Keating’s Wife Tells of Jail ‘Nightmare’ for Ex-S&L; Chief

The wife of Charles H. Keating Jr. says his three weeks in the Los Angeles County Jail have been a “living nightmare” as he awaits trial on securities fraud charges stemming from his time as chairman of American Continental Corp., former parent of the failed Lincoln Savings & Loan.

In a letter to several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, Mary Elaine Keating gave a glimpse of the jailed developer’s life in maximum security, where he is being kept for his own protection from other inmates.

“He spends every day in a tiny concrete cell with an iron door,” she wrote in the letter, published on The Times’ editorial page today. “Except for court appearances, he does not see daylight. He is chained and shackled . . . when he is escorted to the attorney room to meet with his lawyers.”