Man Arrested in Alleged Scam of O.C. Lender

A Los Angeles man with links to notorious fraud schemes was arrested Tuesday for allegedly submitting false information to obtain a $150,000 loan from a Costa Mesa lender.

Stanley Goldblum, 72, was arrested as he was attending a court hearing in Los Angeles on unrelated charges that he participated in a scheme to operate a number of medical clinics that allegedly bilked the workers’ compensation system, Costa Mesa police said. Goldblum was out on $2 million bail stemming from that case.

His most recent arrest came after he applied for and received a $150,000 loan last fall from Pacific Business Capital Corp. in Costa Mesa. Goldblum allegedly claimed he had $900,000 worth of securities that turned out to be worth less than $300, said George Johnson, a Costa Mesa police investigator.

Goldblum, who was being held Tuesday in Orange County Jail, is scheduled to be arraigned today, Johnson said.

Goldblum’s attorney did not return telephone calls.

Johnson said he did not know what has happened to the $150,000 that Goldblum received from Pacific Business Capital or why Goldblum needed the money.

“Given what he’s been involved in, it’s almost chump change to Goldblum,” Johnson said. “We were kind of struck by the whole thing, that a guy that’s used to millions would go for only $150,000. I don’t know what’s going on with him.”

Goldblum served four years in prison in the 1970s after pleading guilty to fraud and other charges related to the collapse of Equity Funding Corp. of America, a Century City insurance company he headed. Equity Funding left reinsurers with $1.8 billion in losses when it folded in 1973. Equity Funding had sold $2 billion worth of phony insurance policies and manufactured more than $100 million in fictitious corporate assets. When the company failed, more than 7,000 shareholders lost their investments in the then-publicly traded company. Before being sent to prison, Goldblum drove a tan Rolls Royce and lived lavishly in Beverly Hills.

Currently, Goldblum is facing charges of fraud for allegedly participating in one of the biggest workers’ compensation scams in Southern California during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

As controller of Primedex Corp., Goldblum allegedly helped defraud insurance companies and employers by, among other things, charging for medical services that were never provided, providing illegal kickbacks to doctors and chiropractors, and submitting ghost-written medical reports.