Ties Between Cops, Alleged Killer Probed

Investigators from the Orange County district attorney’s office are working with prosecutors in Los Angeles to probe links between a suspect in the 1989 slaying of a nude-dance-club owner and officers from several law enforcement agencies.

Orange County officials gathered the information during a yearlong undercover operation at several strip clubs in Los Angeles that led to the arrest last month of three men on suspicion of killing club owner Horace “Big Mac” McKenna outside his Brea estate.

“We have notified various police departments about the connection between some of their officers and employees of the strip clubs,” said Tori Richards, a spokeswoman for Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas. “We will be sitting down with Los Angeles D.A. investigators to give them more complete information that they may use to pursue any additional investigation.”

Richards declined to say which agencies are involved, but sources familiar with the case said investigators are looking at links between members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Lennox station and murder suspect Michael Woods.

After McKenna’s slaying a decade ago, Woods took over management of two strip clubs near the station, including one in Lennox.

According to court records, Woods donated more than $15,000 to police departments and police charities in the 1990s--while he was a suspect in the slaying of McKenna.

Woods’ attorney highlighted these contributions in a court motion last month requesting that his client be released on bail. According to the motion, Woods donated $2,250 to the Los Angeles sheriff’s youth foundation, $1,000 to the Lennox station and $1,000 to the sheriff’s relief foundation.

In addition, Woods made donations to charities that benefited the Los Angeles Police Department and gave $2,400 to the California Highway Patrol’s foundation for families of officers slain in the line of duty.

CHP Sgt. Rhett Price, however, rejected the idea that Woods in any way profited from his donations. Price said that the foundation is a private entity not operated by the highway patrol and that Woods’ contribution “does not in any way suggest they are garnering any special favors.”

Although they don’t know whether any crimes were committed, sources said, investigators want to know whether Woods received favorable treatment at his clubs in exchange for the donations.

Prosecutors charge that Woods and another strip-club manager, David Amos, hired a hit man to kill McKenna in 1989 as part of Woods’ campaign to gain control of the New Jet Strip in Hawthorne, Bare Elegance in Lennox and Valley Ball in the San Fernando Valley. Woods and McKenna worked as CHP partners in the 1970s and later went into the nude-club business.

The case went cold for 11 years, until the alleged hit man agreed to cooperate with authorities in January. The man then spent the next 10 months gathering evidence against Woods and Amos, including wearing a hidden recording wire.

Woods, Amos and alleged hit man John Sheridan have pleaded not guilty. Woods’ attorney could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Word of the new probe comes in the midst of a Los Angeles police investigation of a detective related to Amos. In a secretly recorded conversation, Amos said that a relative who works as an LAPD detective provided him with information about the McKenna investigation. The detective is on active duty as the internal-affairs probe continues, an LAPD spokesman said.