Months before Supervisor Terry Kayo Hallinan became Terence Hallinan and ran successfully for District Attorney in 1995, good ol' Terry used to throw catered get-togethers for community activists at his lovely home in the Haight. The art on the walls was radically expensive; and the bookshelves were studded with the works of Marx, Lenin, Mao and Gore.

The roast beef was generously sliced and the wine flowed freely as Kayo reviewed his career options. He wanted to run for Mayor of San Francisco. To that end, political consultant Doug Comstock opened a campaign bank account and started designing his inimitable buttons. David Spero geared up his fifty-cents-a-name petition people. Margaret Verges started planning the inauguration party to be funded by the ubiqutious Taiwanese spy and gunrunner illogically named Norman Young who drops hundred dollar bills from his pockets like lint while taking everybody's picture for his blackmail files.

One fine Saturday afternoon, Terry lengthened his name and dropped a bombshell. It seems that "my old friend Willie Brown might run for Mayor, so I think I'll give the District Attorney a shot." By this Hallinan was not proposing to do a Dan White on Arlo Smith; he was simply relaying the message that had been given to him by The Machine: sorry, Charlie, D.A. or nada. (This was good planning by The Machine, because with the District Attorney in Willie's pocket: the sky would be the limit and this has been so.)

Without going into the all the gory details about how the Fangs and Jack Davis and the crew of political salamanders thriving under Willie Brown's rock put Hallinan in office, suffice it to say that Terence repeatedly promised his liberal and left-type supporters he would prosecute white-collar crime.

At one gathering, SFI asked Terence if he would investigate Willie Brown if he had good cause to believe that Brown was doing boodle. A somewhat drunken Hallinan got all misty-eyed and said, "Willie and I go back thirty years!" And that was the answer; and that is why white collar crime goes unpunished in San Francisco.

All this by way of introduction is to make a single point: When SFI wrote a story on the State of California?s lawsuit charging Bank of America with embezzling $3 billion in unclaimed bond funds, we interviewed District Attorney Hallinan. We asked Terence why he was not prosecuting the Bank and its board of directors for the crime of embezzling public funds? Hallinan said City Attorney Louise Renne would have had to refer the case to him for that; and she had not done so. In fact, Renne had done so and, in any case, SFI tossed a copy of the state's lawsuit across the desk to Hallinan and told him to keep it.

Of course, Hallinan never even peeped about sanctioning the Bank that stole more than you can imagine right in front of every fiscal official in California and with their eager complicity. But, public records show that?within weeks of our interview?Terence received a nice gift from Bank of America which allows him to keep buying nice art and drinking nice wine. (Maybe even vacationing in Nice!)

Here is the paper trail on Hallinan's second and third and fourth mortgages for his lovely home at 41 Grattan Street.

Oct. 1993 - Bank of America lends Supervisor Terry $50,000.

Mar. 1995 - Bank of America issues a credit line to Supervisor Hallinan in the amount of $100,000, just in time for the D.A. race.

April 1996 - Bank of America ups District Attorney Hallinan?s line of credit to $200,000.

Jan 1997 - Bank of America loans D.A. Terence $160,000.

Feb. 2, 1998 - Bank of America adjusts Terence's line of credit to $125,000 and kicks him a fat cash loan of $227,000 - JUST DAYS AFTER HALLINAN IS QUOTED IN OUR SF WEEKLY ARTICLE ON THE BANK OF AMERICA LAWSUIT AS INDICATING THAT HE WILL NOT PROSECUTE THE FELONIOUS BANK.

What does our dull-eyed District Attorney do with his windfall from Bank of America when he's not worshipping dope with Dennis Peron? He buys more property, of course. The 1997 BofA loan for $160,000 is payable in the year 2027 and was used to buy 11090 White Rock Road, Rancho Cordova, California. CAMP and the DEA should do a fly-over at this spot.

By the way Terence just hired his cousin Michael Hallinan to work in the office of the District Attorney. In most countries that is called NEPOTISM and it is highly illegal. Its illegal here, too: but who's gonna prosecute?