End of an Empire

Balding Financial Juggler Alexander L. Guterma, 44, who put together a shaky empire of a dozen corporations (TIME, Feb. 23), was convicted last week on 16 counts of conspiracy and fraud. Guterma and his British associate, Robert J. Eveleigh, found guilty on 15 counts, had sat through seven weeks of trial, listening to the damaging testimony of 53 witnesses. Accountants and auditors backed the Federal Government's contention that nearly 54,000,000 in assets vanished from Detroit's F. L. Jacobs Co., a holding company, while it was under Guterma controls. To conceal the losses, he set up dummy corporations. Guterma and Eveleigh also withheld information from stockholders, obtained loans on stocks whose value was artificially maintained, even asked a prosecution witness to plead the Fifth Amendment after their trial began. Both men were held without bail pending sentencing Feb. 17. In prison Guterma could only look forward to more of the same. On his agenda: trials on charges of conspiracy in connection with two other companies.

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