Charles Keating Trials: 1991-99 - Keating Loses In Civil Court, Too

The first civil case against Keating was a class action lawsuit filed in federal court in Tucson, Arizona. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the more than 20,000 people who lost their money after buying ACC bonds. In addition to Keating, there were three other defendants, who had been involved in ACC's real estate schemes: a wealthy businessman in Tempe, Arizona, named Conley Wolfswinkel, Continental Southern, Inc. of Atlanta, Georgia, and the Saudi European Investment Corporation.

The trial began on April 1, 1992, before Judge Richard Bilby. Keating did not appear at the trial or have any lawyer represent him during the proceedings, claiming that he was too busy preparing for the October 1992 federal criminal trial in Los Angeles. The other defendants, however, denied that they had acted jointly with Keating in causing Lincoln S&L's collapse, and the case dragged out for more than three months.

After deliberating for eight days, on July 10, 1992, the jury found Keating and the other three defendants guilty of violating federal antifraud laws. The plaintiffs' lawyers had sought $288.7 million in compensatory damages from Keating alone, but the jury awarded $600 million in compensatory damages, with an additional amount of $1.5 billion awarded for punitive damages. Because the compensatory damages were tripled under federal antiracketeering statutes to $1.8 billion, the total amount of the verdict against Keating was $3.3 billion. The jury rendered similarly large verdicts against the other three defendants as well.