Keating, Charles Humphrey, Jr.

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Charles Humphrey Keating, Jr., 1923–2014, American banker, b. Cincinnati, grad. Univ. of Cincinnati College of Law (1948). Keating was a partner (1952–72) in a law firm he founded with his brother, William, who was a U.S. congressman and publisher of the Cincinnati Enquirer. In the 1950s he founded Citizens for Decent Literature and later was appointed (1969) to President Nixon's commission on pornography. From 1972 to 1976 Keating was executive vice president of American Financial Corp., which was investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for financial irregularities. He then ran American Continental Corp. (1976–1984) and Lincoln Savings & Loan (1984–89) until the latter was seized by the government because of heavy losses. Investigations into Lincoln in 1987 led Keating to seek help from five U.S. senators (the so-called Keating Five) who had received large campaign donations from him; several of the senators were later found to have acted improperly. A major player in the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s and 90s, Keating was found guilty of securities fraud, racketeering, and conspiracy in 1992.

See M. Binstein and C. Bowden, Trust Me: Charles Keating and the Missing Billions (1993).

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