A FEEL GOOD STORY: From prison to paradise

[Louis Cypher]

A NON-GAMBLING STORY...IF ANY MOD WANTS TO MOVE IT TO THE CANTEEN, FEEL FREE TO DO SO...I JUST THOUGHT IT WOULD GET MORE VIEWS OVER HERE THAN OVER AT THE CANTEEN...THANKS


Wed, Aug. 03, 2005

By STUART PFEIFER
Los Angeles Times

HONOLULU — His living room opens onto a dazzling white beach and a panoramic ocean view. At night, he falls asleep listening to the crashing surf.

DeWayne McKinney has made a fortune selling convenience. He owns cash machines at nightclubs, pedestrian malls and other busy locations across the island of Oahu. Whenever a tourist withdraws cash, McKinney takes a cut.

He spends his days traversing the island in his black Mercedes-Benz, checking on his ATMs. Sometimes, he’ll stop at Pipeline, the legendary surf spot, sip coffee and watch the waves glide to shore.

McKinney could be forgiven for wondering if this could possibly be happening to him. Until 5½ years ago, he was in a California prison, serving a life sentence for murder.

“Sometimes I pinch myself. I’m living here? I know I’ve come a long way from there,” McKinney, 44, said recently. “I’m at peace. In there, there’s no peace. Every day is a day of worry and fear. Here, that doesn’t exist.”

The gunman entered the Burger King in Orange, Calif., near closing time Dec. 11, 1980. He leaped over the front counter and forced three employees into a walk-in cooler.

In the back of the restaurant, Walter Horace Bell Jr., the 19-year-old night manager, was counting the evening’s receipts. The gunman forced Bell to open the safe, then shot him in the back of the head.

Six days later, police arrested McKinney, then 20, and charged him with the killing.

McKinney grew up in southern California, lost his mother when he was 12 and spent his teenage years running with a gang.

Once, he cut a woman with a knife. A few years later, he and some friends were arrested with a gun outside a jewelry store. For attempted robbery, he was sent to the California Youth Authority.

He became a suspect in the Burger King slaying after detectives collected dozens of gang members’ mug shots from the Los Angeles Police Department. One of the Burger King employees saw McKinney’s photo and thought he looked like the gunman.

McKinney was several inches shorter than the man described by witnesses. He walked with a limp; the shooter did not. But at McKinney’s trial in 1982, four witnesses identified him as the killer.

“About the only way to bring in better evidence is if we had a movie of it,” said Tony Rackauckas, then a deputy Orange County district attorney.

McKinney was convicted of first-degree murder and robbery. Rackauckas asked for the death penalty, but the jury deadlocked and McKinney was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

He spent the next 18 years in five California prisons, including Folsom and San Quentin. He attempted suicide, contracted tuberculosis and twice was stabbed by fellow inmates.

He passed the time reading western novels by Louis L’Amour. He found religion and earned his high school equivalency degree.

In 1999, two inmates gave statements admitting that they were involved in the Burger King robbery and saying McKinney had been wrongly convicted. They identified another man, a career criminal, as the killer.

Investigators with the public defender’s office contacted two of the trial witnesses whose testimony had helped put McKinney behind bars. Shown a photo of the man implicated by the prisoners, the witnesses said that he — not McKinney — was the gunman.

After an investigation, Rackauckas, by then Orange County district attorney, agreed that McKinney should be freed. A judge threw out the conviction.

On Jan. 28, 2000, McKinney walked out of prison without a driver’s license, a Social Security number, a change of clothes or a toothbrush.

Because he had been serving a life term, the state did nothing to prepare him for freedom. Job training would have been considered a waste of money.

McKinney said he would have been happy to work as a janitor and live in a cheap motel. He had no expectations. But he was not a broken man. In prison, he had made a promise to himself.

“I always said if I was given an opportunity, I’d take advantage,” he said.

McKinney became a celebrity on the Christian lecture circuit, holding audiences spellbound with his story of how faith sustained him during his years of confinement.

He praised Rackauckas for admitting that a wrong had been done, and even endorsed the district attorney’s re-election bid in 2002. He accepted a tearful apology from the judge who sent him to prison for life. He reconnected with a son born shortly after he went to prison. He became a grandfather. He fell in love and married.

In the summer of 2002, the city of Orange paid $1.7 million to settle McKinney’s lawsuit against its police department and the detective who built the case against him.

