Pat Nolan

Upon reading the headline, "Ex-Assemblyman, Jailed in Federal Probe, to Run Prison Reform Group" (Aug. 27), my first thought was that Pat Nolan's time in prison must have somehow provided him a great dose of compassion for fellow inmates. Upon reading further I discovered that Nolan's compassion ends with the white-collar criminal. It doesn't take a great deal of study to conclude that violent crime, although not limited to impoverished areas, is certainly concentrated in those areas.

PAT Nolan's views on crime and punishment took root when he was 8 years old, delivering newspapers on the streets of Los Angeles. Time and again, neighborhood punks preyed on him -- stealing his bike, roughing him up and clouding his days with fear. Two decades later, Nolan won a seat in the state Assembly, where those childhood scars drove him to fight for more prisons and tougher sentencing. Nothing, he believed, was too bad for the bad guys. Then Nolan became one of the bad guys.

Assembly Republican Leader Pat Nolan of Glendale, a subject of the FBI's investigation into Capitol corruption, was pressured out of his GOP leadership post Thursday and replaced by Assemblyman Ross Johnson, a fiery partisan from La Habra. Nolan's resignation from the Assembly's top Republican job came less than 48 hours after two incumbent Republicans lost their Assembly seats in hard-fought races with Democrats.

For 16 years, Assemblyman Pat Nolan, a staunch conservative from Glendale, led Republican efforts to crack down on crime and lengthen prison sentences. Today, in a turnabout, the onetime leader of the state Assembly's Republicans plans to tell his former colleagues that drug abusers and other nonviolent prisoners may be spending too much time behind bars. The difference between then and now: Nolan's nearly two years in prison on political corruption charges.

Still protesting his innocence a week after he pleaded guilty to racketeering charges, a tearful former Assemblyman Pat Nolan presented the case for his defense to a roomful of emotional supporters Thursday night, walking them through the FBI's own recorded evidence against him.

The unrepentant nature of Assemblyman Pat Nolan's recent resignation and guilty plea deserves further comment. Nolan (R-Glendale) pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering and was sentenced to two years in prison and nine months in a halfway house. He became the first Republican in the Assembly to be convicted as part of an eight-year FBI corruption investigation. "For six years, I have battled. I'm worn out, though I think I would have convinced a jury of my innocence," Nolan said.

Assemblyman Pat Nolan once was so right-wing he picketed the Ku Klux Klan for espousing what he believed was socialism. During his college days at the University of Southern California, he helped hang actress Jane Fonda in effigy. And not long ago, he was criticizing Republican Gov. George Deukmejian for being too liberal. That same Pat Nolan today, however, is showing such a pragmatic side that he is even getting along with his traditional political enemies--liberal Democrats.

Republican voters from Glendale, Burbank, Los Feliz and Silver Lake will try to identify an heir to former state Assemblyman Pat Nolan in a special election today while local Democrats groom a champion they hope will wrest Nolan's old district away from the GOP. The special election, featuring four Republican candidates, two Democratic candidates and a Libertarian--was triggered by Nolan's forced resignation last February after pleading guilty to one count of political racketeering.

Assemblyman Pat Nolan, facing federal charges stemming from the FBI's Capitol sting, raised nearly $250,000 in the two months after he was indicted and paid most of it to his defense lawyer, state records show. Nolan, 42, a Glendale Republican and former Assembly minority leader, was indicted April 27 on charges of money laundering, extortion, conspiracy and racketeering. He was accused of extorting campaign contributions in return for action on pending legislation.

After serving two years of a 33-month prison sentence for racketeering, former Glendale Assemblyman Pat Nolan has been transferred to a halfway house in Sacramento as a first step toward his release from custody, officials said Friday. Nolan was moved to Sacramento from the Geiger Corrections Center in Spokane, Wash., and is scheduled to be released Aug. 27.

During a tumultuous 16-year career in the California Assembly, Republican stalwart Patrick J. Nolan went from "Proposition 13 baby" to "caveman" to felon. In the late 1980s, the Glendale lawmaker headed the Republican caucus in Sacramento and was considered a rising star in the party.

Upon reading the headline, "Ex-Assemblyman, Jailed in Federal Probe, to Run Prison Reform Group" (Aug. 27), my first thought was that Pat Nolan's time in prison must have somehow provided him a great dose of compassion for fellow inmates. Upon reading further I discovered that Nolan's compassion ends with the white-collar criminal. It doesn't take a great deal of study to conclude that violent crime, although not limited to impoverished areas, is certainly concentrated in those areas.

As a rising Republican star, Pat Nolan was regarded by his supporters as a sure-fire bet to attract national political attention, if not as California's attorney general or governor, then in high office in Washington. In 1994, the dreams of his family and friends were shattered when the glib, onetime Assembly GOP leader pleaded guilty to a single racketeering charge as part of a massive FBI investigation into political corruption at the Capitol.

After getting nabbed in an FBI sting operation, pleading guilty to racketeering and serving time in prison, former Glendale assemblyman Pat Nolan might be expected to steer clear of the law. Instead, he is immersed in it every day--and gets paid for it. Nolan, who recently moved from prison to a Sacramento halfway house, is working full-time for the lawyer who handled his criminal case, Malcolm Segal. "He's doing research and consultation for me," Segal said.

After serving two years of a 33-month prison sentence for racketeering, former Glendale Assemblyman Pat Nolan has been transferred to a halfway house in Sacramento as a first step toward his release from custody, officials said Friday. Nolan was moved to Sacramento from the Geiger Corrections Center in Spokane, Wash., and is scheduled to be released Aug. 27.

PAT Nolan's views on crime and punishment took root when he was 8 years old, delivering newspapers on the streets of Los Angeles. Time and again, neighborhood punks preyed on him -- stealing his bike, roughing him up and clouding his days with fear. Two decades later, Nolan won a seat in the state Assembly, where those childhood scars drove him to fight for more prisons and tougher sentencing. Nothing, he believed, was too bad for the bad guys. Then Nolan became one of the bad guys.

Glendale Municipal Court Judge James Rogan, who pitched himself to voters as a man who had raised himself up by his bootstraps and was tough on crime, was elected Tuesday to fill the state Assembly District seat left vacant by the resignation of Pat Nolan. Final returns showed Rogan, a Republican, winning 53.9% of the votes in the seven-candidate field. He easily outdistanced Democratic front-runner Adam Schiff, a former assistant U. S. attorney, who received 25.6% of the vote.

Apparently, Gil Ferguson's support is so wafer thin he must enlist two of his staffers--Dorothy Hughes and Steve Brody--to deny he advised Assemblyman Paul Horcher to vote for Willie Brown, a charge entirely likely to be true. Dorothy Hughes takes a typically cheap shot, linking Ross Johnson to the "political chicanery" of Pat Nolan and Frank Hill, both of whom are the innocent victims of a federal witch hunt. All three men have done more for Republicans than 20 Gil Fergusons. Hughes also impugns Johnson for moving into the district to run, apparently forgetting that in 1990, her boss, Gil Ferguson (who was living in Marian Bergeson's Senate district)