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Police
Roundup
University
Sunday, March 5
■ A UNC student reported that 89
CDs had been stolen from her room in
Hinton James Residence Hall since
March 25,1999.
According to reports, the student had
not been present when any of the CDs
were taken. The total value of the miss
ing CDs was estimated at $1,350.
■ A UNC student reported minor
injuries at 10:45 a.m. from an assault
that had occurred earlier that morning.
According to reports, the victim was
at a party on the seventh floor of Hinton
James Residence Hall. When he left the
suite where the party was held at 1 a.m.,
the suspect, Robert Cailey, struck him
twice in the side of the face, reports
state.
The victim reported a swollen lip
and cheek.
The student reported that the attack
was unprovoked and that he had never
met Cailey, who is not a UNC student.
■ According to reports, a UNC stu
dent was arrested for underage posses
sion of alcohol.
The suspect was found with a Bud
Light in her possession in McCauley
Lot at 1:39 a.m.
Reports state that she was cited and
released.
Saturday, March 4
■ A UNC student reported a suspi
cious person who had approached her
at about 1:30 a.m. as she returned to her
residence hall.
According to reports, the student was
walking from Franklin Street to Joyner
Residence Hall when, near Morehead
Planetarium, a man started talking to
her and walking with her.
The student described the man as a
5-foot-8-inch clean-shaven black male
wearing a teal Charlotte Hornets jacket
and dark pants.
She reported that he told her he was
depressed due to a domestic situation
involving a child.
Reports state that the suspect fol
lowed the student back tojoyner, where
he asked to come in. The student
refused.
Police found no sign of the man in or
around Joyner, according to reports.
■ According to reports, eight shrubs
were pulled out of the ground near the
Alumni Building.
No suspects or damage estimates
were available.
■ At 2:13 p.m., a UNC student
reported that her purse had been stolen
from the fifth floor of Davis Library.
According to reports, the student had
left her purse unattended on a table for
about 10 minutes.
Reports state the purse was found
about an hour later between books on
the fifth floor.
One hundred dollars in cash and a
Visa credit card were missing, although
the rest of the contents were intact.
■ At 10:41 p.m., a UNC student was
found on Raleigh Road and charged
with underage possession of alcohol.
Reports state that he was carrying a
Coors Light and was cited and released.
City
Saturday, March 4
■ A Chapel Hill man was charged
with the assault of a female at a local
residence.
Joseph Bernard Lassiter of 306
Lindsay St. was charged with misde
meanor assault of his girlfriend early
Saturday morning, reports said.
Police responded to a call at 3:42
a.m. pertaining to a disturbance in the
area.
When officers arrived at the scene,
they noticed a woman bleeding from
the mouth, caused by a blow.
Police reports said the suspect had
cuts and scrapes on his knuckles.
Lassiter was released on a promise to
appear with a written statement saying
he would not come into contact with the
victim prior to trail.
A court date has not been set.
Friday, March 3
■ A Carrboro woman reported a
missing divinity statue from her proper
ty
Police reports state a local resident,
wanting to remain anonymous, report
ed that her statue of a praying angel was
missing as of Feb. 22 but failed to report
it due to personal reasons.
The 24-inch symbol was a favorite of
the woman.
She told police she had no idea who
would have stolen the statue and for
what reason.
A tree service was soliciting their
trade prior to the statue’s disappear
ance, police reports state.
Police are continuing to investigate
the disappearance.
Town Council Debates IFC Expansion Plans
By Robert Albright
Staff Writer
The Inter-Faith Council’s future
remained up in the air Monday night as
the Chapel Hill Town Council contin
ued discussion of the group’s hotly
debated plans for expansion.
The IFC, which runs a local homeless
shelter and soup kitchen on 100 W.
Rosemary St., is looking to either relo
cate its offices to a different building or
expand the shelter’s downtown location.
Peering Through the
J Political
A7E
N.C. Legislators
Struggle to Find
UNC Funding
By Matthew B. Dees
State & National Editor
While state legislators are quick to
emphasize their determination to rem
edy the UNC system’s needs, the
political and fiscal realities facing the
N.C. General Assembly will make it
difficult for them to make good on
those pledges.
The 2000 election year will certain
ly loom large when the legislature con
venes in May, limiting the funding
options available to state leaders wary
of disillusioning would-be voters with
excessive spending or tax increases.
“Legislators are saying ‘no more
taxes;’ you have to work with what
you get,” said UNC-Chapel Hill polit
nmmS
A three-part series examining how the UNC system's
funding requests will fare in the N.C. legislature.
ical science
Professor Thad
Beyle.
“Everyone is
running for office,
and if you say any
thing about raising
taxes, you’re going
to get beat.”
And with very limited resources
available in this year’s budget, the
future of UNC-system leaders’ major
funding priorities remains uncertain.
