Trial set for attorney in Keating funds case
Gardner, a well-known D.C. lawyer whose clients include MCA Inc. and Hollywood's Coalition to Preserve the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules, has been charged by the government's Resolution Trust Corp. with improperly accepting the payments from Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan.
The RTC is the agency set up to recover money for taxpayers stemming from the nation's savings and loan disaster. According to RTC spokesman Steve Katsanos, agency representatives "were unable to identify any services provided (by Gardner) on behalf of Lincoln. We can't see why Lincoln should have paid the defendant."
Gardner claims in court papers that he deserved the payment for advice he gave on potential acquisitions in the broadcast industry. According to Gardner, Keating's American Continental Corp. earned a $ 50 million profit after being advised to invest in Gulf Broadcasting Corp.
Side issue
A side issue in the case is whether Gardner improperly kept Keating's payments without contributing the money to his law firm, the high-powered Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. The RTC claims that neither Lincoln's board of directors nor Akin, Gump's partners knew of Keating's payments to Gardner.
Although reports have circulated that Gardner resigned from Akin, Gump on the day his law partners discovered the payments from Keating, Gardner claimed yesterday that he left the firm "totally on my own terms." Gardner has since established his own firm, taking many of Akin, Gump's communications clients with him.
Gardner, who ran President Reagan's Federal Communications Commission transition team in 1980, will be calling five character witnesses to vouch for his integrity. Among those set to testify are FCC commissioner Sherrie Marshall; Jim Vance, a news anchorman for NBC O&O WRC-TV, Washington; and Sarah Brady, a gun control advocate and wife of former Reagan press secretary James Brady.
Also among Gardner's supporters is Motion Picture Assn. of America prez Jack Valenti. The MPAA head yesterday professed to "know nothing about the facts surrounding this case." But he said Gardner "has always been an honorable man with me" and that he has "done a first-class job" representing Hollywood's interests in D.C.
Gardner said it would be "inappropriate for me to discuss this case while in litigation." However, he added that "our friends from the creative community have been tremendously supportive of me and my family, and they, like us, appreciate how out of control the RTC bureaucracy is."
