6A • THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
STATE
MONDAY,SEPTEMBER 16,2002
John Robinson murder trial set to begin today in Olathe
The Associated Press
TOPEKA — The story of serial murder suspect John E. Robinson Sr. could have come straight from a modern Hollywood thriller; claims of fraud, Internet solicitation, sadistic sexual behavior, kidnapping and murder.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Robinson, 58, whose trial in Olathe starts today and centers on the gruesome deaths of two women and the killing of a third whose body has never been found.
Suzette Trouten and Izabela Lewicka were found decomposing in barrels on land owned by Robinson in Linn County, 40 miles south of the Kansas City area. He's also charged with killing Lisa Stasi, who remains missing.
Regardless of how his Kansas trial ends, he faces another triple-murder case in Missouri, where prosecutors say he's responsible for killing three more people whose bodies were found in barrels at a storage locker.
Public interest in Robinson is high for numerous reasons, chief among them the revelations about Robinson's sadomasochistic encounters, solicited in Internet chat rooms under the name, "Slavemaster."
Two women who met Robinson at separate hotels later claimed they were sexually assaulted.
"If all that has been revealed is true, you have to put this in the category of worst of the worst," said Tom Stacy, a law professor at the University of Kansas.
The case has drawn national and international attention. A German television crew arrived days after Robinson was arrested in June 2000 to interview neighbors.
Those residents of the Santa Barbara Mobile Home Park in Olathe recalled that Robinson appeared to be a family man who loved to spend time with his grandchildren.
On Monday, his trial begins with jury selection in Olathe. His lawyers have worked hard to delay the trial, but most recently failed to persuade the judge to reject a pool of 1,200 prospective jurors over concerns that pretrial publicity would taint the panel.
Jury selection for 12 members and eight alternates is expected to take at least a week. Many expect the trial to last at least four to six weeks.
Evidence against Robinson includes thousands of pages of documents, including DNA evi-
uence. Prosecutors say Robinson was everything from a con artist who lured women to Johnson county with promises of a good job and world travel to a man who trolled the Internet seeking rough sex.
Trouten, 28, was from Newport, Mich., and authorities say she was murdered in 2000; Lewicka, 22, a former Purdue University student who moved to the Kansas City area in June 1997, was killed in 1999. Stasi, 19, was from Johnson County and has been missing since 1985.
Prosecutors say Robinson had the victims write letters to family members telling them all was well. Correspondence eventually stopped and the women disappeared.
Johnson County authorities began their investigation when Trouten's parents said they hadn't heard from their daughter. In March 2000, investigators started following Robinson.
They went to his property and found the bodies of Trouten and Lewicka stuffed in yellow barrels near a mobile home used by Robinson as a weekend getaway.
With Stasi, prosecutors claim Robinson convinced her he was involved in an organization that helped young mothers. They say Robinson took Stasi's daughter
and arranged for her adoption by his brother.
In Missouri, he's charged with the deaths of Sheila Faith, her daughter Debbie, and Beverly Bonner. Their bodies were found in barrels in a storage locker in Raymore, Mo. He faces the death penalty if convicted.
The months leading to Monday's scheduled start in Kansas have been marked by Robinson's numerous legal maneuvers aimed at delaying the trial. He replaced members of the state's death penalty defense unit with an inexperienced attorney in 2001. That attorney was also later fired. The court then appointed his current team, Patrick Berrigan and Sean O'Brien of Kansas City, Mo.
"My read is that Robinson has been trying to control the system," Stacy said. "He had his own quirky idea of how to handle the case."
Robinson will undergo psychiatric evaluations, and his attorneys have argued that he has suffered from a mood disorder. Insanity is not a defense in Kansas.
Death penalty cases are a twophase process. If the jury finds Robinson guilty, a second phase begins to lay out evidence to determine whether he should die for the crimes.
Job seekers get refunds from firm that posted fake help-wanted ads
The Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. Refunds are available for Kansas job seekers who claim Bernard Haldane Associates cheated them out of thousands of dollars with unrealized promises of getting an inside track on a "hidden job market."
The New York-based career counseling firm agreed Friday to refund $300,000 to clients who said the company's Overland Park and Wichita franchises deceived them.
Bernard Haldane's national
office and Reed Freeman Management Group Inc., which runs the two Kansas franchises, also agreed to pay the state a combined $100,000 in penalties and fees.
Attorney General Carl Stovall's office received nearly 100 complaints from consumers and conducted a nearly two-year investigation that led to the consent agreement.
Company officials in May 1999 agreed to pay $80,000 to the Kansas attorney general to settle earlier complaints and legal costs.
Officials with Bernard Hal
dane said they consented to the settlement "in the interest of speedy resolution."
The company said "any allegation of client dissatisfaction is of great concern to us."
The consent agreement alleges that company representatives falsely claimed they could bypass business human resources and personnel departments, that their services were always tax-deductible, and that they had access to a "hidden job market."
It also alleges that the company posted solicitations disguised as
job openings in newspapers to recruit clients, gathered resumes from the Internet and contacted job hunters for "a job interview" that was really a sales pitch, and charged clients to produce a videotape of the clients when the service wasn't even provided.
To get a refund, consumers complaints must be among those outlined in the consent agreement, said Mark Ohlemeier, spokesman for Stovall's office.
