Candidate for Proposed Campus Job Faces Charges : CSUN: The former Stanford bookstore manager pleaded not guilty last month to theft and tax evasion counts.

The former manager of the Stanford University bookstore, who faces theft and tax evasion charges stemming from his work there, is the prime candidate to direct a book-buying cooperative being proposed to help boost revenues at the Cal State Northridge bookstore, campus officials said Tuesday.

Eldon Speed, the manager of Stanford’s bookstore for 25 years, pleaded not guilty last month to five counts of grand theft and two counts of state income tax evasion, his attorney, Allen Ruby, said.

Prosecutors say Speed, 55, illegally used more than $100,000 in Stanford bookstore funds to buy real estate, furnishings and cars. Ruby said all perquisites that Speed received were authorized by the board of directors who govern bookstore operations.

A preliminary hearing on the charges is scheduled today in San Jose Municipal Court, said Linda Condron, a deputy district attorney who is handling the case.

“I’d love to talk about this and proclaim my innocence, but my attorney has asked me not to comment,” Speed said in a telephone interview from his home in Fremont, Calif.

Don Queen, Cal State Northridge Corp. director, said he knows of the pending charges but said Speed--a part-time CSUN bookstore consultant since fall--remains his candidate to direct the bookstore project.

“If you talk to bookstore people, you’ll probably find that well over half of the bookstore managers you talk to will say he is the best,” Queen said. “To me, competence is highly regarded. That’s the highest priority with me.”

Queen said based on information from Speed’s defense attorneys, he believes that Speed is innocent.

“The way I understand the situation, they (Stanford) wanted to retain him and because they didn’t feel they could justify another salary increase, they offered him the perks,” Queen said. “I think they got excessive and I think a lot of people would agree on that, but if my employers offer me a car, I’m going to accept it.”

The criminal charges were filed two months after Queen recommended Speed to the university corporation’s board of directors to operate a book cooperative that would allow a group of area universities to purchase books in large, cost-saving amounts. The book cooperative has been proposed to UC Irvine, UCLA, USC and California State University campuses at Fullerton, Long Beach and Pomona, Queen said.

“The board was aware that Mr. Speed had been in some hot water, that’s for sure,” said Fabio Escobar, who as student body president serves on the university corporation’s governing board. “We did not know that there were charges pending against him, at least I didn’t.”

The controversy surrounding Speed and two upper management Stanford bookstore officials began after a February, 1992, article in The Daily, the Stanford University newspaper. The campus paper reported large stock market investment losses from bookstore accounts and cited extravagant compensation packages to senior bookstore officials, including Speed.

The paper reported that Speed and other senior bookstore officers had received cars, use of a sailboat, motor home and a house in the Sierra foothills as compensation.

The house, situated in the Sierra Nevada foothills, was used as a retreat and vacation site for bookstore managers. It was furnished using bookstore funds and leased by the bookstore from a company owned by Speed and his former bookstore deputy manager, Philip Chiaramonte.

A second man who worked for Speed--Patrick McDonald, the bookstore controller--was later accused of losing $1.8 million in bookstore funds through risky stock market investments.

The disclosures prompted investigations by state and county prosecutors.

The Santa Clara County district attorney’s office filed criminal charges against Speed in February. The state attorney general’s office, which conducted a three-year investigation, settled its case against Speed in January, after the bookstore’s insurance carrier repaid $1 million to the bookstore and another $83,000 in state investigation costs.

As part of the settlement, Speed and Chiaramonte also returned ownership of the vacation house to the bookstore, which sold it for $385,000, said Matt Ross, a spokesman for the state attorney general’s office in Sacramento.

An investigation into the stock losses continues against McDonald, Ross said.

Despite his troubles, when Speed retired from the university in September, 1993, he was credited by university officials with building the business into an economic powerhouse with more than $50 million in annual sales from two large bookstores, a clothing shop, a convenience store and half a dozen smaller community college bookstores in the Bay Area.

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“If he is guilty of anything, it may have been poor judgment in accepting all those perks,” said Garis Distelhorst, chief executive officer of the National Assn. of College Stores. The association, based in Oberlin, Ohio, represents 3,000 college bookstores, and sells to 97% of the nation’s college students, he said.

Distelhorst said a legal defense fund has been established on behalf of Speed and Chiaramonte, who surrendered retirement benefits in order to settle the state attorney general’s case.

“There is nobody in the industry that has been more highly respected or admired in the college store industry than Eldon Speed,” Distelhorst said.