Exit for Wolfson

Louis Wolfson, who a decade ago controlled a $400 million industrial empire, accepted a painful verdict last week. Although a last-gasp technical appeal from a denial of a motion for a new trial is still pending in the case, the 57-year-old Miami Beach multimillionaire reported to Eglin Air Force Base near Pensacola, Fla., to begin serving a one-year prison sentence for illegally selling unregistered stock.

The son of an immigrant junk dealer, St. Louis-born Wolfson rose to prominence during the '50s by expanding Merritt-Chapman & Scott, a heavy-construction company, into shipbuilding, paint making and chemicals as an early conglomerate. His unsuccessful attempt in 1955 to win control of Montgomery Ward won him a reputation as a controversial corporate raider. Later he managed to become the largest stockholder in American Motors Corp., which was then headed by George Romney, now Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Merritt-Chapman ran into a series of financial reverses and was already on the way to liquidation when a federal grand jury indicted Wolfson in 1966 for his sale of stock in Continental Enterprises Inc., a Jacksonville theater-management company. As controlling stockholder, Wolfson should have registered his shares first with the Securities and Exchange Commission, a requirement of which he pleaded ignorance. In addition to the one-year sentence, Wolfson drew a $100,000 fine. He is also appealing a second 18-month term (and a $32,000 fine), which resulted from his conviction last year for perjury and destruction of documents during a SEC investigation in connection with Merritt-Chapman stock transactions. Wolfson insists that he was made a scapegoat by the Government, while officials of brokerage firms have been punished only with fines and suspensions for similar offenses.

Though Wolfson's personal fortune, once estimated at more than $75 million, has shriveled considerably, he still owns some $6,400,000 worth of Merritt-Chapman shares, a large horse-breeding farm near Ocala and an interest in a Jacksonville movie and television firm. Wolfson himself suffered a heart attack in 1966. His wife died last year of cancer. If both appeals fail, Wolfson still will have to serve a minimum of ten months.

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