THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAS STATE HISTORICAL
SOCIETY
TOPEKA, KS 66612
VOL 100, NO.5 (USPS 650-640)
THE STUDENT NEWSAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
ADVERTISING; 864-4358
THURSDAY AUG. 31, 1989
NEWS:864-4810
Jury convicts Helmsley for not paying taxes
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Leona Helmsley, the presickety hotel queen quoted as saying "only the little people pay taxes," was convicted Wednesday of evading $1.2 million in income tax by charging personal expenses to her business empire.
The federal jury acquitted Helmsley, 69, of the most serious charge against her — conspiring to extort payoffs from vendors.
Pictured as a regal perfectionist in ads for Helms luxury hotels, Helmsley was portrayed in court as an abusive, penny-pinching tyrant —
part of a defense strategy of arguing that she was the victim of spiteful ex-employees.
In opening arguments, her own lawyer labeled her "a tough bitch."
Helmsley shook her head while listening to the litany of guilty verdicts on 33 of 41 counts. Former aides Frank Turco and Joseph Licari were convicted of assisting in the tax-evasion scheme.
She walked past hundreds of reporters, photographers and bystanders on the courthouse steps, got in line to have an interview and departed without comment.
Joseph Benfante, lawyer for Licari.
"Of course, we'll appeal," said
Helmsley remains free pending sentencing Nov. 14. Each of the 33 counts carries a sentence of three to five years. She also faces fines up to $8 million.
The jury found Helmsley guilty of evading federal taxes from 1983 through 1985, most of it by billing $3.1 million in expenses from the Helmsley's Greenwich, Conn., mansion, Dunnellen Hall, to their hotel and real estate business.
Included in the expenses were more than $1 million for a pool enclosure with a marble dance floor; jade figures worth $50,000; a
$130,000 indoor-outdoor sound system similar to one Helmsley had admired at Disney World; and thousands of dollars in landscaping.
"Today's verdicts should widely serve as a reminder that no one, regardless of how wealthy or how well-insulated by underlings, under the law is free to flaunt the tax laws." said U.S. Attorney Benito Romano.
He said it was too early to say what sentence prosecutors would seek.
"we gave a very fair verdict. It was very hard," said David Samuel, a member of the jury that deliberated for five days.
Helmsley and her husband. Harry.
still face prosecution on charges of evading state taxes. No trial date has been set.
Harry Helmsley, 80, heads a $5 billion empire that includes 27 hotels — the Helmsley hotels in New York City and the Cleveland-based Harley chain. He was indicted with his wife in 1988 but was found mentally incompetent to stand trial.
In addition to expenses at Dunnellen Hall, prosecutors alleged that $320,172 in Mrs. Helmsley's personal purchases, including thousands of dollars in designer clothing, were charged to the Park Lane Hotel in New York.
Another item was a $45,000 silver clock in the shape of the Helmsley Building, a birthday present to Harry Helmsley from his wife.
His wife's image took a beating at the trial. Already described as a finer "queen" in Helmsley ads, she was depicted as arrogant and mean-spirited.
Her former housekeeper testified that Mrs. Helmsley once told her, "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."
KJHK gets new adviser
Many of the 44 prosecution witnesses during the eight-week trial described how she fired employees at the slightest provocation.
Bv Steve Buckner
'It been a good first day. I've met a lot of people, and I'm just trying to
Mensendiek, 32, will supervise the station's student management and staff. He also will teach a sales course at the station.
Tim Mensendick, a newly- hired faculty member in the department of radio-television, was named general manager and faculty adviser for KJHK-FM last night during the station's weekly staff meeting.
Kansan staff writer
Mensendiek was president of the Great Radio Group Inc, and also was
get settled in," Mensendiek said. "I've got a lot of learning and studying to do to familiarize myself with the program."
Max Utsler, chairman of the department of radio-television and interim faculty adviser to KJHK, said, "We're extremely happy to be able to find someone who not only has a wealth of professional experience, also has a background in college radio teaching and working with students."
general manager of both KSSC-AM, Jooplin, Mo., and KSSC-FM, Pittsburg, Kan., for four years ending in February. Prior to those jobs he worked as an account executive at KCMO Radio, Kansas City, Mo., for $2^{1/2}$ years.
"We're pleased to have the position filled, and Mr. Mensendiek has a professional experience that he can bring to bear as a general manager and classroom teacher," said Mike Kautsch, dean of the School of Journalism.
Recycling plans vary in Big 8
By Steve Buckner Kansan staff writer
This story is the second of a four-part series on recycling.
