BANKING / FINANCE

Keating Assailed: Scalzi was sharp-tongued, blunt and opinionated, skewering indicted former Lincoln Savings & Loan owner Charles H. Keating Jr. and others.

“Keating is the only person I know who could teach Orange County how to make a deal,” Scalzi said. “At least you had the guts to put him in jail up in L.A. I loved it.”

Keating, charged with three others on state securities fraud, spent a month in the Los Angeles County Jail before getting his $5-million bail reduced to $300,000. He is also the prime target of a federal grand jury investigation.

“We’re going to get Mr. Keating and his associates, I hope,” Scalzi said.

He also criticized state Assemblyman Pat Nolan (R-Glendale), who authored the 1983 California financial deregulation law and “said S&Ls; can do anything they want to,” and Lawrence W. Taggart, the former state S&L; commissioner who “gave charters to anyone.”