Tonya Harding’s Prosecutor Talks About The Case, ‘I, Tonya’

PORTLAND, OR – It’s the middle of January 1994 and Multnomah County District Attorney Michael Schrunk is sitting in his office with two of his top assistants. Schrunk, along with John Bradley and Norm Frink are in a pretty good mood. Of all the things they had to deal with, it looked pretty certain that the attack on figure skater Nancy Kerrigan would not be one of them.

“None of us are big figure skating fans but by this point, we all knew about the attack and we had certainly become aware of Tonya Harding,” Frink says. “I had been in San Francisco when it happened and, really, I didn’t pay attention at first.

“Then it started to get linked to people close to Harding who lived in (neighboring) Clackamas County. So, as the circus quickly grew, we were glad that it wasn’t going to be our problem.”

That’s when Schrunk’s secretary walks into the room, interrupting their reverie.

“James O’Leary’s on the phone,” she says. “And he’s laughing.”

While Harding and her husband, Jeff Gillooly lived in Clackamas County, it turned out that a lot of the planning had happened in the home of the parents of one of the conspirators, Shawn Eckhardt. And they lived in Portland. In Multnomah County.

“It was our problem,” Frink says.

It was as big a case as there was, not just in Portland but in the country. Harding was a bit of a folk hero even before the incident. People would show up in local malls just to watch her practice.

Now 24 years later. It’s all back in the news.

“I, Tonya,” the small budget film starring Margot Robbie as Tonya and Allison Janney as her mother, received three Oscar nominations last week: Robbie’s up for best actress, Janney for best supporting actress. The film, which tracks Harding from childhood through the attack on Kerrigan and beyond, is also nominated for best editing.

With the release of the movie, Harding has been on somewhat of a redemption tour, appearing on red carpets, sitting with celebrities, and talking about the incident for the first time in years. The story coming out of the movie and a good deal of the interviews has been that of Harding as victim.

Frink says he doesn’t need to see the film.

“I lived the story,” he says.

Before the case could firmly arrive in Portland, Frink says, it had to be jettisoned from Detroit, where the attack on Kerrigan had happened.

“The FBI was the main investigative agency on the case,” Frink says. “It was going to initially be handled by the U.S. Attorney there but then the district attorney for Detroit pushed him out, saying he wanted to do the case.

“Then there started to be a series of leaks. Someone from the district attorney’s office was married to someone from one of the papers. At that point the US Attorney wanted nothing to do with the case.”

Frink says that since the suspects were from the Portland area, it made sense for them to pick up the case.

According to Frink, the weak link was Shawn Eckhardt.

“Eckhardt lived in kind of fantasy world,” Frink says. “He told people that he was a super special international agent.

“He couldn’t keep his mouth shut and before long he was telling everyone what had happened.”

Eckhardt was the one who brought Shane Stant and Derrick Smith on board. Stant would attack Kerrigan. Smith was the getaway driver.

While having Eckhardt’s cooperation was something, Frink knew that he wouldn’t play well in front of a jury. Frink wanted to get proof that Harding and her husband, Jeff Gillooly, were involved.

So, Frink and the FBI had Eckhardt call Gillooly and arrange a meeting.

“This is where we screwed up,” Frink says. “It was the days before smart phones and the first three digits of a phone number were assigned based on geography. So, while we were careful to have Eckhardt call from a non-district attorney’s office phone, the number indicated that he was downtown.

“It was Tonya who figured out that Eckhardt was not calling from where he said that he was calling. So, she told Gillooly to meet him ‘but be on you guard.’ ”

The meeting happened at a Shari’s, an Oregon-based chain of restaurants.

“He knew what was going on,” Frink says. “We didn’t get the admissions we were hoping for.

“Tonya was very smart and used Gillooly to insulate herself from direct contact with the conspiracy. At least most of it.”

Frink says that despite the failure to get anything useful out of the meeting between Eckhardt and Gillooly, they were “able to make a pretty decent case against Gillooly.

“Harding was very reluctant to talk but finally agreed to talk with us and the FBI. She incriminated Gillooly but was careful not to incriminate herself.”

When Gillooly came in, the FBI showed him notes from Harding’s interview.

“He went to Harding and said, ‘You incriminated me,” Frink says of Gillooly. “She denied it at first, saying she absolutely didn’t.

“Then he told her that the FBI had shown him the notes and she said ‘that’s cheating!”

Frink says that after that, “Gillooly agreed to rat her out. So, we had a fairly good case against her.”

But it wasn’t a slam dunk.

Soon after, they got an even bigger break. The case wouldn’t be just Gillooly’s word against hers.

The attack was originally supposed to take place in Boston but that didn’t work out. Kerrigan had already left for Detroit.

“We got a call from the woman who owned the Dockside restaurant,” Frink says. “People had been using her dumpster for their personal garbage and she was going through it to figure out who was doing that.

“She found an envelope with Harding’s name and, on the other side, was a phone number and times. it was the practice times for Kerrigan at the Kent Arena in Detorit.

"The woman had called Harding’s lawyer who did the right thing and told her to call the police and it ended up with us. We got a handwriting sample from Harding.”

It was a match.

“The bottom line was that we had enough to indict but it would not be an open and shut case,” Frink says.

They reached a plea agreement with Gillooly who agreed to serve jail time along with Eckhardt, Stant, and Smith.

That left Harding.

“She wanted two things,” Frink says, “She did not want to admit prior knowledge and she did not want to spend time in prison.

“We were willing to agree to that.”

Her guilty plea was followed a few months later by a lifetime ban from sanctioned events by the United States Figure Skating association.

“This is the thing,” Frink says. “She wasn’t banned from skating. Just from sanctioned events. What became clear was that no one wanted to skate with her.

“She was involved in an attack on a competitor. Would you?”

Frink says that while he has not seen the movie, he’s seen plenty of stories, plenty of interviews and has heard Tonya talk about the challenges that she said she faced.

“I have no doubt that she had a rough childhood,” he says. “Though it’s hard to know what to believe given that she lied so much.

“The other thing is that lots of people grew up under tough conditions. Most of them haven’t gone on to plot attacks on people. Things may have been hard for her but they are hard for a lot of people.”

Frink says that while watching one of the stories about the movie, he saw a member of the cast say it’s not clear what actually happened, that the facts don’t matter.

“Of course, they matter,” he says. “We know what happened. And nothing that Harding says is going to change that.”

Years later, Frink is still amazed by the amount of publicity.

“I’m proud of the fact that during the entire time, we never issued a press release, never held a press conference,” he says. “In hindsight, we didn’t have to.

“Every single hearing, no matter how inconsequential, was live on CNN. I would go to Starbucks and 20 people would follow me in as I got a cup of coffee.”

Frink is thankful for one thing.

“I can’t even imagine what it would have been like if there had been social media,” he says. “It would have pushed everything over the brink.

“It wasn’t OJ but it was a circus. And OJ came along soon after and the world moved on.”

Photo of Harding addressing reporters after a practice Portland, Oregon before the 1994 Winter Olympics via Shane Young/AP Photo.