When he collected his check, about $1 million after attorneys’ fees and expenses, McKinney gave no thought to an expensive vacation or a new car. He’d heard stories about lottery winners and others who squandered unexpected riches.

“If I wasn’t careful, it would be gone and it wouldn’t benefit anyone,” McKinney said. “I just put it in the bank and tried to find the best interest I could.”

An investment adviser said he should consider a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds. McKinney didn’t like that idea. “I didn’t really want to gamble,” he said. “To me, that’s what it was: a gamble.”

The first idea he liked came from his mother-in-law, a real estate agent. She suggested he buy rental properties. He snapped up half a dozen condominiums.

Then, something clicked at a men’s group meeting at Zoe Christian Fellowship in Whittier, Calif. The participants included a Walt Disney Co. executive, the owner of an advertising firm and the head of a construction company.

The ad man mentioned that deregulation had made it possible for individuals to buy and operate automated teller machines.

“The other guys, they were so successful, they weren’t really paying attention,” McKinney recalled. “I said, ‘Hey, that sounds interesting.’”

At a political fundraiser a month later, he heard about a businessman who sold cash machines to private investors. They, in turn, found busy locations for the machines and profited from the fees customers paid to withdraw cash. ATMs cost about $5,000 apiece, McKinney learned, but can pay for themselves within a few months.

The business has been growing since surcharges were first allowed in 1996. Today, there are about 400,000 machines in the United States, many of them owned by individuals.

McKinney called a contact he had made at the fundraiser and was soon introduced to Carl Stein, whose company, Automated Cash Management Systems, sells and installs ATMs in several Western states.

Stein encouraged him to find business owners willing to have the machines on their premises.

McKinney rounded up two buddies: a former car salesman he had met at church, and a parolee from prison. Together, they hit the streets.

The ex-salesman negotiated the first deal, with the owner of a service station in Santa Ana, Calif. McKinney put up the money for the machine. Stein installed it in an exterior wall so customers could use it 24 hours a day.

McKinney and his friends drove the streets of Los Angeles and Orange counties, looking for other locations. Each time one of his buddies sealed a deal, McKinney paid him $250.

Within a few months, McKinney had 20 machines in operation. In a good month, they generated more than $10,000 in fees.

Still, McKinney was restless. Life in southern California was fast-paced and stressful. His wife, Jeanine, talked constantly about moving back to her hometown, Honolulu.

“In California, it was a nervous feeling. L.A. to me is almost like being in prison. The nervous energy, it never ceased,” McKinney said.

A year earlier, he and Jeanine had used cash from wedding gifts to travel to Hawaii. They snorkeled at Hanauma Bay, relaxed on the sand at Waikiki.

He told Jeanine that he’d move from southern California, as long as they could find a place on the beach. In 2003, she found a fixer-upper near Oahu’s North Shore, and jump-started her husband’s business on the island by signing deals with several businesses that wanted ATMs.

McKinney, meantime, sold his California cash machines. On Oahu, he found that business conditions were almost as perfect as the weather. There were lots of tourists and relatively few ATMs.

“Right off the bat, within the first few months, we had the best accounts on the island,” McKinney said.

Other than the flashy car, McKinney hardly looks the part of a successful entrepreneur. He wears shorts, sandals and a T-shirt most days. He’s quick to flash a “hang loose” sign, and he calls his friends “brudda,” the Hawaiian equivalent of “dude.”

Stein, who helped McKinney launch the business, says the former inmate’s business acumen is astonishing. “How many people could go to prison two years and do as well as DeWayne has? He was in prison 20 years, and now he’s on his way to being a millionaire.”

McKinney says he’s always had a head for business.

“I was working and selling since I was a kid. Selling papers. Washing dishes. Bagging groceries. Selling candy. Cut people’s grass. Everything I wanted, I worked and saved for all my life.”

[Great white wolf]

So he got 1 mil. That’s apprx 55k per year for every year he served. He ws a black male gang-bangin’ in South Central LA, right? Yeah, he would hv earned 55K per year after taxes over the 18 years he ws in prison. His bio ws a gang- banger, armed robber…And I don’t see what the police did wrong here.

