Michael Milken

What is most disturbing, somehow, is the sheer venality of the crimes that Michael R. Milken, the erstwhile "junk-bond king" of Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc., has admitted to. Milken, after all, was not your average boiler-room penny-stock manipulator. He was a life force: No single person since J.P. Morgan had as great an impact in reshaping the American business and financial landscape. But the Michael R.

By the time he was a high school student in the San Fernando Valley, it was clear that Michael Milken had a bright future. He was voted most likely to succeed, head cheerleader, king of the senior prom and president of the men's honor organization. Classmates probably wouldn't have been surprised if he became a millionaire by the age of 30.

Might Drexel Burnham Lambert rise like a phoenix from the ashes of its bankruptcy? The odds are heavily against it. But Drexel's management and lawyers for the first time have raised the possibility that the firm might emerge from Chapter 11 proceedings and go back into business in some form. "It's one of several things we're considering," Drexel spokesman Steven Anreder said. "We haven't made a decision yet." Until now, Drexel has said the entire company would be liquidated.

The image of financier-turned-felon Michael Milken toiling to keep inner city kids off drugs is not exactly in keeping with that of the suit-wearing workaholic who did so much to change the world of business in the 1980s. But Milken, who will be working full time for the DARE America anti-drug and anti-violence program for the next three years, says he is no stranger to the inner city or to drug abuse.

Here at the Century Plaza Hotel, where corporate raiders once paid homage to a junk bond king, hundreds of eager schoolteachers now await an audience with the same man: Michael Milken. Unlike those financiers, these teachers have little interest in the old Milken, the Encino native who revolutionized Wall Street and served time in prison for securities fraud.

Amy Fisher wore a dark suit to court, with her long brown hair parted in the middle, hanging slightly frizzy around her face. Wrong, wrong, wrong, say experts in such matters. "I would have put her in a French schoolgirl dress with a big collar, a dark color, ribbon in her hair, no makeup," says Harry Munsinger, a San Antonio attorney and trial consultant. "Make her look as young and innocent as possible." And if Munsinger had been advising Mike Tyson, convicted of rape last year, he would have played down the boxer's size and strength by dressing him in pastels and looser-fitting suits.

Convicted junk bond financier Michael Milken will serve his sentence at a minimum-security prison in the San Francisco Bay Area, court documents show. Milken, the subject of one of the most intense white-collar criminal prosecutions in history, has been assigned to a prison camp at the Federal Correctional Institution in Pleasanton, on a military base. It's about 30 miles from where Milken attended college in Berkeley. Milken is to report to federal custody March 4.

So, crime doesn't pay? Ask Michael Milken. BOB ALEXANDER Redondo Beach