Section: METRO
Of The Post-Dispatch
3/6/98 CORRECTION:
- Violin swindler Keith Bearden, who pleaded guilty to 14 counts of wire and mail fraud
and was sentenced to two years in prison, was ordered to pay restitution to 11 victims.
Some of their names were dropped from a story in late editions Thursday. Here are the
victims and the restitution ordered paid: Masayosi Kataoka, $7,000; Cara Mia Antonello,
$41,500; Marilyn Beabout, $18,500; Diana Yancey, $12,000; Helen S. Tung, $20,000; Fred
Cook, $21,800; Scott Lao, $8,000; Ron Vince, $10,000; Cigna Insurance Co., $219,000; St.
Paul Fire & Marine Insurance, $200,000; and Chubb Group of Insurance Cos., $120,000.
Meanwhile, a judge has ruled that Bearden's earliest victims will get no restitution.
Masayosi Katakoka, a cellist with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, gave Bearden a bow to sell, hoping that the proceeds would pay for some of his daughter's college tuition.
Bearden turned out to be a swindler who stole millions from dozens of m usicians. Many had borrowed to buy their rare instruments.
Katakoka never saw his $7,000 cello bow again.
"We had to get loans to make up for it" to pay for a daughter's education, Katakoka says in court records. He asked a judge to order Bearden to make restitution - once he finishes his two-year prison term.
Unfortunately, Bearden took the bow in 1991. That was five years before a law requiring federal criminals to pay back their victims.
Citing the law, U.S. District Judge Carol E. Jackson has denied restitution for Katakoka and about 20 other victims.
The judge acknowledged that the government had documented, to her satisfaction, that Bearden had stolen at least $788,800 before April 24, 1996, when restitution became mandatory.
Jackson also said that she had the authority to order Bearden to repay those he had swindled early on.
But the judge decided that Bearden would have enough trouble repaying $763,300 to more recent victims who qualified for mandatory restitution.
She gave Bearden 20 years in which to pay it, at $3,181 per month.
Unless there is an appeal, the judge's decision will stand.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Wilkerson said he won't appeal, and he said Bearden's victims lack the legal standing to do so.
In theory, the other victims could file civil suits to try to get their money.
Wilkerson is a former junior high math teacher in East St. Louis who went to law school and became a prosecutor. He and Jeff Jensen, an FBI agent and CPA with a nose for sniffing out white-collar criminals, spent more than a year investigating Bearden.
On Wednesday, the Bureau of Prisons announced that Bearden would spend the rest of his sentence at Eglin - a minimum security prison where former Missouri House Speaker Bob Griffin is serving a four-year sentence for bribery and mail fraud. Bearden has been in the Franklin County Jail, and before he was extradited back to the United States, he was in a detention cell in Tokyo.
Bearden is 43 now, and if he is released to a halfway house by Christmas, he could still retire by 65, even if he takes the full 20 years to repay the money.
In an interview, Bearden said he plans to return to his former career as a world-class bow maker. "They can't take that away from me," he said.
He said he can make a bow in three to four days. The most he ever sold one for was $4,000, he said, but that was to a retail customer. He expects to sell most of his bows at wholesale prices - about $1,500 apiece.
At that rate, he'd earn about $3,000 a week. That would be roughly $12,000 a month, or about four times what he must repay.
"If I can get my name back," Bearden said, "I'm going to try to pay everybody back" - not just those the judge ordered repaid.
If he falls behind in the mandatory restitutions, he could be re-arrested and ordered to serve out the remainder of his sentence. For that to happen, a judge would have to rule that Bearden was willfully ignoring his debt.
Bearden must pay his restitution to the clerk of the federal district c ourt in St. Louis, which will pass the money on to his victims. It isn't clear yet how the money will be apportioned.
Those on the "good list" - the victims he must repay - include the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra's insurance company.
Bearden's lawyer, Scott Rosenblum, argued that the Symphony was getting a windfall by inflating its insurance claim. That's because Bearden had paid violinist Dana Meyers $8,000 of his $200,000 debt. But the Symphony reported the entire $200,000, and the insurance company paid it.
The judge ruled that Bearden owes the insurance company the entire $200,000.
Over Rosenblum's objections, the judge ordered some victims repaid although they filed claims too late to bring charges against Bearden. Bearden must repay the entire $59,500 he stole from the estate of Stanley J. Goodman, because the theft occurred in July 1996, after the restitution law went into effect.
Another victim, Anthony Porto, offered to buy wood so that Bearden could start making bows in prison. "I do not see wasting this talent in purgatory," Porto wrote the court.
Bearden's bow-making will have to wait; prisoners aren't allowed sharp objects like knives used in bow-making. But the judge did put Porto on the must-repay list, to the tune of $10,000.
Others on the list are:
Cara Mia Antonello, $41,500; Marilyn Beabout, $18,500; Diana Yancey, $12,000; Helen S. Tung, $20,000; Fred Cook, $21,800; Scott Lao, $8,000.
Also, Ron Vince, $10,000; Cigna Insurance Company, $219,000; St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance, $200,000; and Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, $120,000.