THURSDAY,NOV.1,2001
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 5A
Fugitive can't escape 1970s' deeds
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Former Symbionese Liberation Army fugitive Sara Jane Olson pleaded guilty today to attempting to murder police officers with bombs in 1975.
The surprise plea came in an agreement that did not guarantee Olson a specific sentence. Her lawyers said they expected her to get about five years in prison, but the judge warned she could be sentenced to life behind bars.
Olson admitted possessing explosives devices and attempting to explode them in two incidents — one at the Hollenbeck
Olson was on the run for more than 20 years for her participation in SLA's illegal activities. The group was a radical group that gained fame by kidnapping newspaper heiress Patty Hearst.
Police Station in Los Angeles and another near a House of Pancakes restaurant in Hollywood on Aug. 21, 1975.
The agreement calls for Olson to surrender to the California Department of Corrections on Jan. 8 with a recommendation from prosecutors that she be allowed to serve her time in Minnesota near her family.
Defense lawyers and prosecutors had spent more than four hours in the judge's chambers before the agreement was announced.
Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler said most of the discussions centered on how much time Olson would have to serve
he is ill. Olson was indicted in 1976 under her given name, Kathleen Soliah, but remained a fugitive until her June 1999 capture in St. Paul, Minn., where she was living under the assumed name Olson.
in prison.
Her husband, Fred Peterson, her mother, Elsie Soliah, and her daughter Sophie Peterson, sat in the front row of the courtroom as
the plea was entered yesterday. Earlier, her daughter had been in tears, hugging her mother as she entered the courtroom.
A grand jury had accused Olson of attempting to murder officers in retaliation for the deaths of six members of the radical group who died in a shootout and fire in 1974. The bombs did not explode.
Her arrest two years ago came soon after the FBI offered a $20,000 reward on the 25th anniversary of the SLA shootout and her case was featured on the television show America's Most Wanted.
Investigators explore why Russian sub sank
The Associated Press
MOSCOW—Authorities investigating the explosions that sank the nuclear submarine Kursk are focusing on dents in its hull, a top Cabinet official said yesterday as experts pulled out a 65th body from the wrecked vessel.
television.
"We need to very thoroughly deal with those dents which we see on the submarine to make thorough calculations to make sure what it was that caused them," Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov said on Russian
television. Klebanov spoke after visiting the northern Russian port of Roslyakovo, where investigators are examining what triggered the explosions that sank the sub, leaving it on Barents Sea floor for more than a year.
Explosions sank the Kursk during military exercises on Aug. 12, 2000, killing all 118 crewmen. Officials agree that the explosion of one of the Kursk's own torpedoes sank the vessel, but they say they don't know what caused that blast.
ated Russia's position that it could have been an internal malfunction — as most Western experts believe — or a collision with another vessel or a World War II mine.
Steeped in the history of Cold War cat-and-mouse games with American submarines, some Russian military officials said they suspected a foreign submarine hit the Kursk.
On Tuesday, Klebanov reiter
The United States and Great Britain operate submarines in the Barents Sea and had vessels monitoring the Russian naval exercises when the Kursk sank
Klebanov said yesterday that the dents could have been the result of "an external impact" or of the submarine hitting the seabed — or a vacuum effect from a powerful explosion inside.
but both denied their boats were involved in the accident.
Investigators have identified 39 of the bodies recovered since last week, officials said yesterday.
The Northern Fleet said 18 coffins containing the sailors' remains have been flown to their hometowns.
Psychic Miss Cleo accused of baiting callers
the Associated Press
ALBANY, N.Y. — The marketers behind television psychic Miss Cleo were accused yesterday of violating New York's "Do Not Call" telemarketing law more than 100 times in the past seven months.
C. Adrienne Rhodes, the executive director of the Consumer Protection Board, said
Access Resource Services also called the Psychic Readers Network may be subject to as much as $224,000 in fines.
