[8] Spiegel resigned as Chairman & CEO of Columbia in 1989 after the government targeted him because he was in charge of one of the leading financial institutions in the US doing business with Drexel Burnham.
The charges arose from Columbia's loans to a luxury auto dealership that went sour at a cost of more than $5 million, the construction of a lavish headquarters that regulators sold at a loss of more than $20 million, Spiegel's receipt of a $3-million bonus in 1989 and his alleged use of company funds for personal airplane travel, a gun collection and furnishings for a $1-million Palm Springs condominium.
[12] The trial, which took place in a U.S. District Court in Los Angeles and lasted seven weeks ending the saga of one of the most prominent thrift failures of the past decade.
"[10] At the time, federal authorities acknowledged that their civil case was weakened by Spiegel's acquittal on criminal charges.
[10]"The terms of Friday's settlement, taken alongside the criminal acquittal, call into question what the government has to show for its five-year pursuit of Spiegel, which a Wall Street Journal editorial once referred to as the case of "U.S. vs. the 1980s."
- The Los Angeles Times (2/25/95)[10]He was a significant shareholder and member of the board of PortalPlayer, a supplier of digital and audio technology platforms for consumer electronics.
[13] He was a major stockholder and Chairman of the executive committee at American Well, a privately held telehealth company based in Boston, Massachusetts that provides online urgent care web visits for patients in 46 states.
[18] According to Variety magazine, the museum received donations from Netflix, Bloomberg Philanthropies, producer Charles Roven, and Tom Spiegel.