A year and a half after Baltimore-based A&B; Check Cashing collapsed, $17 million is still missing, one owner is dead and the other one isn't talking.

The check-cashing company shuttered its 20 stores shortly after allegations of a massive check-kiting scheme surfaced in June 2006. Alec C. Satisky, one of two brothers who ran A&B; Check Cashing, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the company's headquarters in a strip mall on West Patapsco Avenue - six days before the business filed for bankruptcy protection.

The suicide and A&B;'s demise sent shock waves through Baltimore's financial community; several institutions claimed that they lost more than $17 million through the check-kiting. A bank president resigned after his company was crippled by the losses. For a time, many residents faced difficulties getting their checks cashed.

An FBI probe continues.

Now independent bankruptcy trustees, frustrated in their efforts to track down assets for A&B;'s creditors, are seeking a highly unusual secret meeting in federal court in hopes of jumpstarting their investigation. The trustees asked to keep related court documents that contain "highly sensitive information" under seal, and to exclude the surviving A&B; owner, Brian I. Satisky, from a hearing in judge's chambers.

Kiting is a kind of shell game in which perpetrators typically aim to quickly steal small amounts of cash from banks by taking advantage of a delay between the time checks are accepted and cleared. Two area banks and a money-order business say in court documents that A&B; skimmed money in an elaborate ruse that went undetected amid the big sums of cash and checks it moved through accounts as part of its business.

But the whereabouts of the missing millions remains a mystery, according to the trustees and others involved in the case. The nature of A&B;'s cash-intensive business means that the paper trail is scant, and Brian Satisky has provided few answers, trustee Zvi Guttman said.

"One of them is not talking, and the other one's dead," he said.

Brian Satisky, 55, who has repeatedly asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in bankruptcy hearings and filings, declined to comment. Deborah S. Satisky, Alec Satisky's widow, could not be reached. Her lawyer, Deborah H. Devan, said her client wasn't involved in A&B; and doesn't know whether the business was kiting checks or whether her husband was involved.

Events unfolded last year when Alec Satisky, 57, committed suicide - a .38 caliber revolver was found next to his body, according to police records and the state medical examiner's office.

Two people dialed 911 to report the shooting. One caller told the operator that a shot had been fired but didn't know who had done it; people can be heard crying in the background. Another caller knew that someone had shot himself in the head.

An operator asked, "You know the reason why he done this?"

The caller replied, "No, I have no idea."

According to a police report, Brian Satisky said that he and Alec had been talking that day about committing suicide because their business was in financial ruin. Brian told police that Alec said he needed to make phone calls and went to a back room. Brian said he heard a "pop" sound and went to the room where he found his brother lying on the floor. In the report, police said employees there didn't know the business was having financial problems.

Within a week, state regulators at the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation issued a cease-and-desist order against A&B;, and the check casher's parent company, Colleen Inc., filed for bankruptcy.

Two banks, Baltimore County Savings Bank and Carrollton Bancorp, soon reported their losses and went to court along with Global Express Money Orders Inc. of Silver Spring to make claims against A&B; and the Satiskys. Amid the fallout, Baltimore County Savings CEO Gary Loraditch resigned - the bank lost nearly $11 million. Several banks severed ties with check cashers.

The Satisky brothers spent decades building the A&B; chain of stores that offered check-cashing and bill-payment services. They also sold money orders and prepaid phone cards. The stores catered to the so-called "unbanked," or people who need other means of cashing checks. They were scattered throughout the Baltimore area, primarily in working-class neighborhoods.

The business, according to Brian Satisky's testimony in bankruptcy court, struggled after paying $2 million in 2003 to settle a class-action lawsuit regarding payday loans. Under such loans, people borrow against their paychecks at high interest rates that critics say exploit the working poor.

Nonetheless, Brian Satisky went on to become a prominent member of a trade association and testified to Congress about the need for check-cashing services.

According to Guttman, who is working with a team of forensic accountants on the case, the Satiskys took "generous or undeserved salaries" that increased in the two years before bankruptcy. Alec and Brian Satisky each earned more than $300,000 in 2005, court records show, and Deborah Satisky received a salary of several thousand dollars a year, though Guttman contends it's unclear what work she did.

The check kiting went on for several years, according to the financial institutions that were harmed. Because of its check-cashing services, A&B; deposited hundreds of payments totaling millions of dollars in a given day, a court filing said.

Baltimore County Savings contends that the Satisky brothers signed bad checks on one account, deposited them in another and withdrew cash. In the days before Alec Satisky's suicide, several six-figure checks were signed by both brothers and bounced, according to the banks.

One A&B; business check, allegedly signed by Brian Satisky and written out to Colleen Inc., was for $920,000, documents filed by Carrollton show.

The Satisky brothers didn't live overtly lavish lifestyles. According to property and other records, Alec and Deborah Satisky lived in an Owings Mills split-level home worth less than $450,000, and Brian Satisky had a $435,000 townhouse in a nearby gated community. The brothers list only a few thousand dollars in personal bank accounts, according to court documents.

In his own bankruptcy proceeding, Brian Satisky frequently asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege. For instance, he refused to describe his cash on hand and any boats he may own on a required listing of his property last year. He even invoked his constitutional right not to divulge animals he may own.

With so little information to go on, trustees Guttman and Lori Simpson took a rarely used legal step recently by asking the bankruptcy judge for a private meeting to discuss actions that could be taken and to keep related documents from public view. Judge Nancy V. Alquist, who is presiding over the bankruptcy case, has yet to render a decision.

Brian Satisky's refusal to respond to questions "continues to make any investigation extremely difficult, if not impossible," the trustees said in a court filing.

Marc R. Kivitz, Satisky's lawyer, denies that his client taking the Fifth amounts to a lack of cooperation or obstruction.

Kivitz didn't object to the trustees' request to keep documents under seal, even though he said their motion doesn't provide "any inkling" of what those documents might be. But Kivitz did object to being barred from a proposed hearing on the matter.

"I have absolutely no idea to what they are referring, nor are they going to tell me," Kivitz said. "They say they are not at liberty to discuss it. That may be true, but let me be present when they discuss it with a judge."

Guttman, in an interview, declined to give details on what the trustees are seeking to do but said that the information they want kept under seal "will eventually come out." He said that releasing the information now "would reduce its effectiveness."

Such a legal maneuver is "absolutely unusual," said Robert Grossbart, a bankruptcy lawyer who is not involved in the case. "They could be trying to protect the criminal investigation," he said. "Or maybe, if whatever the information were to be made public, it could jeopardize the speed of negotiations, or spawn more unnecessary litigation."

Guttman said he plans to file a plan of liquidation before the end of the year. He added that the trustees would continue to follow the money trail to determine if, and how, it was spent.

"Is the money sitting somewhere where we can get to it, or has it been spent and can we file a lawsuit to get at it?" Guttman said. "For the most part, I gotta tell you, it's a mystery to me."

laura.smitherman@baltsun.com

Check kiting

Scenario: Suppose you have checking accounts at banks A and B. You don't have any money in Bank A but you write a check from that account for $500 and deposit it in Bank B. You withdraw cash from Bank B and skip out before the check bounces. This is illegal.

How it works: Perpetrators take advantage of the "float," or the amount of time it takes for a bank to clear or bounce a check. When large amounts of money or checks are quickly moving through accounts, the scheme is more difficult to detect.