According to the agency, Access-PRN misleads customers into thinking they can get a free psychic reading. But Rhodes said the "psychics" employed by Access-PRN can only be reached by dialing a 900 number at $3.99 a minute.
She also said the psychics seem more interested in keeping people on the telephone than in giving them a reading.
"This so-called 'psychic' service appears to be a scam to keep people on the telephone for as long as possible." Rhodes said.
Calls to Access-PRN were referred yesterday to attorney Joel Dichter, who didn't immediately return a request for comment.
Under the April 1 telemarketing law, New Yorkers sign up on a registry that prohibits unsolicited calls from marketers at certain hours and companies from making aggressive, confusing sales pitches over the telephone.
More than 2 million people have signed up.
Rabbi changes part of previous testimony
The Associated Press
CAMDEN, N.J. — A rabbi charged with having his wife murdered took back one element of his previous testimony.
of his previous visit.
Yesterday, the final day of testimony in his trial, Rabbi Fred J. Neulander said he did not love Elaine Soncini, with whom he was having an affair at the time of his wife's death.
Neulander, 60, said he was not sincere in a letter he wrote Soncini on Jan. 4, 1995, professing his love. He only wrote it because he wanted the relationship to continue, he said.
On Tuesday, he said he had written it as a sign of love.
"I gave the wrong impression." Neulander said yesterday. "And I used the wrong words."
The case was expected to go to the jury today — seven years to
the day after Carol Neulander, 52, was found dead in the couple's home.
If convicted, Neulander could face the death penalty.
The jury also heard from a surprise witness, James "Mickey" Rooney, a friend of Len Jenoff, the man who said last year that the rabbi paid him to kill Carol Neulander.
Rooney testified that he and Jenoff discussed how Jenoff could profit from the killing by selling his story for a book or movie. Rooney said Jenoff told him it was important that Neulander be found guilty — or the story wouldn't sell.
story would use Jenoff, 56, and his confessed accomplice, Paul Michael Daniels, 27, both pleaded guilty last year to aggravated manslaughter and are awaiting sentencing.
Fluke 911 call results in teen-agers' arrest
The Associated Press
HUTCHINSON — Two teenagers talked their way into handcuffs by way of a cell phone call to 911 on Monday.
Dispatchers listened to a 20-minute discussion between the 19- and 18-year-old men, including an alleged boast of a planned armed robbery.
The pair allegedly were smoking marijuana around noon in their apartment when someone either sat on or hit a cell phone, said Hutchinson Police Detective Sgt. Clay Rothe. The blow triggered a call to Reno County 911
"Someday you're going to come home and wonder all your life where this bag of money came from," one of the teens said on
"I'll never tell," he went on. "I will have robbed the Taco Bell and gotten away with it."
That got dispatchers' attention.
The two then drove to a music store. On the way, dispatchers listened to giggling, loud music and worry about being stopped.
Concern about the police proved well-founded, when Hutchinson police officers arrived at Hastings.
Rothe the men allowed police to search them; marijuana was allegedly found on both. Plus a cell phone, still connected to 911.
The pair faces possible misdeaner marijuana charges. No charges had been filed yesterday.
Summer 2002 Study Abroad Fair
TODAY
Thursday, November 1st 9:30am-3:30pm Kansas Union 4th Floor Meet faculty directors Talk with returnees Find out about financial aid
University of Kansas - Office of Study Abroad - 864-3742 - osa@ku.edu - www.ku.edu/~osa
Douglas County Fairgrounds Buildings 1&2
Sign large banners that will be sent to New York & Washington, D.C.
Please visit:
www.Dogality.com/auction
for updates of donations and events
Let's show America that Douglas County is here for the victims of 9-11-01 and that we're proud to be Americans!
Donation Drop-off time:
Friday, Nov. 2nd from noon to 9pm at the Douglas County Fairgrounds, Buildings 1 & 2
· We need nice, clean & usable items for the sale •
Proceeds to benefit the American Red Cross 9-11 Disaster Relief Fund