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.
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