Word: dixons
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...while, Don Dixon stood tall in Texas. He was big rich, as Texans like to say. A successful real-estate developer, in 1982 he bought a tiny savings and loan in his hometown of Vernon and built it into a giant, at least on paper. By luring deposits from across the U.S. with high interest rates, Vernon S&L grew a spectacular 1,600% in just four years, making it one of the 20 largest thrifts in the state. But the S&L was lending money faster than it was coming in, often to projects on shaky financial footing. Meanwhile...
...Government decided last week that Dixon should pay for his extravagance. In a 38-count criminal indictment, the Justice Department charged that Dixon illegally used the S&L's money to pay for political contributions, pleasure trips and rent on a California beach house. If he is convicted on all counts, Dixon could face a 190-year prison sentence and a fine of as much as $9.5 * million dollars. (Dixon intends to plead innocent.) Eight Vernon officers have already been convicted, including Chairman Woody Lemons, who last week began serving a 30-year term, the longest to date...
...Dixon indictment signals an upsurge in charges against the culprits accused of causing the S&L mess, the biggest financial scandal in U.S. history. But the Dixon case underscored the difficulty of prosecuting complicated financial crimes. The Government took more than three years to build its case against Dixon alone. And U.S. officials have not yet investigated 7,000 more tips about possible fraud at S&Ls. With so many leads and limited resources, the Justice Department may be able to prosecute only the most egregious misdeeds that befell thrifts in the 1980s...
...indictment describes him, Dixon embodied the high-rolling style of oil-patch opportunists. In the early 1980s Congress wrongheadedly tried to help struggling thrifts earn higher returns by liberating them to invest in virtually anything they wanted. Crafty entrepreneurs began building the S&Ls into fast-buck enterprises by sinking money into marinas, golf courses and even uranium mines...
Gantt hopes to make inroads among Republican women with a pro-choice stance on abortion, which contrasts sharply with Helms' adamant antiabortion position. A Mason-Dixon poll shows that he leads Helms 44% to 43% with 13% undecided. Yet the same poll at a similar stage in 1984 had former Governor Jim Hunt ahead of Helms by 15 percentage points -- and he lost by 4. Though prominent Democrats like Sanford have pledged to go all out for Gantt, he has no chance of amassing the $17 million that Helms spent six years ago and that his campaign claims...