EMPIRE LOST that Mr. Overmyer will try to regain some of the property he has lost in recent years. “He’ll litigate endlessly,” Mr. Brown said. C HARLIE BROWN’S, a bar in Grand Central Terminal, is a gentleman’s pob where businessmen sip on martinis while waiting for the next train to Hartford and where customers are ex pected to tip the men’s room attendant One raw day last December, men who ordinarily wouldn’t be caught dead reading the Daily News sat around the bar devouring “New Voile's picture newspaper.” On that day, it had a one- word headline, “RUBOUT,” accompa nied by a picture of the body of the chauffeur of Big Paul Castellano sprawled on a Manhattan street, the product of a gangland killing. Every now and then, the Daily News carries a sensational story that is of interest even in the business communi ty. And so it was on March 20, 1978, when some of these same businessmen might have been reading the Daily News headline: “BARE RIPOFF OF BANKRUPT FIRM; Probe Finds Kickbacks, Fa vors.” Inside, readers found a three-page article detailing what the newspaper called “a legal system that allowed a national warehouse chain ... to be ripped off to the tune of countless thousands of dollars.” It went on to accuse the bankruptcy judge in the Overmyer case, Roy Babitt, of a num ber of indiscretions — including nam ing his brother’s auditing firm to han dle appraisals and naming a friend to manage the Overmyer warehousing op eration. Whatever the merits of the allega tions, Judge Babitt was removed from the case, but that certainly didn’t end the controversies. There was a lot at stake in the case, Including 32 million square feet of space managed by the 41 Overmyer warehousing companies. Mr. Overmyer was quoted in the New York limes as saying: “I watched a company with $220 million in assets be reduced to $5 million through mis management and fraud.” The long case could wind down this year, according to David Raible, the man in charge of handling what’s left of the DJEL Overmyer Co. in New York. The company has given up its presti gious Park Avenue address and moved to a small office in an unglamourous little building at 260 Fifth Avenue. Among other things left behind by Mr. Overmyer at 3 Park Avenue were a number of tapes containing his oral memoirs. (According to a person who listened to the tapes, he said his family struggled through the Depression after losing the grocery business; that bis first bicycle was used; that one of his biggest fits of temper occurred when a neighbor cut down a tree he had plant ed, and that he waited tables to help pay his college tuition.) .. What started out as somewhere be tween $100 million and $200 million in claims has been whittled down to about $4 million (many of the original claims involved rents due banks and insurance companies that financed Overmyer warehouses in the sale/leaseback deals). And someday, the claimants still remaining in the case may get cents on the dollar for their claims. However, the other big bankruptcy case, the one involving D.H. Overmyer Telecasting, has produced fireworks in Cleveland and led to an indictment of Mr. Overmyer on nine counts of wire fraud, bankruptcy fraud, and conspira cy last month. One of Mr. Overmyer’s attorneys, referring to the Cleveland bankruptcy case, said, “It was the crookedest thing r have ever seen ... The case was tainted by all kinds of fraud on all sides.” Another of Mr. Overmyer’s attorneys said the case itself was "a fraud on the judiciary. It was debtor’s prison revis ited.” That attorney referred to the main creditor, First National Bank of Boston, as “First Felony Bank of Bos ton.” He was referring to the bank’s clouded reputation since its violations of federal currency laws came to light Last year, the bank pleaded guilty to failing to report $1.2 billion in cash transfers with Swiss banks. The Gov ernment accused the bank of launder ing mob money, and a federal court levied a fine of $500,000. One decision coming ont of the Cleveland bankruptcy makes sensa tional reading. In a 242-page decision In 1982 — Involving two Overmyer companies, Overmyer Telecasting and Hadiur Leasing International — Judge John Ray, Jr., listed numerous “badges of fraud” in the Overmyer transac tions. As decisions go, this one is not timid at alL “(F)raud and deceit have come a long way since 1601,” Judge Ray wrote. “... This court has never en countered such a systematic distortion of troth and the legal system. However, as clever as Mr. Overmyer’s system was, it still left numerous ‘badges of frand.’ ” Judge Ray’s reference was to