SANTA BARBARA -- Former Oxnard financial adviser Donald Dayton Lukens, whose list of former clients varies from professional athletes and models to a former schoolteacher and a church pastor, will get no relief from the $47 million in debts he listed in an application for bankruptcy protection.

In a rare ruling Wednesday afternoon in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Judge Robin Riblet threw Lukens to his creditors, putting the fate of his debts in their hands, knowing that some have accused him of swindling them out of their life savings, homes and college funds.

Riblet ordered that Lukens be forever denied the opportunity to discharge his many debts. She said he "unreasonably delayed" the administration of his estate during the past two and a half years, and displayed a "lack of candor and failure to produce ... information."

Lukens, 52, who insisted he was innocent, declined comment to a reporter upon departing from the courtroom.

"Everything you do, or have done, in this case has obfuscated the issue," Riblet told Lukens.

"You have been in court many times, and you are always very self-effacing," she said. "You always seem very sincere. ... 'Golly gee, judge, I don't know what else I can do.' But your words have been continuously belied by your actions, which have been nothing."

Even as Riblet prefaced her ruling with details of the many documents Lukens had failed to file, or produce, despite repeated requests, Lukens interrupted to protest.

"I don't know what else I can really do," said Lukens, who represented himself at the hearing. "Where am I supposed to, all of a sudden, find more documents?"

Department of Justice Attorney Brian Fittipaldi, who has been frustrated in attempts to determine what assets Lukens may possess, spoke outside the courtroom to a group of Lukens' former investors, some of whom were still in tears after telling the court how Lukens allegedly took their money and left them destitute.

"Any assets that he may have out there are fair game," Fittipaldi said as he explained the "extraordinary remedy" of Riblet's ruling. Fittipaldi assured the creditors that Lukens' liability to them "has not been discharged and never can be."

Lukens and his wife, Denise, requested Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in March 2001, stating in court documents that their debts totaled $47 million, but that they had less than $1 million in assets. In one hearing, Donald Lukens testified he was so poor he was driving a borrowed van, a sharp contrast to the life of luxury he had lived.

At Wednesday's hearing Lukens said he was now employed in "the Midwest" as an accountant earning $12.50 an hour. When pressed by Riblet, Lukens conceded it was in Chicago.

Fittipaldi presented documents to Riblet under seal that, he said, were the results of a recent credit report on Lukens. Fittipaldi said the address shown in the report "isn't consistent with a debtor that doesn't have assets."

Lukens, who has the right to appeal the ruling, said it was a rental at which he visits his children when in town.

In a possible hint to the location, Riblet quipped: "Maybe he owns a place on Lakeshore Drive; maybe he doesn't."

It was an apparent reference to the tony stretch of Lakeshore Drive in Chicago.

The ordeal may not be over for Lukens.

Prior to the hearing he was given a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission by an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The agent declined comment on a criminal investigation of Lukens.

The agent attended Wednesday's hearing.