FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (202) 514-2008 THURSDAY, JUNE 20, 1996 TDD (202) 514-1888 BURROUGHS WHARF INVESTOR PLEADS GUILTY TO OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE AND PAYS RECORD AMOUNT IN RESTITUTION TO FDIC BOSTON, Massachusetts -- Donald K. Stern, U.S. Attorney in Boston, Mark D. Seltzer, Director of the New England Bank Fraud Task Force, and Richard M. Swenson, Special-Agent-in-Charge of the FBI, announced today that Tully Plesser, of St. Thomas, USVI, pleaded guilty to an information charging him with obstruction of justice for using off-shore corporate accounts that he controlled to hide $3.4 million in marketable securities from the Resolution Trust Corporation ("RTC". Plesser's guilty plea was entered as part of a plea agreement pursuant to which Plesser has paid more than $3.1 million in criminal restitution to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation ("FDIC"), the successor to the RTC. This payment represents the largest criminal restitutionary amount collected by the FDIC in the North East and the fifth largest in the country. Plesser will also pay a $100,000 fine as part of the plea agreement. These payments are in addition to $1.1 million Plesser paid the RTC in an earlier civil settlement. According to the information, Plesser was one of the guarantors of a $43 million construction loan from Home Owners Savings Bank to build Burroughs Wharf, a luxury condominium project on the Boston harbor waterfront. To demonstrate his ability to serve as one of the guarantors, the information alleges, Plesser gave financial statements to Home Owners showing that he owned $3.4 million in marketable securities. Home Owners failed in 1990 and was placed in receivership by the RTC. The information charges that when the RTC brought suit to collect on the debt after the $43 million loan went into default, Plesser made false statements, produced bogus documents, and testified falsely under oath with the intent to mislead the RTC that he no longer owned the marketable securities. The information alleges that Plesser in fact retained control of the securities and, in willful violation of a court order prohibiting Plesser from transferring assets, Plesser moved the securities from brokerage accounts in the United States to corporate accounts that he controlled in the British Virgin Islands and Switzerland, and, ultimately, to accounts in the Bahamas. Plesser made some of these transfers, the information alleges, within a month of testifying in the law suit with the RTC that he no longer owned or controlled the assets. U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf scheduled sentencing for September 19, 1996. If the plea agreement is accepted by the Court, Plesser will receive a sentence of one year and a day, in addition to the $100,000 fine and $3.1 million in restitution. The case against Plesser was investigated by the FBI and the Offices of Inspectors General of the Resolution Trust Corporation and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The case is being prosecuted by James P. Gillis, a trial attorney assigned to the U.S. Department of Justice New England Bank Fraud Task Force. ### 96-293