WASHINGTON -- A lawyer who previously worked for a failed bank has been permanently barred from banking, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency announced this week.
Augustus I. Cavallari Jr., former counsel to the failed Summit National Bank, Torrington, Conn., was banned from the industry because of his role in restructuring two insider-related loans that caused a loss to the bank of $544,903. Mr. Cavallari's action contributed to the bank's collapse in 1992, the OCC said.
In August, the OCC ordered the lawyer to pay back the $544,903, plus interest, and to pay $83,000 in civil penalties.
In 1993, the Comptroller's office found that Mr. Cavallari had violated a temporary cease-and-desist order by taking part in the restructuring, which involved the release of five personal guarantors, all of whom were friends, kin, or business associates of Richard D. Barbieri, the bank's organizer and consultant.
In the restructuring, the loans' new guarantor was a nearly insolvent corporation owned by Mr. Barbieri and his associates.
The Cavallari case is one of the first against a lawyer under a standard created by the 1989 thrift bailoUt law. This provision includes independent contractors among the people subject to enforcement actions.
