Pat Nolan Doesn’t Let Prison Silence His Message : Politics: The former a<i> s</i> semblyman, serving time for racketeering, utilizes the power of the phone and pen to stay in touch with GOP activists.

Not long before he went to prison for political corruption in March, former Assemblyman Pat Nolan defiantly told a crowd of supporters at a Burbank hotel that although he would be locked up, “they are not going to shut me up.”

He wasn’t kidding.

With a barrage of newsletters and phone calls from his prison digs, Nolan has stayed in close touch with Republican activists in the Glendale-Burbank area he formerly represented, offering political advice and divulging chatty tidbits about his family.

Once the powerful Assembly GOP leader, Nolan is now inmate No. 06833-097 at the Dublin federal prison camp east of Oakland. He is serving a 33-month sentence after being convicted of racketeering for taking $10,000 in campaign contributions from an undercover FBI agent who said he was seeking legislative favors.

Like many prisoners, Nolan has become a critic of the federal justice system.

In a recent article in a conservative political magazine, he attacked the government’s “war on crime,” saying prosecutors, prison builders and social workers do not really want to win it because they would lose their jobs.

He said he and other inmates at the Dublin camp were victims of the crime war, adding that they were overzealously prosecuted for “bureaucratic” crimes usually involving mere paperwork disputes.

Nolan also has kept his hand in Republican politics, although his conviction bars him from holding state or federal elected office in California.

Allen Brandstater, a GOP consultant and longtime friend, said Nolan phoned him “unendingly, incessantly” when Brandstater helped run former prosecutor Jim Simpson’s campaign to become a Glendale Municipal Court judge.

Simpson was elected in November, replacing James Rogan, who won Nolan’s Assembly seat.

Besides his phone tips, Nolan distributes a personal newsletter to about 1,800 friends and supporters including lawyers, judges and city council members in the Glendale-Burbank area. Among the recipients are Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, state Sen. Newton R. Russell (R-Glendale) and former Glendale Mayor Larry Zarian.

“It’s about how he’s doing, some insights on politics, sharing the glad news of Republican victories, how often the kids visit him, the food at the camp,” Brandstater said. “It’s just kind of chatty and newsy and talky.”

Brandstater said friends and supporters have poured $60,000 to $70,000 into a trust fund for Nolan’s wife, Gail, and three small children to pay household expenses until Nolan--an attorney who works as a clerk in the prison law library--is released.

“They’re not living grandly, but they’re not starving,” Brandstater said.

Nolan was indicted on six counts of racketeering, conspiracy, extortion and money laundering but pleaded guilty to a single count of racketeering rather than face a trial, which could have led to a prison sentence of up to eight years.

He signed a sworn statement saying he used his Assembly office to extort campaign contributions in 1988 from those wanting legislative favors. But in an emotional speech to supporters at Burbank’s Holiday Inn, he implied that the statement was false and he signed it only to avoid risking a much longer prison term that would have kept him away from his family.

Friends said that despite his conviction, the energetic, outspoken Nolan is likely to return to politics in some capacity when he is released.

“As Pat says, ‘There’s a lot of roar left in this lion,’ ” Brandstater said. “I think when he’s out, he’ll find a niche somewhere, in Sacramento or Los Angeles, and he’ll still be involved in politics.”