Brea Man Is Slain in Ambush : Victim Was Subject of Tax Fraud Probe Into Topless Bars

A former California Highway Patrol officer under investigation for tax fraud in connection with the operation of several Los Angeles nude and topless bars was killed in a hail of gunfire early Thursday as he arrived at the gate of his remote Brea home in a chauffeured limousine.

Horace Joseph McKenna, 46, a body builder whose sprawling $825,000 estate reportedly was guarded at times by men with machine guns, died instantly in the gangland-style ambush at 12:30 a.m., police said. The motive was unknown.

McKenna, who had convictions for counterfeiting and assault, was killed only hours after Los Angeles Superior Court records were unsealed detailing a district attorney’s investigation of him and a business partner, Michael Woods, also a former CHP officer. These records alleged that McKenna and Woods were the hidden owners of several nude and topless bars.

The 300-page file, unsealed Wednesday at the request of attorneys for McKenna and Woods, named several associates of Woods and McKenna, including at least eight who allegedly conspired with them to hide profits and skim money. Authorities were close to filing charges against McKenna at the time of his death, Los Angeles County district attorney’s spokesman Andy Reynolds said.

Several law enforcement agencies--including the Los Angeles police and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the Long Beach police and the FBI--had monitored McKenna’s and Woods’ alleged hidden interests in the bars, as well as illegal gambling, narcotics and prostitution activities, according to the documents.

Investigators said that McKenna and Woods “have maintained associations with terminated, retired and currently employed law enforcement officers, thus making this investigation extremely sensitive.”

The shooting broke out as McKenna’s chauffeur, Bob Berg, was returning to the car after unlocking the gated entrance to the home, known as Tara Ranch, in the 6200 block of Carbon Canyon Road, police and employees at the ranch said. McKenna, physically imposing at 300 pounds, had been asleep in the car, police said. After the attack, Berg, 42, who was unhurt, drove to the house, a mile and a half away.

Berg, reached by telephone Thursday night, said he would have no comment “until I talk to a lawyer.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, I’ve had enough,” Berg said, his voice trembling. Berg was identified in the unsealed documents as one of the eight men who allegedly conspired with McKenna and Woods in the tax case.

Authorities said that “McKenna appears to live a life style which apparently exceeds his reported income.”

Flamboyant Character

At 6 feet 6, McKenna was known as “Mac or Big Mac or just Big,” said an associate who described him as a flamboyant and mysterious character who kept exotic animals on his ranch, where he also entertained nightclub dancers. McKenna was recently divorced from his wife Sherry, who feared for her life because of threats from him, according to her attorney, Richard Debro.

McKenna had a history of confrontation with authorities, including a federal conviction for conspiracy to counterfeit in 1976, a Los Angeles conviction for assault with a weapon in a San Pedro bar in 1982, and a record of arrests for running what was described as a large prostitution ring in 1975.

As a convicted felon, McKenna would not be legally qualified to own businesses that hold liquor licenses.

Since buying the Brea property 2 years ago for $825,000, McKenna had stocked the ranch with Arabian show horses--some worth as much as $20,000, friends said. He remodeled a sprawling, ranch-style home on the property, installed a swimming pool and rose garden and was in the process of completing an Old West-style “ghost town,” complete with a Main Street and facades of a saloon, blacksmith shop and bank, they said.

According to Bill Gray, 42, owner of the Star Gym in Brea where McKenna worked out, McKenna owned several wild animals, including a leopard, a 500-pound tiger and an elephant. On June 23, 1988, state Department of Fish and Game authorities seized 2 spider monkeys, a black leopard and a tiger at the property because they were being kept illegally, a department spokesman said.

An undercover police officer, investigators said, once overheard McKenna say that his personal wealth included the Brea property, a penthouse apartment, Arabian horses and a $20,000 boot collection. The bars grossed as much as $2,561,900 a year, investigators estimated.

According to the massive investigative file, authorities had in recent months interviewed numerous employees and concluded that many were “extremely loyal” to McKenna and Woods while others were intimidated.

Some spoke confidentially, investigators said, apparently out of “extreme fear” of McKenna and Woods because they were former law enforcement officers and because of McKenna’s size and “intimidating manner,” the documents said.

Mike Tutty, 31, McKenna’s longtime friend and a member at the 4 Star Gym in El Segundo, which KcKenna owned, described him Thursday as “a very intimidating person. . . . He was a person who commanded attention. He wanted people to know who he was. He had a big ego, and he needed fodder for that ego. And he pretty much got it.”

