Ex-Thompson Partner Denies Asset Fraud : Courts: Michael F. Goodwin, a suspect in the car racing-pioneer’s murder, pleads not guilty in bankruptcy case.

SANTA ANA —  The estranged business partner of murdered millionaire car-racing pioneer Mickey Thompson pleaded not guilty Friday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana to charges that he concealed and transferred more than $500,000 in assets during federal bankruptcy proceedings.

Michael F. Goodwin, who law enforcement officials said this week has not been eliminated as a suspect in the 1988 murder of Thompson and his wife, Trudy, was ordered back to a federal cell in Los Angeles pending the posting of an $850,000 bond.

Even if Goodwin makes bail, U.S. Magistrate Judge Elgin Edwards in Santa Ana ordered that the former Laguna Beach businessman will have to wear an electronic monitoring device and continue living with a friend, who is also his physician, in Coto de Caza.

Prosecutors argued unsuccessfully that Goodwin should be held without bail because he previously fled the United States amid problems with a civil suit against him.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Susan Wiech read to the court excerpts from letters Goodwin had written while he was in the Caribbean in which he said he would rather be a “sailing bum outside the U.S.” than return to deal with the financial and legal disputes that had put him at odds with Thompson in their former partnership in auto-race promotions.

In a separate hearing Friday, Goodwin’s ex-wife, Diane Seidel, who lives in Florida but plans to move to Virginia, also pleaded not guilty to the same charges and was released on a promise that her brother would furnish a $50,000 bond by July 23. Seidel voluntarily surrendered to authorities Friday after flying to Los Angeles from Florida.

There was no mention of the homicide case in court or in the fraud indictment that was unsealed Friday.

Goodwin and Seidel went to the Caribbean on a 57-foot yacht named Believe two weeks after the March 16, 1988, murders. Thompson and his wife were leaving for work that morning when police say two young men lurking outside their home in Bradbury in the San Gabriel Valley shot them to death and fled on 10-speed bicycles. The assailants didn’t take any of the $70,000 in jewelry that Trudy Thompson was wearing or the $4,000 in cash the couple was carrying.

Goodwin was arrested Wednesday after he appeared in bankruptcy court for a hearing in a dispute over a bankruptcy judge’s administration of a $3-million pension fund that Goodwin says he holds from one of his past companies.

Denying any wrongdoing, Goodwin has maintained in court filings that he was “compulsive” in following federal bankruptcy rules and always intended to pay his creditors “one hundred cents on the dollar.”

But the 14-count indictment unsealed Friday alleges that Goodwin and Seidel “knowingly and fraudulently transferred and concealed from officers of the bankruptcy court and creditors” a partnership distribution of $365,000 from an investment known as JGA Group/Whitehawk Homes at North Ranch, as well as a $215,000 partnership interest known as Palm Desert Estates and Desert Investors.

The indictment further alleges that the couple fraudulently transferred and concealed the “criminally derived property” by purchasing more than $500,000 in cashier’s checks within the span of a week in May, 1988, and then used much of the money to buy more than 700 Golden Eagle Coins.

The current whereabouts of the money and gold coins are unknown, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Carl Biggs, assigned to the case as a specially appointed federal prosecutor.

Goodwin’s declaration of bankruptcy was spurred in part by a 1986 judgment ordering him to pay Mickey Thompson $768,733 as a result of a business dispute that grew out of their joint promotion of motor sport races.

Goodwin has alleged that the sums mentioned in the indictment were part of a pension fund he and Seidel were entitled to as the result of a negotiated, out-of-court stipulation that had been violated by the Thompsons.

In a statement distributed outside the courtroom by a family friend, Goodwin said the March 30, 1988, stipulation replaced all prior court orders freezing various assets and “absolutely permitted Diane Goodwin” to receive the proceeds now challenged by the government.

But attorneys for Goodwin and Seidel declined to discuss the case Friday.

During the court proceedings Friday, the prosecution also read correspondence from Goodwin in which he claimed an income of $10,000 a month. Goodwin’s accountant testified that Goodwin has income from several real estate investments in Ohio and elsewhere.

Goodwin’s mother, Merna, testified that he receives income from managing the family’s small trust fund, but she couldn’t recall how much. Whatever he is paying himself from the fund, she said, “he’s getting it honestly. . . . He’s never cheated us.”

Goodwin’s parents, who live in Colorado, accountant Colin Cooper, and Dr. Bernard De Barry, pledged personal assets toward Goodwin’s bail, but it will take about week to process the paper work, court officials said. A Sept. 7 trial date was set.