Pot grower with a past is free again

CRIMES: Guilty plea wins Valley man his release.

Natale Gabriele (Photo from Book "Hotel Kerobokan")

His criminal history is long and colorful: Busted with heroin and cocaine in Indonesia, he served two years in a corrupt Bali jail, briefly escaping once before bribing his way out. Arrested twice in 2010 for growing millions of dollars worth of marijuana plants in Granada Hills, he could have faced 10 years in prison.

Now comes perhaps the final twist in the tale of Natale "Mike" Gabriele: He's free again.

The 50-year-old former Kennedy High School of Granada Hills football player and big-wave surfer was released from county jail in Castaic on Monday after he agreed to plead guilty in Superior Court in San Fernando to felony charges of marijuana cultivation and possession.

Judge Daniel B. Feldstern gave Gabriele a one-year suspended sentence - he'd served 189 days - and three years' probation.

In agreeing to the lighter punishment, prosecutors acted on a probation officer's conclusion that Gabriele is a "good candidate" for rehabilitation, said Los Angeles District Attorney's office spokeswoman Jane Robison.

Gabriele had no arrests in the United States before last summer, and his 2003 conviction in Bali did not count against him because authorities here don't trust that island province's record-keeping, Robison said.

Gabriele's Bali misadventure was chronicled in "Hotel Kerobokan," a

2009 book by Australian journalist Kathryn Bonella, and his story was told in an April 3 Daily News article.

A phone call to Gabriele's parents' home in Granada Hills, seeking comment from Gabriele, went unanswered.

"He's very grateful," said Michael Zimbert, Gabriele's Sherman Oaks-based attorney. "He wants to keep his life as straight and narrow as he can. He realizes where he was is somewhere he never wants to be (again)."

Zimbert said Gabriele did not deserve a long prison sentence because he isn't the big-time drug dealer that reports of his arrests might have suggested.

The attorney noted that Gabriele was living with his parents and getting around on a bicycle.

Last August, Gabriele became the only person arrested in connection with $24 million worth of marijuana plants found growing in a remote area of O'Melveny Park in Granada Hills, irrigated with water diverted from a nearby stream.

Detective Robert Holcomb called it the largest outdoor pot-growing operation he'd seen in 20 years in the LAPD's narcotics detail.

Two months later, while out on bail, Gabriele was arrested again after police responding to a complaint of a marijuana scent from a backyard in the 12000 block of Lithuania Drive in Granada Hills found him tending $1.8 million worth of marijuana plants at his parents' house.

He had been jailed since.

Gabriele's history emerged: After moving to tropical Bali - for the waves - he was arrested with heroin and cocaine and held in rat-, prostitution- and drug-infested Kerobokan Prison. A drunken escape attempt failed, and he suffered brutal beatings. He eventually bought his freedom with money sent by his mother.

Gabriele's mother, Stephanie Segal, and his attorney claimed he was set up by Balinese officials who squeeze tourists for money.

But the fact Bali's justice system is corrupt did not mean Gabriele was innocent, said Bonella, whose book recounts fellow inmates' memories of the long-haired American in hibiscus-flowered surf shorts and sunglasses whom they knew as Gabriel.

Back home in the San Fernando Valley, Gabriele worked as a construction contractor but began growing marijuana, assuring his mother it was OK because it was for medicinal use, Segal told the Daily News in March.

Zimbert said prospectors dealt fairly with Gabriele. Said Zimbert: "There's a lot of unique aspects to this case."

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