Independent film maker Mel Kiser, who directed a well-received documentary about Miami's S & S diner, hasn't eaten there in years. He's been in prison -- for killing a man.

Kiser, a former Florida International University instructor, shot Kedner Rimpel on Oct. 8, 1997 outside an apartment in Little Haiti. ``An ongoing dispute,'' the police report says.

Kiser told detectives he was in the neighborhood doing research for another documentary when he had a confrontation with Rimpel. He thought Rimpel was reaching under his shirt for a weapon, so he fired in self-defense, he claimed.

Prosecutors filed charges -- second-degree murder and carrying a concealed firearm. They argued at trial that Kiser had partied with and supplied cocaine to some unsavory characters from the area, using Rimpel to score the drugs. One witness testified that Rimpel had tried to blackmail Kiser by threatening to tell Kiser's wife about his extracurricular activities.

Kiser did not testify. Jurors found him guilty of manslaughter and the gun felony. Judge Leslie Rothenberg sentenced him to 15 years. ``Like a bad dream,'' says his sister, Linda Kiser, 62, a retired Coral Gables police officer once known as Linda Miller.

Kiser is completing his term at Turning Point Bridge Work Release Center in Pompano Beach. The 59-year-old convict just got hired at a doughnut shop. ``I'm happy to have any kind of employment,'' he says.

But what he really wants is a law office job. He says he's qualified -- the Department of Corrections certified him as an inmate law clerk and assigned him to the prison law library at South Florida Reception Center, where he served his time.

``I know how to write succinctly. I have an ability to read case law and understand it. I got pretty good.'' He filed pleadings on behalf of fellow inmates in state and federal court, and won a case against Corrections, drafting a petition that resulted in gain time eligibility for drug trafficking inmates serving mandatory minimum sentences.

From Kiser's résumé: undergraduate and master's degrees from Florida State, and a stint teaching film at FIU. His movies include: Down on South Beach; Last Night at The S&S Diner; and The Last Days of The Miami News.

Kiser says in his cover letter that hiring him is ``a special opportunity for a firm to employ me at a minimum wage.''

Prison was no picnic. Mother Evelyn died in December 2000. Wife Rose divorced him in '03 and moved to Minnesota with their young son. Kiser's world peeled away -- ``like an onion,'' he says. ``Very difficult to watch your life slowly disintegrate. Very painful.''

But, he insists, ``I'm not bitter. I had my day in court.''

He expects to return to Miami when he completes his sentence next October, and hopes to again make movies. Perhaps, he says, he'll do a true crime story -- his own. ``An interesting drama.'' And, although the S & S at 1757 NE Second Ave. has changed hands since he went away, he plans to chow down there. ``The hamburger is my favorite.''

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