The University of Kansas is not alone in the Big Eight when it comes to struggling with recycling, an informa- tion from other conference schools revealed.
Of all Big Eight schools, only the University of Colorado has a campus-wide recycling program. Recycling programs have been established recently at Kansas State University and the University of Missouri.
Small-scale recycling efforts exist at the University of Nebraska, Oklahoma State University, the University of Oklahoma; and KU. However, representatives from most of these schools indicated an increased interest in recycling.
Iowa State University, Ames, does not recycle in the traditional sense because its non-hazardous garbage is burned by a power plant operated by the City of Ames to generate electricity, said Arlo Meyer, manager of campus purchasing department. Also, Iowa has aluminum cans and plastic containers, said Stan Myers, manager of Iowa State's printing service.
Colorado's efforts not only lead the Big Eight, but are considered a model program on a national basis. Jack DeBell, director of C.U. Recycling, said his program was a non-profit student entity.
"We gossiped $48,000 from sales of recycled materials and from grants, which just about equaled our expenses last year," he said.
DeBell said that profits from the program, which was formed in 1976, were invested into capital equipment, and that deficits were made up from student fees. According to a brochure from C.U. Recycling, the program earned a modest profit in four of seven years from 1981 to 1987.
Every building on campus has collection bins for recyclable materials, according to the brochure. There were more than 166 such bins in 1987. DeBell's staff of student workers handle most of the collections for the program.
DeBell said C.U. Recycling was increasing its efforts to include the collection of plastics and motor oil in addition to the usual recyclable line of aluminum cans, newspaper and glass. The group also has a pilot program using grass clippings as compost.
He said he was encouraged by the creation of a solid waste management committee by Colorado's chances and any student and faculty compliance.
At Kansas State, an ad hoc com-
"We have a 60 percent student participation rate and a higher faculty and staff participation rate," DeBell said. "We also have a high degree of faculty involvement who design related curricula."
See BIG EIGHT, p. 6
Scholarship halls organize recycling
With seven of eight represented in recycling efforts, scholarship halls greatly outnumber the representation for residence halls.
By a Kansan reporter
Three of the eight residence halls have organized recycling programs, residents and officials of the halls said.
Miller Scholarship Hall residents are the most active in the scholarship hall system, said Kim Hewett, Silver Lake sophomore and vice-president of the hall. In the past, they recycled aluminum, paper, glass and plastic. Currently, they do not recycle paper because its price is too low for local dealers to accept and recycle, she said.
"We're still looking into the paper thing," Hewett said. "We might just give it to the Boy Scouts. We're pretty environmentally conscious here at Miller and in all the scholarship halls."
Paul Borchardt, Lawrence freshman, who started a program of recycling aluminum and newspapers at Battenfeld Scholarship Hall, said he thought awareness of the environment was important and that people needed to learn as much about it as they could.
Borchardt said he began the program for some very basic reasons, in addition to the fact that the hall's proctor told him to do it.
"They should start it in high school, in biology classes," he said. "And where I got trained, or whatever you want to call it. Now it matters to me."
Gretchen Pippenger/Special to the KANSAN
Caitilin Rose, Boston sophomore, applies make-up before auditioning for "Macbeth."
Student thespians audition for KU stage performances
By Liz Hueben Kansan staff writer
The "green room" at Murphy Hall was filled with smoke.
Students read from various scripts and chatted. Some students sat alone in hallways, and some grouped together. Some tried to hide their nervousness and others weren't nervous at all.
Last night, tonight and tomorrow night are callback auditions for this season's University Theatre productions.
John Abramson, Wichita junior said he was not nervous at all.
"The thing about auditions that makes people nervous is that people are judging you," he said. "You are putting yourself on the line for someone to tell you whether they like your stuff or not."
University Theatre will present "Some Enchanted Evening," a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, to be directed by Jack Wright.
"T
The thing about auditions that makes people nervous is that people are judging you. You are putting yourself on the line for someone to tell you whether they like your stuff or not.'
- John Abramson Wichita junior
theatre and film professor, and four plays.
The plays to be performed are Shakespeare's "Macbeth," directed by Ron Willis, professor and chairman of the theatre and film department; David Mamet's "American Buffalo," directed by Paul Meier, assistant professor of theatre and film; Aleksander Vampilov's "Duck Hunting," directed by Mark Jennison. Brook
field, Wis., graduate student; and Gilles Gauther's "I am a Bear," directed by Jeannie Klein, assistant professor of theatre and film.
Open auditions were held Monday and Tuesday nights, which decreased the cast hopefuls to a few experienced or exceptional thespians, Klein said. Final casts will be announced Saturday, she said.
