WhiteBoard News for Wednesday, September 02, 1998
Tegucigalpa, Honduras:
The Honduran court system has sentenced a dead man to
15 years in prison for a murder he committed in 1993, a
newspaper reported Saturday.
The late Jose Rivas had been accused of the murder of a
peasant named Crisanto Alvarado.
But Rivas, who was free pending trial, never survived
to face his day in court as he was by bashed in the
head with a piece of firewood by an unknown assailant
Jan. 2, 1994, in the northern town of Choloma, La
Prensa newspaper said.
Still, the case went forward.
Rivas originally was sentenced to 17 years and six
months but the term was reduced to 15 years by an
appeals court in the northern city San Pedor Sula last
week.
Prosecutors and public defenders approved of the
reduced sentence, La Prensa said. The newspaper called
the sentencing an example of the disorder and
inefficiency in the Honduran court system.
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Boston, Massachusetts:
A woman who ran from an abortion clinic when a man
began a deadly shooting attack there four years ago
says she was too upset to get an abortion, and now she
wants the clinic to help pay to raise her child.
Deborah Gaines, 31, sued the clinic for "wrongful
birth" and her lawyer says she suffers post-traumatic
stress disorder. She was at the Preterm Health Services
in Brookline in 1994 when John Salvi III began shooting
in the lobby, killing a receptionist.
Gaines, 31, said she was so traumatized by the shooting
that she was unable to bring herself to enter another
clinic to end her pregnancy.
She says she loves her daughter Vivian, now 3, but
needs Preterm to help defray the cost of raising her
fourth child because she is poor, lawyer Chris Milne
said Tuesday. The girl is learning disabled and
hyperactive, he said.
Superior Court Judge Ralph Gants on Tuesday refused to
throw out the case, but acknowledged he was skeptical
of it.
Gaines said she had initially sought an abortion
because she wanted to get off welfare and obtain her
high school diploma.
"I wanted to go back to school and get a good job and
take care of my kids on my own," Gaines said in today's
editions of The Boston Globe. "It was not the time for
me to have another child."
A lawyer for Preterm said Gaines is like a person who
becomes too afraid to fly for necessary medical
treatment after seeing an airliner crash.
"That doesn't give you the right to sue Pan Am because
you chose not to do something," lawyer James Franchek
said.
Salvi, 24, killed two people and wounded five others in
the attacks on Preterm and another clinic the same day
in Brookline, outside of Boston. He was convicted and
sentenced to life in prison, but died in an apparent
suicide in 1996.
Preterm contends the clinic had two armed guards at the
time of the attack. Milne claims that was not enough,
especially since it was widely known that abortion
protests could turn violent.
"It should have been locked; there should have been
armed guards," he said.
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Annapolis, Maryland:
The price of looking good is too high for a pair of
bandits wanted for a string of thefts at beauty supply
stores in the last month.
It isn't cash they're after. The two unarmed beauty
bandits have absconded with more than $3,000 in
hairdressing scissors and electronic hair clippers,
police said.
At least five Sally Beauty Supply stores in Anne
Arundel and Prince George's counties have been hit,
said Mike Povendo, spokesman for the Denton,
Texas-based beauty supply chain.
The heists are the same: One of the bandits pulls a
trash bag from his pocket and demands the clerk
surrender the shears, valued at between $55 and $100,
he said.
"This person is coming in, threatening the employees
and stealing scissors - that's bizarre," Anne Arundel
County police spokeswoman Carol Frye said Tuesday in
The Sun of Baltimore. "I guess he decided he just
really wants scissors."
The chain has never experienced such scissors thievery,
Povendo said.
"When we have had robberies in our stores, it's always
been for money," he said.
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West Palm Beach, Florida:
When Pam Knorr realized six more days in the womb for
her son could mean an extra year of preschool for him,
she told her doctor to give nature a push.
Knorr, whose due date was Sept. 7, had labor induced
Monday night so she would meet the Sept. 1 state
enrollment deadline for kindergarten in 2003. At 5:22
p.m. on Tuesday, she gave birth to a boy.
"Oh, my gosh. That's really planning," state Education
Department spokesman Matt Ubben said Tuesday when asked
about the school-induced labor. "Wow. I have never
heard of that before."
The mother and son - Jake, 20 inches long and nearly 7
pounds - were doing fine at St. Mary's Medical Center.
"Giving birth a few days early is worth it to me and my
husband," Knorr said before the birth. "It will mean a
lot in school if my child has the necessary skills and
maturity of other children his age."
Florida's birthday cutoff for kindergarten entrance -
children must be 5 by Sept. 1 - is the bane of some
parents, who don't want their children to spend another
year in preschool if they seem ready for elementary
school.
Expectant mom Rebecca Klasfeld of Boca Raton thought
about having labor induced, but her daughter isn't due
until late September, and her doctor wouldn't go along.
"Since girls develop faster than boys, I didn't want
her to be the oldest in her class," Klasfeld said. "But
my doctor said 'no way' because it would be more than
two weeks before my due date."
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Elyria, Ohio:
A teen-ager who allegedly used his mother's credit card
without her permission to pay for his girlfriend's
breast enlargement surgery is back in jail.
Michael Copp's personal recognizance bond was revoked
Monday by Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Kosma J.
Glavas because he left town to appear on television
talk shows and failed to report to the probation
department.
Copp, 18, reportedly flew with his girlfriend and his
mother to Chicago and Los Angeles last month for the
appearances.
Sheffield Lake police said Copp stole an old credit
card from his mother, reactivated it and used it to pay
for 18-year-old Michelle Pauley's enlargement surgery
on July 6 at the Center of Orthopedic, Plastic and
Reconstructive Surgery in Elyria.
The bill was $2,496.
He was indicted by a Lorain County grand jury on
Tuesday. He's expected to be arraigned before Glavas
next week.
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Los Angeles, California:
Harley is born to ride. The Siberian husky has yet to
convince the police of that, however. A Municipal Court
judge dismissed a citation against Jeremiah Gerbracht
for allowing his dog to ride on his Harley-Davidson.
The 50-pound dog sits on the gas tank, which has been
modified and covered with leather to protect his paws.
The pet is licensed as a hearing dog, said Gerbracht,
who is hearing-impaired. That allows him to take Harley
practically everywhere, from restaurants to movie
theaters.
It wasn't clear whether that extends to motorcycle
rides. The latest citation was dismissed when the
officer who wrote the ticket failed to appear in court,
said Robert Marcus, Gerbracht's lawyer.
It was the third time in as many years that Gerbracht
has beaten a ticket for having a dog on the hog.
"We won," Marcus said. "Apparently the dogged pursuit
of my client in an attempt to collar him has come to an
end. Maybe now they'll stop hounding him."
Not likely. Gerbracht said he got another ticket as he
and Harley pulled into the courthouse parking lot. He
also has an upcoming court date on a citation from the
California Highway Patrol. Both tickets are for
carrying an unsafe load.
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Chow
SuperChef
WhiteBoard News Service Bureau Chef
www.joeha.com/whiteboard