6A • THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY, OCT.17, 2001
Ashcroft says hoaxes are 'no joking matter'
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Assailing recent anthrax hoaxes as "no joking matter," Attorney General John Ashcroft said yesterday those who perpetrate anthrax or other terrorist scares will be prosecuted.
with the FBI chasing down thousands of reports of possible anthrax exposures — most turn out to be false alarms or practical jokes — Ashcroft said such scares were unlawful and "gross transgressions of the public trust."
With FBI Director Robert Mueller at his side, Ashcroft said a raid of hoaxes across the country had taxed the resources of an already burdened law enforcement system.
"They create illegitimate alarm in a time of legitimate concern," said Ashcroft.
The warning came as suspicious letters, unmarked packages and nonstop hoaxes have spread anthrax anxiety around the globe. No anthrax cases have been confirmed outside the United States.
In the United States, the FBI has received more than 2,300 reports of incidents or suspected incidents involving anthrax since Oct. 1. Most of them have been false alarms or practical jokes, said Mueller.
But agents treat every report as potentially the real thing, he said.
"We have no choice but to assume that each reported instance is an actual bio-threat," said Mueller.
An FBI warning last week about possible terrorist attacks within the next few days is still in effect, so authorities cannot afford to be diverted by phony scares.
"The threat of bioterrorism is no joking matter," the attorney general said.
Rabbi's mistress testifies in murder trial
The Associated Press
CAMDEN, N.J. — The mistress of a rabbi charged with killing his wife testified about their affair yesterday, describing a relationship that began the day her husband died and included a discussion in which he told her he dreamed "violence was coming" to his spouse.
Rabbi Fred Neulander, 60, is accused of arranging the beating death of his wife Carol in 1994 so he could carry on the affair with Elaine Soncini, a former Philadelphia radio personality. He is charged with murder and conspiracy.
Elaine Soncini testified that she met Neulander the day her
husband, Ken Garland, died in December 1992. After the funeral, she said, the rabbi asked if they could meet for lunch and they were having "relations" within two weeks.
Their meetings were usually at her house during long lunches. He parked in her garage, she said, so people wouldn't see his car with its "clergy" sticker parked in the driveway.
But sometimes, she said, they had "relations" in his office at Congregation M'mkor Shalom, the temple he founded with his wife in the wealthy community of Cherry Hill southeast of Philadelphia.
Defense lawyer Jeffrey Zucker acknowledged to jurors that the rabbi was having an affair, but said his client was not on trial for adultery.
Sonicini said she and Neulander talked as many as 10 times a day. She said she told Neulander at one point in 1994 about bad dreams she'd been having and he told her about some bad dreams of his own.
"He dreamed that violence was coming to Carol," she said.
Soncini, who didn't look at Neulander as she testified, spoke admiringly of him.
spoke admiringly.
"I thought he was brilliant," she said. "I thought he was extremely articulate, very
expressive — superior to most anyone I had ever met."
After his wife was killed on Nov. 1 of that year, she said he told her: "Trust me, when God closes a door, He opens a window."
After that, Soncini said, their relationship cooled.
Carol Neulander was beaten to death with a metal pipe in her living room as her husband was at synagogue. A few months later, Neulander resigned as senior rabbi, citing unspecified moral indiscretions.
Prosecutors later identified Neulander as a suspect, saying his wife was likely killed by a hit man. Soncini acknowledged
tneir affair, saying she ended it after learning he was suspected of arranging his wife's killing to continue their relationship.
Last year, private investigator Leonard Jenoff called The Philadelphia Inquirer to arrange a meeting with a prosecutor. He said the rabbi had offered him $30,000 to kill his wife.
Jenoff, who said he came forward because he feared the rabbi might be acquitted, said he and a former roommate beat the woman to death. Both men pleaded guilty to manslaughter and agreed to testify against Neulander.
Missing Texas heir may have murdered three
The Associated Press
GALVESTON, Texas — A heir of a wealthy New York City real estate family became a wanted man yesterday after he failed to show up for his arraignment yesterday on charges of murdering and dismembering a neighbor.
Robert Durst, 58, had been free on $250,000 bail in the slaying of Morris Black, whose remains began turning up Sept. 30 in Galveston Bay.
"There are a number of addresses
across the United States for Mr. Durst," prosecutor Kurt Sistrunk said. "We have no idea where he is."
no idea where he is.
Durst's attorney, Mark Kelly, said he had spoken with Durst on Monday to tell him about the court date.
min about the courtDurst, the son of the late multimillionaire Seymour Durst, lived across the hall from Black. Bloodstains and a bloody knife and boots were found in Durst's apartment, police said. Police have given no motive for the slaying.
Durst's lawyer has said he is innocent.
Durst's lawyer has said he is indebted. While Durst is charged only in the death of his 71-year-old neighbor, authorities from California and New York have converged on Galveston to investigate whether he is connected to two other killings.
In New York's Westchester County, authorities recently reopened the 1982 disappearance of Durst's 29-year-old wife, Kathleen. Durst said that he last saw her when he left her at a train station.
The investigation led authorities to Susan Berman, a longtime friend of Durst's in Los Angeles. But before they could interview her, Berman was found shot to death in her home last year.
California authorities have not named Durst as a suspect in Berman's death.
Durst's father was the patriarch of a real estate company that owns several New York skyscrapers. The younger Durst has been estranged from the family since the early 1990s.
U.S. embassy bombers to be sentenced tomorrow
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — The first men convicted of carrying out Osama bin Laden's 1989 edict to kill Americans wherever they are found will be sentenced under tight security tomorrow in the deadly 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.
The four men were found guilty last May in a trial that laid out in detail what the government knew about bin Laden and
his network of terror. Their sentencing will take place at the federal courthouse in lower Manhattan, just blocks from the ruins of the World Trade Center.
U. S. marshals with shotguns guard the courthouse. Barricades block the adjacent street, and steel posts protect the building.
ple, including 12 Americans, and led to an international manhunt for top leaders of bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network.
The four were arrested in the Aug. 7, 1998, bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The attacks killed 224 peo
The six-month trial attracted few spectators beyond government employees and the families of the victims. But the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that have been blamed on bin Laden have spurred new interest in the trial and the evidence the government collected.
Two defendants — Mohamed
Rashed Daoud Al-Owhali, 24, and Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, 28 could have gotten the death penalty, but jurors fearful of making the men martyrs did not impose it.
Two others — Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, 36, and Wadih El-Hage, 41 — were convicted after the evidence showed they had played significant roles in al-Qaida.
Prosecutors say El-Hage, the only U.S. citizen among the group, led "a secret double life," traveling the globe to raise
money and smuggle weapons for the terror plots. They said Odeh was an explosives expert.
Al-Owhai and Mohamed face a mandatory life sentence
Security had already been increased around the two federal courthouses in downtown Manhattan in the past year.
Since the Trade Center attack, visitors are required to submit bags and briefcases for inspection outside the courthouse.
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