The University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University likely will not recover all of the $114 million they invested with two East Coast investment managers who were charged Wednesday with securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy, legal experts said yesterday.

Whether the two universities and other investors with Westridge Capital Management will receive pennies on the dollar of their investments or higher amounts could take a year or more to sort out, lawyers said.

"They certainly are not going to get 100 percent back, and it's highly unlikely they'll get 50 percent back," said attorney and securities expert Evan Stewart, a senior partner in the New York law offices of Zuckerman Spaeder.

"Might they get 15, 20, 25 cents? It all goes to the endeavors of finding assets that can be pooled for the purpose of unsecured creditors," he said. "It could be pennies on dollar."

Westridge Capital Management and a number of affiliated funds and entities were operated by Paul Greenwood, 61, of North Salem, N.Y., and Stephen Walsh, 64, of Sands Point, N.Y., longtime associates and former co-own-

co-owners of the New York Islanders hockey team.

The men were charged by the FBI in Manhattan with misappropriating more than $500 million of investors' money to hide losses and finance a lavish lifestyle that included purchases of $80,000 collectible teddy bears, horses and a $3 million condominium for an ex-wife.

Also Wednesday, both men were sued in civil court by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which alleged that the partners misappropriated more than $553 million and "fraudulently solicited" $1.3 billion from investors since 1996.

Mr. Greenwood and Mr. Walsh were released yesterday on $7 million bond each, secured by $1 million in cash or property not derived from the alleged fraud. Mr. Walsh put up his home in Sands Point, N.Y. and Mr. Greenwood put up two properties in North Salem, N.Y.

According to a lawsuit filed by the local universities last Friday, Pitt had invested more than $65 million with Westridge since 2002. CMU had invested with Westridge since April and had a balance of more than $49 million as of Jan. 31, according to the lawsuit.

Attorney David Rudov, a bankruptcy specialist with the Pittsburgh law firm Rudov & Stein, agreed with Mr. Stewart that the two universities and other investors with Westridge are not in a desirable position given the allegations against the men.

At this stage, he said, the amount of money investors will have returned to them through the federal court suits is unknown "but my guess is it's not going to be all that high, given the facts I've seen.

"It's been my experience over 28 years that when this happens, the cows are out of the barn and people are looking to point fingers at each other," he said.

Like the criminal case against the men, the civil proceedings will likely take place in Manhattan. A federal judge there has appointed a temporary receiver, or custodian, to determine financial assets the men controlled until the suits were filed, to search for others and to determine whether there are physical assets they purchased illegally.

Those assets would then be pooled to pay back creditors. First in line are secured creditors such as taxing bodies and companies that had contracts with Westridge and the other entities controlled by Mr. Greenwood and Mr. Walsh for goods and services.

And then would come unsecured creditors such as the universities, charitable organizations, retirement and pension funds who invested with Mr. Greenwood and Mr. Walsh. In addition to Pitt and CMU, others include the Sacramento County Employees' Retirement System, the Iowa Public Employees' Retirement System and the North Dakota Retirement and Investment Office.

The receiver will come up with a plan that a judge will be asked to approve for distribution of the remainder of the assets on an equal percentage of their investment for the unsecured creditors.

"Secured creditors go first and then the question is, how much is left for unsecured creditors. Usually the answer is little or nothing," said Mr. Stewart, who teaches at Fordham University Law School and Brooklyn Law School.

"Given the news reports of how these men handled this particular matter, it surely doesn't sound like there's a whole lot. It sounds like they used the funds like a piggy bank."

Mr. Stewart said there was nothing in the case against the men that surprised him, saying the type of fraud being alleged has occurred for three decades or more and is the kind of case he teaches in his classes.

"The names change, the amounts of money change but the basic story is not that different. People come at you, whether it's the Music Man or whomever, and talk fast and move their hands quickly and before you know it your wallet's gone."