kaiser Aluminum  Corp. and Pacific
Lumber Co.  ^T have spent 10 years and an estimated $30 million  battling
the regulators.  

Hurwitz has long said that the case, in which formal  hearings did not
begin until nine years after United Savings' collapse, was a  politically
motivated effort to force him to relinquish control of ancient  redwoods
in the Headwaters Forest in California.  

The federal and California governments paid $450  million to acquire 9,500
acres of the Headwaters Forest from Pacific Lumber in  1999.  

 HOME