‘No Smoking Gun’ at Hutton

WASHINGTON — An internal investigation of E.F. Hutton & Co. has implicated about a dozen mid-level and branch office managers in the brokerage firm’s multimillion-dollar check-kiting scheme, a company spokesman said today.

Results of the internal audit, conducted by former Atty. Gen. Griffin Bell at Hutton’s request, will be released Thursday in Washington. In an internal talk over the company’s public address system Tuesday, Robert Fomon, chairman and chief executive officer, told employees that Bell’s audit “didn’t find a smoking gun,” implicating the top management and “it’s become clear that nobody else will, either.”