McNall on Verge of an Early Release

Former King owner Bruce McNall, whose dizzying rise from youthful coin collector to owner of the Kings and NHL power broker ended when he pleaded guilty to defrauding banks and other financial institutions of $236 million, is on track to be released from federal prison and placed in a halfway house in Los Angeles next year.

That would represent an early exit for McNall, who went to prison in March 1997 to serve a 70-month sentence for two counts of bank fraud, one count of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy.

McNall, 50, is in a correctional facility in Milan, Mich., about 50 miles southwest of Detroit. The man who once headed the NHL’s Board of Governors and mingled with actors, comedians, and political leaders was initially sent to a medium-security facility in Lompoc, where he spent months in a windowless cell and got food and soap passed through a slit in the door. He was later moved to Safford, Ariz., Oklahoma City and Michigan.

He can be released no earlier than March, said his attorney, Robert Geringer of Santa Monica. When he is permitted to go to the halfway house, a standard procedure for prisoners being eased out of the federal corrections system, he will be subject to various restrictions.

He will be permitted to leave the premises to go to work but must report back by a certain time each night. He also will not be allowed to travel out of Los Angeles. However, he will have wider visitation rights than he has in prison, where it can take 90 minutes to clear security procedures. He will, for example, be allowed to attend hockey games, Geringer said.

“I would guess he’d have to talk to his parole officer,” he said. “That’s the guy who can pull your ticket.”

Geringer anticipates no roadblocks that would preclude McNall’s release. He said the release should come through in the first half of next year, although it might not occur until several weeks later.

“He’s absolutely looking forward to this, and you can put that in bold letters,” Geringer said Wednesday.

“Bruce is very thankful for all of the support he has received from all the people in the sports and entertainment industry, and he’s looking forward to moving forward with his life with a better plan.”

McNall is likely to spend six months at the halfway house.

“There are exceptions on both ends,” Geringer said. “If someone has no job or no place to go, they can stay longer. If [halfway house officials] need the bed, he could spend less time there, and I have talked to people for whom that has been the case.”

According to the terms of his January 1997 sentencing in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, McNall must serve five years’ probation after he is released from prison. He must also fulfill a restitution order of $5 million to the banks he defrauded.

“He’s had to make, and will have to continue to make, payments toward that restitution order,” Geringer said.

McNall’s assets, however, are gone. His house was sold to satisfy judgments against him, and he has not lined up a job that would enable him to repay his debts.

“He hasn’t made any plans and hasn’t had any conversations along those lines,” Geringer said. “He has to get out, get into the halfway house and get a little more freedom first.”

McNall’s prison jobs have included typing and filing, clerking in a warehouse, cutting tree limbs, operating a tractor, directing construction traffic at Vandenberg Air Force Base and stacking sandbags to ease the way for a rare species of frog to cross the road near the air base.

McNall, who was worth an estimated $150 million in 1993--five years after he brought Wayne Gretzky to Los Angeles and the year the Kings reached the Stanley Cup finals--at one point earned between eight and 40 cents an hour in prison. Once accustomed to buying sports teams, such as the Kings and the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts, he had to settle for buying a prison softball team from a fellow inmate for two helpings of soup.

Despite his fraudulent activities, McNall inspired deep loyalty from many of his friends.

King left wing Luc Robitaille visited him in prison last spring, when the Kings played Detroit in the first round of the playoffs, and Gretzky also remained a friend and supporter. Bob Miller, the Kings’ TV voice, was among those who received periodic cards and letters from McNall; he most recently got a note from McNall congratulating him for winning the Foster Hewitt Award and receiving a plaque in hockey’s hall of fame last month.

“His letters would always joke, ‘Greetings from Camp Paradise,’ ” Miller said. “One year, he wrote about a Christmas dinner they had and said, ‘They told us it was Cornish game hen, but a lot of us noticed a decrease in the pigeon population right around then.’

“He’d be joking around a lot, but I heard from other people that he was depressed or down at different times.”

Geringer, who speaks with McNall several times a day, said McNall has not pressured anyone to visit him.

“Let him do what he has to do,” Geringer said. “He’s done his thing and he deserves some compassion.”