Klein said each director held his own auditions and each director conducted them differently.
Chris Davis, St. Louis freshman,
is auditioning for "Macbeth" and
"American Buffalo." These are
his first auditions at the University
of Kansas.
"I'm not nervous, or I wasn't until I sat down and started talking about it," Davis said.
Amy Dorsey, Lawrence junior,
said, "It doesn't matter how good
you think you are. What matters is
whether you can make them
believe it when you get up there to
audition."
200 arrested in S. African protests Archbishop Tutu's wife among jailed in anti-apartheid rally
The Associated Press
Many of the women, both Black and whites, sat on the street and chanted freedom songs before police led or carried them into vans.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Police arrested more than 200 women, including the wife of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, during a protest march in central Cape Town as part of a nationwide defiance campaign.
In Pretoria, eight Blacks and two whites were arrested for trying to desegregate the capital's whites-only buses, another phase of the defiance campaign. The two whites were women who bought bus tickets for Blacks.
Twice this week, shots have been fired into the homes of organizers of the Pretoria campaign.
Police stopped the throng of plac-cardrying women in Cape Town after they emerged from a church hall to begin a march to the British
They intended to ask Britain to protest the South African government's handling of student unrest in the Cape Town area and to intercede on behalf of three Black activists (facing execution for a 1986 killing.
Embassy
In addition to Leah Tutu, those arrested included Mary Burton, a white who heads the Black Sash civil rights group, and Dorothy Boesak, wife of the Rev. Allan Boesak, a prominent mixed-race activist who is president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.
Many of the marchers sat in a street adjoining a small plaza until they were led into police vans and driven away. Scores of onlookers cheered them.
Police said the women would be charged with participating in an illegal gathering.
A white activist involved in the defiance campaign, Willie Hofmeyer, was admitted to a Cape Town hospital Wednesday with suspected
internal bleeding, his father said. Hofmer has been on a hunger strike since he was detained by police last week during a protest at a branch of First National Bank, sponsor of an ongoing tour by an international rugby team which activists say violates the sports boycott of South Africa.
The South African Council of Churches, which supports the defiance campaign, announced plans for an outdoor rally Saturday in Soweto, the vast Black township outside Johannesburg. The church council's general secretary, the Rev. Frank Chkane, said the rally was intended as a forum for Blacks to express their opposition to the white-controlled government in a peaceful manner.
Outdoor rallies are illegal unless authorized by the government, and Chikane said he hoped Saturday's event would be approved. Tutu and Boesak are among the scheduled speakers.
BSU aims for apartheid awareness Program is in conjunction with other Big 8 schools
The Big Eight council on Black Student Government is starting an apartheid awareness program in conjunction with Black student unions on Big Eight campuses.
By Cory S. Anderson Kansan staff writer
Many opponents of apartheid, South Africa's system of racial segregation, think total divestment by world powers is one of the ways the South African government can be forced to abolish the system.
"We're committed to making sure divestment is on the agenda for every BSU until it is completed," said Ardra Tippett, chairman of the council and St. Louis senior. "We want to make sure that all campuses have policies on not being in South Africa and are living up to those policies."
The council is the umbrella organi-
cate of the student unions of
Big Eagle.
Tippett said the council was taking a step-by-step approach to solving
the problem of apartheid. The fall semester will be dedicated to awareness of apartheid.
"We're going to work this semester on educating people." Tippet said. "We want to let people know what is going in on South Africa.
She said BSU representatives
will sponsor films, speakers
and dinner for the occasion.
By working through Black student unions on Big Eight campuses, the council hopes to bring together a group of concerned students, she said.
"The educational process is so important. That is what the University is all about," Tippet said. "If you're going to protest something, you have to know what it is that you are against."
"The main thing we're going to do this semester is build a coalition, white and Black, greek and nongreek, faculty and staff, people that care," Tippett said. "We want to get everyone that wants to be informed
"If they want to run educational programs or bring in speakers, the Student Senate is always willing to help," he said. "We can dedicate manpower, time, basically whatever we need." He said it is within our rules and regulations."
Jeff Morris, vice president of Student Senate, said the Senate was willing to help the council and KU's BSU as much as possible.
together."
Cassandra Turner, executive secretary of Senate and recording secretary for the Big Eight council, said she thought that the program was a good idea.
"There is so much that you have to do to get funds from our University," said Turner, Lawrence junior. "A small group of students can't do it — faculty, staff and everyone have to pull together."
Tippett agreed.
"It's not just a Black problem, or a campus problem," she said. "It's a world-wide universal problem."