The Board of Governors has asked
the legislature to allocate funding to
bolster faculty salaries, establish a
$36.8 million need-based financial aid
package and repair and renovate aca
“There’s enough of us ...
that don't agree with any
kind of tuition increase, but
we may have to ... on a
temporary basis. ”
Rep. Mickey Michaux
D-Ourham
DNA, Book Top Attorneys' Talk
By Jamila Vernon
Staff Writer
Two civil rights lawyers spoke at the
School of Law on Monday about their
work freeing wrongfully convicted
inmates just days before their scheduled
executions.
Barry Scheck, defense attorney for
the OJ. Simpson murder trial, and
Peter Neufeld have overturned 36 cases
since the Innocence Project started.
Neufeld started and directs the pro
ject, which takes on pro bono cases for
wrongly convicted inmates. The pro
gram attempts to exonerate the inmates
through DNA testing.
Scheck and Neufeld came to campus
to promote the new book they co
authored, “Actual Innocence: Five Days
to Execution and Other Dispatches
From the Wrongly Convicted.”
Neufeld said DNA was the tool used
in their 36 cases to release the wrongly
convicted from prison.
In the last decade, 64 people have
been put in prison for crimes they did
not commit, Neufeld said. The book
focuses on 10 of those cases.
One such case includes Ron
Williamson, a former minor league
baseball player who was convicted of
Because of the IFC’s growing needs,
council member Pat Evans said the
council would have a difficult task in
determining the IFC’s fate.
“It is in the town’s best interests to
keep our options open,” she said. “We
(as a town) are not flush with money.”
Although the IFC’s shelter and com
munity kitchen are in Chapel Hill, the
administrative and crisis intervention
offices are located in Carrboro.
Therefore, IFC officials have been
searching for an optimal location to con
ZE
ILLUSTRATION BY DANA CRAIG
demic facilities on all 16 campuses.
UNC leaders sought support for the
latter initiative last summer, asking the
legislature to issue bonds for capital
needs.
But the House and Senate proposed
very different solutions and failed to
reconcile them by the time the session
ended in July.
That set the
stage for the fund
ing tug-of-war
UNC-system offi
cials will likely
face when they
take their budget
request to the
General Assembly
in May.
“There’s going to have to be some
fancy smoke and mirrors going on,”
said Sen. Virginia Foxx, R-Alleghany,
who was one of seven senators to vote
against a bill this summer that would
have approved $3 billion worth of
bonds to improve capital.
“I see absolutely no support for rais
“I see absolutely no support
for raising taxes, ... and
nothing has changed...
about approving bond
money without a vote ...”
Sen. Virginia Foxx
R-Allegbany
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Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, two prominent civil rights attorneys
and experts in forensic DNA testing, discuss their new book Monday.
rape based on the testimony of a jail
house snitch and a hair comparison test.
Within five days of his scheduled exe
cution, he was freed because of DNA
evidence that proved his innocence.
“They measured his coffin,” Scheck
said. “These are the kind of individuals
News
solidate its services.
Town Council member Lee Pavao,
who serves as co-chairman of the IFC’s
task force on alternative locations, said it
had discussed five available sites.
“Of the five sites, all have problems,”
he said. “I want the task force to look at
all the five sites again and look at other
locations before we quickly decide.”
The task force considered locating
IFC’s facilities on Homestead Road,
where the county’s human services cen
ter is located. But onjan. 20, the Orange
ing taxes, and as far as I know, nothing
has changed since last year about
approving bond money without a vote
of the people.
“I don’t know what university peo
ple think has changed that would make
the climate better.”
Even ardent supporters of the UNC
system concede that the outlook is
somewhat grim.
“We’re going to have to do a lot of
belt-tightening,” said Rob Lamme,
spokesman for Senate President Pro
Tem Marc Basnight, D-Dare.
Recognizing these difficulties, UNC
system officials have proposed solu
tions that would not require funding
from the state budget: bonds for the
capital improvements and tuition
increases to subsidize faculty salary
increases.
Some of the bonds would be paid
off by the fees incurred through the use
of the capital facilities receiving fund
ing.
While most legislators have said this
is probably the best way to address
‘We’ve got tremendous
needs due not only to the
negligence of the various
campuses, hut also the
General Assembly. ”
Sen. John Garwood
R-Avery
we talk about in the book.”
Fifty percent of the wrongful convic
tions are a result of police misconduct,
and 25 percent are due to incompetent
lawyers, Neufeld said. They could also
See LAWYERS, Page 7
County Board of Commissioners ruled
against relocating IFC to that area.
Because of the OCC’s decision, IFC
officials have focused on other sites.
Josh Diem, director of IFC’s Project
Homestart, a program for housing
underprivileged families, said the shelter
and administrative offices should be in
the same downtown location.
Chapel Hill resident Ruby Sinreich
lives several blocks from the Rosemary
Street shelter. She mirrored Diem’s sen
timents at the meeting. “Downtown is
capital needs, they have failed to reach
a consensus on whether the bond pro
posals should be approved by a vote of
the people.
