As the jerry-built empire of Alexander L. Guterma, financial juggler, began to totter early this year, he desperately sought more cash to save it. Guterma, then boss of the F. L. Jacobs Co.. which controlled the Mutual Broadcasting System and at least twelve other corporations, found a likely moneybags in the Dominican Republic's Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo, always willing to pay for favorable publicity. Last week a federal grand jury in Washington charged that Guterma, 44, collected $750,000 from Trujillo to disseminate "political propaganda" and failed to register as an agent of a foreign power. The grand jury also indicted as defendants Hal Roach Jr. and Garland L. Culpepper Jr.. former officers of Mutual Broadcasting.
The indictment said that Guterma and the other defendants offered to act as Trujillo "publicity agents." see that the Mutual Broadcasting System's 450 affiliated stations carried 425 minutes of favorable news a month about Trujillo for 18 months. A week after the deal was made, Guterma was out of his empire and Mutual as the SEC closed in with fraud charges (TIME. Feb. 23). Mutual broadcasts in February are alleged to have contained Dominican propaganda. But with Guterma gone, the puffs stopped.
Mutual officials, who were not told about the deal, said they first got wind of it when Newscaster Robert F. Hurleigh (now Mutual president) went on a press junket to Ciudad Trujillo last May, was confronted with the deal by a Trujillo aide. Shocked and angry, Mutual went to the Justice Department. Trujillo's lawyer also went to the Justice Department after he failed to get the money back from Guterma, turned over the alleged contract with Trujillo.
At week's end Guterma flew into Washington for arraignment, was released on $5,000 bail, raising to $25,000 his bail on three other federal indictments. Said lanky, tanned Guterma: "I have never been an agent for any foreign government, and I have no intention of being one." Roach and Culpepper also denied the charge, but the Dominican Republic announced that it had filed suit in the U.S. District Court against Guterma and associates for fraudulent misrepresentation, seeks return of the $750,000 it says it paid him.