FINDING NEW CHALLENGE : LEAD PROSECUTOR IN KING BEATING CASE MOVES ON.

Byline: Lisa Van Proyen Daily News Staff Writer

He served as the lead prosecutor in the police case that captured national attention - the videotaped baton beating of Rodney King.

His career has also included advising grand jurors on legal issues involving such high-profile cases as the Malibu fires, O.J. Simpson, and the young boy who accused pop star Michael Jackson of molesting him.

Now, Deputy District Attorney Terry L. White has moved on to the Newhall Municipal Courthouse, where he heads the local District Attorney's Office.

The way White looks at it, every place, big or small, has its problems.

``They have the same problems here as anyone else has,'' said White, 40, who commutes to work from the San Gabriel Valley. ``We're here to be of service to the community.''

For White, it is his first supervisory position. He took the post Feb. 10, nearly six years after the March 3, 1991, police beating of King.

``(The high-profile cases) are very stressful. This is just the right amount of stress,'' White said of his new assignment in Santa Clarita, rated by the FBI as one of the nation's five safest cities.

As deputy district attorney in charge, White is responsible for supervising the local prosecutors, helps file cases and deals with any issues that come up.

His predecessor, Deputy District Attorney Dan Damon, transferred to North Valley Superior Court in San Fernando, where he is a trial attorney.

White calls it coincidental that he wound up working in the Santa Clarita Valley, where three of four Los Angeles police officers involved in the King beating lived at the time.

The King incident was White's first prosecution case involving police officers since joining the District Attorney's Office in 1984. He was one of a dozen in the Special Investigations Division, which prosecutes public officials accused of criminal acts.

He was assigned to lead the case in which four officers - Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind, Theodore Briseno and Sgt. Stacey Koon - were tried on charges of assault and excessive force.

The four officers' acquittals in the state case touched off three days of rioting in which 53 people were killed and more than 2,000 injured. Labeled as one of the worst civil battles in the nation in this century, the fiery riots of April 1992 caused more than $1 billion in damage.

In a recent interview, White refused to comment on the King case.

A native of San Diego, White graduated from San Jose State University and attended the UCLA Law School.

In 1984, he was admitted into the state bar, and was assigned to work in the District Attorney's Office in West Covina.

He later worked night court, and then in the Organized Crimes and Anti-Terrorism Unit in Los Angeles, where he successfully prosecuted John Bauer, a former Catholic priest dubbed ``The Priest of Porn,'' because he would go to Mexico and recruit 8- and 9-year-olds to film child pornography, White said.

In 1990, White joined the Special Investigations Division, where he spent most of his time on the King case.

He later acted as a legal adviser for the Los Angeles County grand jury.

In 1995, he moved to the Major Narcotics and Forfeiture Division in Los Angeles, where he prosecuted cases involving large amounts of drugs.