Acting director of thrift regulator is put on leave

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The door keeps revolving at the Office of Thrift Supervision as more regulators are caught up in an investigation into thrifts that manipulated their books -- with the agency’s help.

The OTS announced Thursday that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner had appointed John E. Bowman, the OTS’ deputy director and chief counsel, as acting director ‘effective immediately.’

He replaces Scott M. Polakoff, the agency’s chief operating officer, who was acting director for less than a month. The short release from the OTS said that Polakoff ‘is on leave pending a review by the Treasury of the OTS’ August 2008 actions related to post-period capital contributions.’

That’s shorthand for saying that Polakoff may have been involved in allowing thrifts to inflate their quarter-end capital positions in their regulatory filings by including money that actually came in after the end of a quarter.

Polakoff had replaced John M. Reich, who oversaw the agency during the collapse of IndyMac Bancorp last year.

It was Reich who had appointed Darrel W. Dochow to oversee the OTS’ Western region. Dochow was in charge last spring when IndyMac Bank backdated a capital infusion to make it look as if the thrift had met federal thresholds of financial health, when in fact it had fallen short. That allowed IndyMac to remain open longer and attract new deposits at high interest rates -- which raised the cost of its failure when the government finally seized it in July.

The Office of Inspector General for the Treasury is expected to release a report soon on the IndyMac case and at least four other cases of thrifts that backdated capital infusions.

Dochow was demoted in December after the backdating incident became public. Both he and Reich retired at the end of February.

-- William Heisel