A King’s Ransom Is at Stake in Libel Suit by Ex-McNall Associate

Breaking the bank. . . . Truth or tabloid? . . . Remembering Henri Paul and Dodi.

Former L.A. Kings owner Bruce McNall is hardly getting lonely up at the federal prison in Lompoc, where visitors have included even the Great One, Wayne Gretzky. Now comes lawyer Robert L. Wilson, who will make the trip north in a week or two to take McNall’s deposition in a libel case.

Wilson represents Thomas Kempf, once the president of First Los Angeles Bank, which was caught up in McNall’s admitted scheme to bilk banks, a securities firm and his own National Hockey League team out of millions. That misadventure cost several financial institutions $236 million, and McNall, who had grown accustomed to the finer things in life, nearly six years of freedom.

Kempf is suing Time Inc. over an article in Fortune magazine last February. He contends that the story portrayed him as a badly dressed drunkard who lent millions to McNall after being bribed with a $40,000 interest in thoroughbred racehorses.

The article also was posted on Fortune’s Internet site.

Kempf is seeking damages in excess of $15 million from the magazine, two writers and a number of Internet servers, including American Online, Earthlink and Prodigy.

The case could explore new legal issues, such as who bears legal responsibility for allegedly defamatory material on the Internet, lawyer Wilson said.

To support Kempf’s case, the lawsuit quotes language from a federal bankruptcy judge, who had found no evidence that Kempf was bribed by McNall or gave him special treatment before McNall’s financial house of cards began to fold in 1993.

The Kings owner declared bankruptcy, the team was sold, and McNall began serving a 70-month federal sentence in March for multiple counts of bank fraud and conspiracy.

First Los Angeles Bank was acquired in 1995 by City National Bank. Kempf, who was not charged in the investigation, is retired.

A spokesman for Time declined comment, saying the lawsuit had not yet been served.

DANCES WITH LAWYERS: Speaking of libel cases, Kevin Costner is at it again. He is suing another Euro mag for libel and invasion of privacy in connection with an article that portrayed the star as a Don Juan and unwilling father to his youngest son, Liam.

In his lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the actor and Oscar-winning director of “Dances With Wolves” denies ever speaking to anyone from the Spanish magazine Hola! or its sister publication, Hello!

In the articles, Costner is quoted as saying a former girlfriend “ensnared” him by getting pregnant with Liam.

“I’d like to be able to say [my children] are all equal in my eyes, but that wouldn’t be true. My first three children were wished for, while Liam, through no fault of his own, has been forced on me,” Costner is quoted as saying in the article. “I’m afraid that he’ll never mean the same to me as the others.”

The article also quotes Costner as saying, “To me women are like a drug: I like them all.”

And it has Costner calling movie making his hobby and golf his profession.

All “pure fiction,” according to the lawsuit filed by attorney Barry Langberg.

In March, Costner sued Hello! in Los Angeles Superior Court over a similar article; that case is pending. In the lawsuit, Langberg said it appeared that allegedly false quotes were taken from the English version and translated for its sister publication.

DODI DEAREST: Kelly Fisher, the Malibu model who sued Dodi Fayed for breach of contract after he allegedly dumped her for Princess Diana, appeared Friday before a magistrate in Paris. The magistrate continues to investigate the crash that killed Diana, Fayed and their driver Henri Paul, and has sought input from Fisher, said her lawyer, Gloria Allred.

While Allred would not comment on what Fisher told the magistrate, she said, “Kelly Fisher knew Dodi Fayed better than anyone else and spent a great deal of time with him in a close, loving and intimate relationship during the year before his death.”

Investigators learned after the crash that Paul had been drunk and taking prescription medication for depression. Magistrate Herve Stephan has been trying to determine whether Paul habitually mixed drinking, driving and antidepressants.

Allred added that although Fisher did not know Paul, she was familiar with Fayed’s routine, family and employees.

Fisher, you may recall, was the fiancee who was jilted on the eve of her planned August wedding to Fayed. Their relationship broke down when she saw a tabloid photograph of Fayed and Diana smooching aboard a Fayed family yacht.

Shortly after Fayed’s death, Fisher dropped her $500,000 Santa Monica Superior Court suit. It had sought to recover funds from a bounced check, as well as other payments Fayed allegedly promised.

THE CASE THAT WON’T DIE: The Menendez case promises to leave yet another legal legacy. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a lawyer who was searched during a client’s grand jury case can try to prove to a jury that his civil rights were violated.

Attorney Paul L. Gabbert’s case had been dismissed by a U.S. District judge in Los Angeles. But the appellate court found that he had a right to practice law without being subjected to a warrantless search.

Gabbert represented convicted parent slayer Lyle Menendez’s friend, who had been called before the Los Angeles County Grand Jury in March 1994. That panel got the case after the first murder trials of Lyle and brother Erik ended with hung juries. Prosecutors were attempting to show the grand jurors that Lyle had coached his witnesses to lie for him. They were looking for a letter containing such alleged instructions.

In his lawsuit, Gabbert accused prosecutors David Conn and Carol Najera and Beverly Hills Police Det. Les Zoeller of interfering with his ability to advise his client by searching him for the letter.

“Gabbert had the clearly established right to practice law free from undue and unreasonable government interference,” 9th Circuit Judge Michael Hawkins said in the opinion.

Once before the grand jury, the friend invoked her 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to testify. The letter did not play a role at the retrial, in which Lyle and Erik were convicted of first-degree murder. They were sentenced in July 1996 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.