Moreover, Tutty said: “He liked the ladies, there’s no doubt about it. He was very gracious to the ladies.”

Dana Sermas, one of several female horse trainers for McKenna, said Thursday that he entertained friends and business associates by taking them on horseback rides and giving them “guided tours of his ghost town.

Entertained ‘Bimbos’

McKenna also regularly entertained a group of young women whom he laughingly referred to as his “bimbos” because they worked as dancers at nightclubs in the Los Angeles area, according to Sermas and Ingrid Locken, another horse trainer.

Locken and Sermas said they were under the impression that the clubs featured topless dancing, and they added that the women whom McKenna brought out to the ranch “dressed in sleazy outfits.”

Another member of the El Segundo gym, Pete Cahill, 35, called McKenna “the most lovable gangster in the world. If he was a gangster, I guess that’s the way you’ve got to go.”

Cahill said that at the gym it was understood that McKenna “owned a lot of topless places. It was an unspoken thing, everybody knew but nobody talked about it.”

A native of New Orleans, McKenna served with the CHP from June, 1968, to June, 1972, working in the West Los Angeles area before resigning from the force, according to a CHP spokesman.

Riverside County court records show that McKenna pleaded guilty early in 1973 to one count of credit card forgery, and that five other counts were dismissed.

On April 14, 1976, McKenna surrendered to Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies investigating what they said was a prostitution ring centered in the Inglewood and Lennox areas. McKenna, vice squad deputies said, was being sought as a suspected kingpin of the ring.

They linked McKenna and the prostitution operation to establishments called the Institute of Oral Love, Sexual Relief Center and Wild Mary’s. The latter two were temporarily shut down during the investigation. The outcome of that case was not known Thursday.

McKenna was convicted of conspiracy and counterfeiting on July 16, 1976, and sentenced to serve 6 years in federal prison.

McKenna became the focus of the tax fraud investigation in mid-1987, authorities said. In recent months, according to the documents, investigators were developing a case that McKenna was living well beyond his means.

Investigators estimated mortgage payments at $70,000 per year on the Carbon Canyon property, purchased in February, 1986. In addition, they said, McKenna employed groundskeepers to maintain the horse training track, Western movie set, grounds and residence.

“Both estimated monthly payments and employment cost well exceeds McKenna’s reported income of $44,431 . . . and strongly suggests that the McKennas were involved in a fraudulent loan application scheme or received funds from unreported income,” investigators said.

Investigators said Sherry McKenna has no other source of income. The couple was divorced in 1987.

Debro, the attorney for McKenna’s former wife, said McKenna “used drugs and became incredibly violent.” He said Sherry McKenna has been in hiding.

“I’ve seen her after she had been beaten up (by him), the black eyes, things like that,” Debro said. “The law didn’t mean anything to him.

“She said she had no doubt in her mind that he would kill her or have her killed” if she insisted on fighting their ultimate divorce case settlement, the attorney said. “He had threatened to kill her with a gun to her head.”

When McKenna and his then-girlfriend rented an apartment in El Segundo in 1987, investigators noted, McKenna listed his annual gross income as $44,431. Investigators said they believed McKenna uses the 4 Star Gym as a legitimate source of income.

Big, Lovable Man

Neither Gray nor other friends and associates contacted Thursday professed any idea who would have wanted to harm him. They described McKenna as a big, lovable man building a shangri la on his ranch for the pleasure of friends and their children.

“There wasn’t a mean bone in his body,” said Gray. “He would take people’s kids up (to the ranch) and give them horseback rides.”

Sermas said McKenna was in the process of installing an electronic gate at his home so the chauffeur would not have to get out of the limousine every time they entered. She said that the gate was ready to be installed as soon as Southern California Edison Co. work crews came out to hook it up.

While police tried to piece together details of the attack, one resident recalled that she had thought nothing of three visitors to McKenna’s home on Wednesday night, although later they seemed ominous. About 6:55 p.m., the neighbor said, she watched three people “going over the fence.” One had a flashlight. Police would not immediately comment on that or other details of the case.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela Ferrero said she didn’t know what relationship the unsealing of the court documents had with the murder.

“I’ll tell you one thing. It’s real surprising that a tax law investigation turned out like this. Maybe there’s something we don’t know about.”

Contributing to coverage of this story were staff writers Richard Beene, Jim Carlton, Dianne Klein, Eric Lichtblau and Nancy Wride in Orange County, and Richard Colvin, Hector Tobar, Sebastian Rotella and Boris Yaro in Los Angeles.