He said the deadline for filing complaints and making a refund requests is Oct. 28.
The Associated Press
Boeing machinists approve contract by slim margin
So Bonner was back at work knowing a contract he couldn't support will be the rule for the next three years.
"I'm disappointed," he said.
"But ... there's nothing you can do."
It will be tricky for Boeing management to smooth over relations with its largest union.
Many Machinists complained that the provisions they pushed for the hardest, such as job security, were among the most ignored. Their ranks were already decimated by thousands of layoffs in the past year alone, and the Machinists' 25,000 members at Boeing fear they could face even leaner times.
Machinists at Boeing's Wichita plant scraped together enough votes to strike, but were outvoted by the union's total membership. Union officials did not disclose how the Portland membership voted.
The majority doesn't always rule, however. Under union bylaws, a contract is accepted if less than two-thirds of the membership votes to strike. The contract was rejected by 62 percent, not enough to authorize a walkout.
"Just going back to work is going to be hard," said union steward Russell Walker after leaving the Wichita meeting.
RENTON, Wash. — If voting had turned out just a little differently, Mike Bonner would have been holding a strike sign Saturday instead of a bag full of shirts bearing The Boeing Co. logo.
It wasn't how the 17-year employee had planned to spend his weekend. Like the majority of his fellow Machinists union members in Washington state, Wichita and Portland, Ore., he voted Friday to reject a contract offer from Boeing and strike immediately.
workers, at Boeing's helicopter plant in suburban Philadelphia, went on strike Saturday for the first time in 28 years, blocking nonunion workers from entering the plant's main gate. About 1,400 workers there are represented by Local 1069 of the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America.
Bonner, an inspector at the aerospace company's commercial-jet factory here, was shopping at a company store sale during a break from work.
Another group of union
Candidates for Kansas attorney general would make death penalty an option in more cases
The Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Both candidates for Kansas attorney general favor expanding the number of crimes that can lead to a death penalty conviction.
The Machinists' bind will add internal morale problems to Boeing's considerable external challenges — from competition with Airbus to the overall airline industry downturn since Sept. 11, said Warren Boeker, a labor expert and professor of strategy at the University of Washington Business School.
Kline also favors expanding the death penalty to include premeditated murder, said Whitney Watson. Kline's campaign spokesman.
"And I'm not sure frankly what they can do about that," Boeker said. "I don't think there's a quick fix."
As a member of the Kansas House, he voted for legislation that would have expanded the
Chris Biggs, the Democratic
A 1994 death penalty law lists only seven capital crimes, including the intentional or premeditated killing of a law enforcement officer or killing more than one person as part of a common scheme. The last time the state put someone to death was in 1965.
Biggs, who lives in Geary County, faces Republican Phill Kline of Shawnee in the attorney general's race.
Boeing Commercial Airplanes' chief executive, Alan Mulally, said Friday that the company tried to keep Machinists' — and other employees' — interests in mind with its final contract proposal.
candidate, told The Kansas City Star editorial board on Friday that he wanted the law expanded to include other forms of pre-meditated murder.
"I think we listened really well and we did the very best that we could." Mulally said.
The contract offered Aug. 27 provides an 8 percent ratification bonus, wage increases of 2 percent and 2.5 percent in the second and third years, and a 20 percent boost in monthly pension payments by the third year. It also includes increases in health care costs for many employees and contract provisions that union leaders call "attacks" on job security.
"Boeing is going to do what they want to anyway," said Alfred Love, who's put in 14 years at Boeing. He voted against the contract — and against a strike, though he knew the consequences if the strike vote failed.
"They've selected a group of victims they're going to treat with special consideration."
Some Machinists who rejected the contract as unsatisfactory nonetheless felt a strike would be worse.
Though many Machinists voted against the contract, employees said some showed relief when they reported to work Saturday.
Chris Biggs
general death penalty in 1996. But the bill died, Watson said.
Biggs "mirrors the things Phill's been saying for the past six months in this campaign, and he mirrors the things Phil said as a legislator," Watson said.
Chris Biggs
Democratic candidate for Kansas attorney
general
Someone who kidnaps, rapes and kills an adult could get the death penalty. Biggs said. But if a victim is killed after being kidnapped and fending off a rape, the defendant would not face the death penalty, he said.
Biggs said he also would propose requiring juries to determine that the defendant was guilty to "a moral certainty," or beyond all doubt during the sentencing phase of a capital case.
"They've selected a group of victims they're going to treat with special consideration," Biggs said of the Legislature.
Maytag to fly Kansans to Washington, D.C.
Now most of the town is being flown to Washington, as Maytag thanks them for taking part in a water conservation study five years ago.
The Associated Press
About 250 Bern residents thats most of the town's population will spend Sunday through Thursday in Washington, where they will accept an award from the Department of Energy, tour sites including the Capitol and meet with former
BERN — First, Bern got free washing machines.
U. S. Sen, Bob Dole of Kansas.
In 1997, residents in more than 100 homes in Bern and the surrounding area participated in the study and were given new Maytag washing machines.
The study began with residents recording the use of their current machines for four months.
A water meter measured how much water was used and wasted. Participants were then given a Maytag washer that is supposed to use 40 percent less water and 60 percent less energy, and their energy usage was monitored for three months.