"He's spent a huge amount of money to improve his reputation. I'm not sure that's the basis upon which a pardon should be given," Seidman said.
The 62-year-old Milken, who was raised in Encino, is the finance legend who built the modern junk bond market in the 1980s while at Drexel Burnham Lambert -- only to have the government indict him on racketeering, insider trading and securities fraud charges in 1989.
His star-crossed career began in 1970 when he joined the then little-known Drexel investment bank on Wall Street and began to research and trade junk bonds.
Milken believed that the long-term reward in owning such high-yielding, low-quality securities far outweighed the risks.
That would be the basis of the empire he would build -- first in buying junk securities for himself and for investor clients, then in underwriting the issuance of the bonds for entrepreneurs and corporate raiders who were unable to easily raise capital from conventional sources such as banks.
By the mid-1980s, Milken, now relocated to Beverly Hills, was financing a new generation of entrepreneurs, including William G. McGowan of upstart long-distance firm MCI and Las Vegas casino visionary Steve Wynn.
But his power mushroomed when he became the investment banker to corporate raiders who saw major U.S. companies as bloated and thus vulnerable to attack. That fueled widespread enmity against Milken in corporate America -- and allegations that he was corrupting financial markets.
The $550 million he personally earned from his junk-bond empire in 1987 also made him a natural target for politicians railing against Wall Street greed.
But it wasn't until 1989 that Rudy Giuliani, then the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, persuaded a grand jury to indict Milken on 89 charges, including racketeering, insider trading and securities fraud.
In April 1990 Milken, with his business in a shambles after his indictment, pleaded guilty to six lesser charges that mostly involved violations of securities-disclosure rules.
He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and served 22 months.
After his release, Milken was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He received the grim news after insisting that his doctor test him for the disease because a friend had recently died from it.
Diet and exercise became a new priority for Milken, who recovered from the disease and started a foundation that has raised more than $350 million for cancer research. He has also donated millions more for scholarship and education programs, and launched the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute, an economic think tank.
