Charities Make Mike Milken Their Most-Wanted Man : Securities: Many groups are seeking financial help from the former junk bond king sentenced to community service.

He may be the most hotly pursued ex-con in history.

A month after disgraced junk bond king Michael Milken was freed from prison and reported to a dingy Hollywood halfway house, dozens of charities, nonprofit agencies and community groups are eagerly seeking the free services and financial acumen of a man who once made $550 million in a single year.

Under the terms of his prison sentence--shortened from 10 years to two because of his cooperation with authorities--Milken must perform 1,800 hours of court-approved community service during the next three years. The prospect has everyone from riot-recovery activists to directors of children’s shelters salivating over the possibilities.

Beverly Hills consultant Lorraine Spurge, a close friend of Milken, estimated that as many as 200 requests for Milken’s services have come in since he was incarcerated.

As word of the former financier’s new, albeit temporary, residency in Hollywood has spread, leaders from that community are considering adding their names to the list.

“We need all the help we can get,” said Jeanne Hon, principal at Hollywood High School. “Forget that he got in trouble. . . . We’d love him.”

Before he came to symbolize the excesses of the ‘80s, Milken had a long-standing interest in at-risk children and education, leading to predictions by friends and former colleagues that Milken will attempt to perform his community service work in those areas upon his release from the halfway house in March. Milken so far has declined requests for interviews to discuss his intentions, but has left open the possibility of talking when his plans are more concrete.

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Ultimately, a judge must approve any community service work Milken proposes, but it seems safe to assume that he won’t be scrubbing graffiti or sweeping streets.

Joe Shea of Hollywood’s Ivar Hill Community Assn. is asking Milken to “put his business expertise to work in the struggling central Hollywood community near Hollywood and Vine”--the same area where Milken’s halfway house is located.

“He could probably do great things for a small community like ours,” Shea said. “There’s no reason he can’t work at the grass-roots level in Hollywood, as many of us do.”

Implicit in the suggestion--and in similar overtures from throughout the city--is that nonprofit groups and agencies are so starved for first-rate financial advice that they welcome it even from a figure who was convicted three years ago on six counts of securities fraud.

Barbara Cull, executive director and founder of Educational Resource & Services Center (ERAS), a multi-resource center for children and families in Culver City, envisions Milken putting her 11-year-old program on solid ground as corporate, foundation and government dollars dwindle. Just last week, the state trimmed $40,000 from ERAS’ budget.

“What I was hoping was that Michael would be able to come up with a strategy so we won’t be so vulnerable,” Cull said.

Those working to help the city recover from last spring’s riots also have their eyes on the 46-year-old former Drexel Burnham Lambert executive. Milken financed a literacy and youth training center in the Crenshaw District through the Urban League of Los Angeles, giving rise to hopes there that he may want to work for that organization.

“He obviously has a tremendous amount of talent and expertise we could utilize,” Urban League of Los Angeles President John Mack said, adding that Milken could be especially helpful with the league’s soon-to-be-launched entrepreneurial training center.

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Despite his friendship with Rebuild L.A. Co-Chairman Peter V. Ueberroth, there are no indications so far that Milken will seek to work directly with the city’s most prominent post-riot organization. He apparently will, however, assist in a fund-raiser for Variety, the children’s charity, to be held this summer in conjunction with Rebuild L.A.

Not everyone, however, is eager to have Milken share his financial skills.

Robert Nudelman, chairman of the Hollywood Project Area Committee, accused Milken of being one of the primary practitioners of a “profit over all” philosophy that led to the country’s current problems. He called for Milken to work in a homeless shelter.

“Let him work with the people he put in that thing,” he said.