For more than a decade, investors placed millions of dollars and mountains of trust in Westridge Capital Management and its owners, accused frauds Paul Greenwood and Stephen Walsh.

Following the money managers' arrest last month by the FBI, the trust is gone.

And, federal regulators now say, most of the money is, too.

A court filing yesterday by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission shows that Westridge clients -- who include the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University -- stand little chance of getting much of their investments back.

The schools have a total of $114 million at stake.

There is a "strong probability that the defendants do not have sufficient assets to remotely cover the losses incurred by their misappropriation of investor funds," the CFTC said.

"In any event, it appears likely that the investor losses dwarf defendants' remaining assets."

Those statements confirmed what legal experts have already guessed -- that investors will be lucky to get back pennies on the dollar from Westridge.

Authorities claim Mr. Greenwood and Mr. Walsh misappropriated more than $553 million since 1996, of which $160 million was lavished on such items as cars, horses, rare books, real estate and collectible teddy bears.

Yesterday's filing was part of a court battle over whether a judge should unfreeze some of the assets belonging to Mr. Greenwood, 62, and Mr. Walsh, 64, so they can pay living and legal expenses.

Their lawyers called a complete asset freeze "wholly unreasonable and excessive" but described their clients' needs as "quite reasonable -- approximately $2,500 per week -- and included allowances for such necessities as food, water, electricity and fuel for heating, and for expenditures necessary to preserve their assets, which the SEC and CFTC clearly want maintained for possible sale and distribution to victims of the alleged fraud," their lawyers wrote.

Federal authorities had another word for the expenses: "luxurious."

Both men stated they have no source of income -- something regulators pounced on as proof that the only assets the two have came from their alleged fraudulent activity.

Regulators said Mr. Greenwood, of North Salem, N.Y., went a step further and asked for more than $350,000 for "upkeep of properties" and nearly $1 million to keep his 80-horse farm running -- a request the CFTC called "beyond the pale."

Some examples of Mr. Greenwood's stated needs, according to the CFTC, are: feed ($70,000); hay ($60,000), blacksmith ($60,000); property taxes ($211,584); orthodontics ($35,000); and landscaping ($40,000).

The CFTC wrote that it "would be remiss if it did not point out its revulsion at the notion of allowing the use of funds procured from cheated investors to pay for the expenses of third parties."