Charles H Keating's 4 1/2 years behind bars haven't dampened his enthusiasm for money, but the circles he moves in are not what they once were.
Where he once held court with the nation's rich and powerful, the onetime global financier found himself Thursday in a tiny Scottsdale motel conference room telling a handful of CPAs and investors where to put their money: microchips."I'm right - I know I'm right," Keating told a rapt audience of budding tycoons. "My instincts are still right."
It was an unspectacular - but not uninteresting - performance by the former millionaire, part of a continuing effort by Keating to resurrect himself since the overturning of convictions for state and federal racketeering, fraud and conspiracy.
Keating has been free from prison since 1996 as lawyers battled over the convictions, which stemmed largely from the sale of millions of dollars in junk bonds to investors, allegedly fraudulent land sales and the even-tual collapse of his Lincoln Savings in 1989. The collapse left many investors in ruin.
Federal prosecutors are now contemplating whether to retry him, while California prosecutors are trying to have his state conviction reinstated.
Since leaving prison, the 74-year-old Keating separated, at least temporarily, from his wife and worked for a California telecommunications company. He has kept his local business contacts going as well. He is often seen dining in local hot spots, sometimes with former associates like Conley Wolfswinkel, another prominent figure in the savings and loan scandals.
In March, Keating applied for a passport to travel to Belize, where he hoped to consummate an offshore business deal. A federal judge halted the travel and briefly put Keating back in jail to remind him of restrictions imposed by the court.
On Thursday, Keating was one of four speakers at an International Tax and Asset Preservation Academy seminar about investing overseas and shielding assets from taxation. The academy lists a Scottsdale address.
Among the other speakers was a Bahamian businessman promoting offshore investments to minimize taxes and shield assets from legal adversaries.
The speaking engagement is the latest evidence that Keating, though faced with a $3 billion civil judgment against him, is not content to sit out his freedom in idle retirement.
While Keating's wings were clipped by the courts, his notions about high finance still soar. During his half-hour talk Thursday, he was interrupted by applause several times as he touted worldwide moneymaking opportunities and railed at the federal government's intrusions into his entrepreneurial adventures.
Though he walked with a slight limp caused by a hip problem, Keating showed no outward signs that prison had taken a toll. At one point he even joked about his fall from power, saying, "I didn't have a slide, I had a . . ." He used a hand gesture to mimic a steep drop.
Dressed casually in a brown checkered blazer and a blue polo shirt, Keating was relaxed and conversational as he spoke about his interest in emerging technologies. He predicted that investments in new technologies and companies putting them to use would be the most lucrative of the next decade.
He also predicted the next decade would be the most lucrative in history.
Though he acknowledged the economy is a different one than when he was in his prime more than a decade ago, Keating said, "There's room for an old goat like me."
Advances in microchip technology and fiber-optic communications have made affordable high technology available world-wide to small companies, he said.