By law, these particular bonds,
known as general interest bonds, do
not require voter approval.
UNC-system officials have argued
that it would be difficult to convince
the average voter of these needs and
that the urgent nature of some of the
capital needs could not wait for a pub
lic referendum in November.
But detractors have said it is irre
sponsible to spend billions of state dol
lars without public support.
Out of this division grew a joint
committee that will spend the next two
months visiting UNC campuses,
appraising needs and trying to arrive at
the best funding solution.
Sen. Kay Hagan, R-Forsyth, who sits
on the joint committee, said some leg
islators had discussed a compromise
that would issue bonds for the most
See LEGISLATORS, Page 7
“We need to ... bite the
bullet on faculty salaries,
that is, if we want to keep
the quality university
system we have now. ”
Sen. Tony Rand
D-Cumberland
Manufacturer Offers
Printer Model Trade
By Harmony Johnson
Staff Writer
Student complaints about faulty
printers they purchased from Student
Stores have led one manufacturer to
appease them with new upgrades.
Students experiencing problems with
the Lexmark 5000 printer purchased
from the RAM Shop now have the
opportunity to trade in their printer for
a newer model, said John Gorsuch,
RAM Shop manager.
The Lexmark 5000 printer was the
most popular printer choice among
freshmen who purchased laptops
through the Carolina Computing
Initiative, which requires all incoming
freshmen to have laptops by this fall.
The printer was part of a special pro
motional package designed to gamer
student demand this year for initiative
laptops.
Complaints ranged from printing fail
ure to difficulty getting the printers ser
viced.
The Lexmark Corp. is offering the
free exchange after Gorsuch notified the
company of students’ complaints at the
Tuesday, March 7, 2000
best from a transportation and land-use
point of view,” she said.
Council members discussed the
importance of looking at other options,
including the current home of the
Chapel Hill Police Department.
Town Council member Flicka
Bateman said the council should elimi
nate the police building from considera
tion because of cost and location.
But other council members were
See IFC, Page 7
Gift of Life
Needed for
UNC Doctor
Dr. Vincent Curasco, a UNC
ear surgeon, needs a bone
marrow transplant to win
his fight with leukemia.
By John Maberry
Staff Writer
UNC Hospitals’ Dr. Vincent Curasco
has dedicated his life to healing.
Sometimes this healing entails find
ing new ways to open the ears of a deaf
child, and sometimes it calls for the love
of a husband and father.
Now, the man who has salved so
many wounds needs a cure himself.
Last summer Curasco was diagnosed
with chronic leukemia.
To survive, he needs a bone marrow
transplant. But of the 3 million regis
tered bone marrow donors in the
United States, no suitable match has
been found for Curasco.
The temporary medication for his
condition has made it impossible for the
doctor to carry on his duties as an ear
surgeon specialist.
“He refused to start the medication
until he had finished with his last
patient,” said co-worker Carolyn Brown.
As an otolaryngologist, Curasco is
pioneering the surgical procedure of
cochlear nerve implants in young infants.
His work has allowed infants who
would normally have no sense of hear
ing to leave their world of silence.
“The way Dr. Curasco interacts with
patients has always been impressive,”
Brown said. “Deafness is a family issue,
and he really seems to understand the
grief process.”
Curasco’s bout with leukemia has
been difficult for him on a personal level.
“I remember his last day of surgery,
he told me that it was so hard because
this is what he had worked his whole
life to do,” Brown said.
Although the process of searching for
a match has been an emotional strain
on Curasco’s family, he said there had
been positive side effects.
“I have four children. The positive
side effect is that I get to see them grow
up,” Curasco said. “I’m one of those
workaholic types, but I’ve been home
for a few months and gotten used to it
by reshifting my priorities."
Although insurance covers the trans
plant itself, the family is responsible for
paying for the search for a match.
A debt of nearly $30,000 has already
been incurred for Curasco and his fam
ily, and he must now search overseas.
Curasco stressed education about
bone marrow transplants as a means to
See SURGEON, Page 7
end of last semester.
About 800 of the Lexmark 5,000
printers were sold, Gorsuch said.
He estimated that 2 percent to 3 per
cent of those printers had defects.
“It’s like any electronic device,” he
said. “You’re always going to have a
small percentage with problems.”
About 30 students have already filled
out a trade-in form, Gorsuch said. A
RAM shop employee said more forms
were submitted over the weekend.
To receive their replacement, stu
dents must return their Lexmark 5000
printer, AC adapter and any manuals.
Freshman Katie Edwards said she
was thrilled about the opportunity to
exchange her printer, which she said
caused her computer to freeze when she
tried to print.
“I didn’t know everyone else was
having problems with their printer,”
Edwards said. “I’m definitely going to
take advantage of it”
Freshman Kinsey Christiansen said
she was grateful for the trade-in because
her printer would not work at all.
See PRINTERS, Page 7
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