Now that more angry borrowers have come forward, a former top officer for Wilshire State Bank could soon face a new civil trial over claims that he defrauded clients in multimillion-dollar business deals.
A Superior Court judge is expected to decide as soon as next week whether to reopen a previous case filed against Saeid Aminpour, Wilshire’s one-time chief marketing officer.
In that lawsuit, a Glendale carwash owner named Shagen Galstanyan accused Aminpour of pressuring Galstanyan to sell his businesses under duress and then demanding a fee to broker the sales. The banker also allegedly convinced him to take out a hard-money loan with Aminpour’s outside business partner.
Aminpour disputed the claims and a judge declined to rule on several of the fraud accusations in a trial last summer.
But Kimberly Olson, Galstanyan’s attorney, said she filed a motion for a new trial after contacting additional disgruntled borrowers with complaints about Aminpour. The evidence, which she said came to light after a Business Journal investigation in September into Aminpour’s actions, suggested a pattern of fraud.
“It does appear to be systematic,” Olson said. “It seems that Aminpour used the bank to take advantage of people and conduct his side businesses under the guise of the bank having some association.”
A hearing is scheduled Jan. 24 to consider the request.
Aminpour could not be reached for comment, but his attorney, Jimmy Philip Mettias, said that the purported new evidence is irrelevant to the original case and regardless would likely be inadmissible under terms of an existing settlement agreement between Wilshire and the plaintiffs.
“There’s a very slim, if any, chance of a retrial,” Mettias said. “There’s a very, very strict way of determining whether something is new evidence.”
If the motion is denied, that still may not be the end of the case. Olson said she is prepared to file an appeal on behalf of Galstanyan, while the borrowers who have recently come forward can file separate lawsuits.
What’s more, Aminpour is coming under scrutiny outside of the courts from a number of agencies for possible wrongdoing related to his nearly decadelong employment at the Koreatown bank, which he left in late 2010.
Sources said the FBI, Internal Revenue Service and State Water Resources Control Board have made at least informal inquiries into his actions.
In 2001, Iranian-born Aminpour joined Wilshire, one of the nation’s largest Korean-American lenders, in part to generate new business in the local Persian community, which had become a lucrative market for the bank. During his tenure, he was credited as a major driver of the bank’s sevenfold growth.
In 2009, however, Galstanyan filed his lawsuit. The next year, another borrower contacted bank executives with complaints about Aminpour, and several additional borrowers later accused him of using bank relationships to benefit his external business interests.
Meanwhile, weaknesses in loans generated by Aminpour became apparent in late 2010 amid examinations by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and an external loan review.
Pressured to leave
Aminpour was pressured to leave in December 2010, after which the bank reported more than $90 million in losses over two quarters. Then-Chief Executive Joanne Kim, who had maintained business dealings with Aminpour outside the bank, was pressured to resign for failing to provide “effective supervision and oversight,” the bank said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
Wilshire has since restructured its lending and underwriting divisions, raised capital and returned to a profit.
Galstanyan’s suit proceeded to trial last summer, but the case produced no clear victor.
On Aug. 22, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Allen White ruled that Aminpour and a business partner had fraudulently brokered Galstanyan’s deal. The judge required them to repay a $110,000 fee to Galstanyan. The judge also ruled that Galstanyan still owed the balance plus interest on the loan he had originally taken out.
But White declined to issue rulings on the larger fraud claims against Aminpour, a decision Mettias characterized as “very telling.”
“It says a lot that a judge after looking at the evidence didn’t find … fraud,” said Aminpour’s lawyer, who added that he and his client “were definitely satisfied” with the outcome of the trial.
After the Business Journal’s Sept. 26 report, Olson said she was able to contact four additional former clients of Aminpour’s who say that he defrauded them. Among the claims, one former client said he was persuaded by Aminpour to take out a hard-money loan from an outside business partner and required to pay excessive fees.
In the motion for a new trial, the plaintiffs are seeking more than $2.1 million in losses sustained as well as punitive damages.
No charges
Aminpour, who has recently maintained a low profile running a carwash, has not been charged with any crimes.
Mettias declined to say whether any authorities had contacted him or his client, but said there are no official ongoing investigations into Aminpour.
Still, some agencies are taking a look.
Sources said the water board was examining Aminpour because a high number of his former clients had used state funds for underground storage tank cleanup. Under a California program, business owners can get money to pay for the maintenance of petroleum underground storage tanks. Sources noted that it was an informal inquiry and not an official investigation.
Additionally, Olson said she has met with representatives of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the FBI and IRS in recent weeks to discuss Aminpour.
The FBI and IRS declined to comment. The U.S. Attorney’s Office did not return calls requesting comment.
Olson said at least one of the meetings concerned Aminpour’s affiliation with Wanda Tenney, an escrow agent who recently pleaded guilty to wire fraud and other charges related to the preparation of phony escrow documents in an unrelated case.
Olson said that Aminpour specifically requested that her clients use Tenney for escrow services.
“There’s no way that the fraud could have been facilitated had she not participated,” Olson said.
Tenney could not be located for comment.