And as for his business, I don’t see the “big” profit here...a profit that would allow him to live a life of luxury. Let’s say this guy makes 50k a year on these ATMs. At $.1.50 profit per transaction(swipe), to make 50k he would need apprx 34,000! swipes. If he has 34 machines (which is a lot) he would need 1000 swipes out each machine for the year –almost 3 swipes per day/ per machine. Considering the competition, and considering how desperate and/or stupid someone would hv to be to use one of these non-bank ATMs... IMO 3 per day/per machine is stretching plausibility. He also has to stock these machines w/ his own $$$...say 3k per machine. That’s 102k. Thro in the “alternative cost” of all that $$$...say 5%, or apprx 5k per year...and after taxes, say 33% on his 50k profit ...add it all up, subtract all the "“cost," he would be making about 28k profit.

I would be surprised if he had more than 15 machines.... So his life of luxury [appears] to be directly attributed to the 1 million tax-free “gift” he received form the taxpayers of Orange County.

He ws lucky to be prosecuted in OC. Had he been prosecuted in neighboring poor ole Compton, no lawyer would ever hv agreed to represent him- on contingency.

He is still earning in any regard.... Nice turnaround from prison life.

[alysheba88]

Dont see what they did wrong? Wrong man convicted. But hey he was black. Lucky he wasnt lynched by GWW's followers. All blacks are subhumans in his world.

Aly: He was only in jail for 20 years? Whats the big deal? [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

[Louis Cypher]

<<<He became a suspect in the Burger King slaying after detectives collected dozens of gang members’ mug shots from the Los Angeles Police Department. One of the Burger King employees saw McKinney’s photo and thought he looked like the gunman.

McKinney was several inches shorter than the man described by witnesses. He walked with a limp; the shooter did not. But at McKinney’s trial in 1982, four witnesses identified him as the killer.>>>


I don't understand how they could convict him since he walked with a limp and the shooter did not? I know what you're thinking though, he could have faked it. The 4 witnesses if I'm not mistaken were all white.

<<<He spent the next 18 years in five California prisons, including Folsom and San Quentin. He attempted suicide, contracted tuberculosis and twice was stabbed by fellow inmates.>>>

I was 16 at the time and living in the city of Orange and I remember this case like it was yesterday.

Personally 1 million dollars wasn't enough for this guy. The stabbing by fellow inmates alone was bad enough but 18 years for a crime he didn't commit is downright brutal.

Just my .02 cents.

LC

[alysheba88]

LC, you are clearly a bleeding heart. Everyone knows all blacks rob, murder and steal (and collect welfare). By keeping him in prison the benevelant state of California saved many white lives. All blacks should be jailed and/or lynched. He police are heroes. Thats what that dirty darkie gets for forcing integration on White America. White Power!

[dinque]

i think he could have proved he limped before the robbery.i am sure the prosecutors pushed the witnesses to testify when they had to have some doubt since beside the limp he was four inches shorter then the killer.what did the cops do wrong?i guess you believe that one possible bad apple in prison is a plus even if he didn't commit this particular crime.maybe 9 out of ten times this is true,but that is just not good enuff.besides it closes the case and lets the real killer stay free

[Louis Cypher]

<<<LC, you are clearly a bleeding heart. Everyone knows all blacks rob, murder and steal (and collect welfare).>>>

Aly, and here I thought Mexicans were the culprits of all that fun stuff!

LC

[Banned4Life]

Meet you guys in the war room.[img]i/expressions/beer.gif[/img]

[Great white wolf]

Alysheba, yor being STUPID. 1 mil for being wrongfully imprisoned? Over the last 30 years must be 10s of thousands wrongfully imprisoned – black/white whatever. In yor book does everyone qualify for this kind of settlement? His bio is what it is. When I was a teen I NEVER pulled a gun and stuck it in someone’s face and robbed them… I’m just not so forgiving of someone who can do that… tho he does appear to hv turned his life around… so good for him

As for his business, he could probably invest in high yield mutual funds and get a better return on his $$$

[Belch One]

Try spending 18 years in prison before you babble about how he doesn't deserve it 'Wolf. You might change your view...if you live.

18 months most would not survive.

[Banned4Life]

GWW would do just fine in prison. He would just hook up with the Aryan Nations and wear a dress for some Schillinger-type.

[Great white wolf]

For those who cannot connect the dots here…Had this dude NOT stuck a gun in someone’s face and (in police parlance, ARMED ROBBERY) he never would hv had a MUG SHOT. Seems he has only himself to blame…for the decisions he made as a youth. We don’t hv a PERFECT system. 1 mil. Is ludicrous

Connect the dots?????

Now that is funny Mr Wapner.