DENVER—A key figure in the 1980s savings and loan scandal has jumped to his death in Florida.
Hillsborough County, Fla., medical examiner’s office spokesman Henry Poage says Michael Wise jumped from the ninth level of a parking garage at Tampa International Airport on April 8. He was taken to a hospital but died in the emergency room.
He was 64.
Wise, formerly of Emporia, Kan., had served as chairman of Denver-based Silverado Savings and Loan, whose 1988 collapse cost taxpayers $1 billion. A jury acquitted him of criminal charges in connection with that failure, but he was banned from banking for life.
He later pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $9 million from investors in an Aspen mortgage business and served 3 1/2 years in federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan.
