VOLUME 114, ISSUE 74
Taheri-Azar to plead not guilty
PIT ATTACKER ACCEPTS DEFENDER, PREPS FOR ARRAIGNMENT
BY SHANNAN BOWEN -
INVESTIGATIVE TEAM EDITOR
HILLSBOROUGH - The UNC alumnus
accused of injuring people to avenge deaths of
Muslims is expected to enter a plea of not guilty
at his Dec. 12 arraignment.
Mohammad Ihheri-Azar withdrew a previous
court statement at a pre-trial hearing Tuesday
and told Orange County Superior Court Judge
Carl Fox that he will keep his court-appointed
attorney.
Fox told Thheri-Azar at the June hearing that
he would have to be deemed competent by psy
chological evaluations if he wanted to represent
himself.
James Williams, Taheri-Azar’s public
defender, said Tuesday that Taheri-Azar is psy
chologically competent, but that he still is being
evaluated.
“At this point we are not raising questions of
competency,” Williams said, adding that Taheri-
UNC loses
track of
utility bills
Leaders blame accounting system
BY GREG MARGOLIS
STAFF WRITER
A sluggish and outdated
accounting system has been the
source of confusion for campus
recreation officials closing pay
ment on last
year’s utility
bills.
Marty
Pomerantz,
director of
UNC campus
recreation,
said he was
puzzled why
the utility bills
he received for
the Rams Head
Recreation
Center for the
2005-06 fis—
9
Director Marty
Pomerantz
pointed out
the surprisingly
low utility bill.
cal year were only $37,000 when
the 2006-07 estimate is closer to
$250,000.
Ben Poulson, acting associate
director of UNC Energy Services,
said he blames the discrepancy
on an outdated accounting sys
tem.
“My assumption was that
just we weren’t being charged,”
Pomerantz said.
“Then my next assumption was,
Teacher faces porn charges
BY TED STRONG
SENIOR WRITER
HILLSBOROUGH - The for
mer teacher who officials say also
was a sexual predator is back in
jail in lieu of $500,000 bail facing
20 new felony child pornography
charges.
David Campbell Jones, a former
Phillips Middle School teacher
and football coach and Boy Scout
TYoop Leader, appeared in District
Criminal Court in Hillsborough on
Ibesday.
The charges stem from imag
es the Orange County Sheriff’s
department found after seizing
Jones’ computer.
District Attorney Jim Woodall
said that the charges are not rep
resentative of the number of illegal
images found on the computer.
“The sheriff’s department, in
making it only 20 charges, is being
very charitable,” he said.
inside
TESTING PLEASE The ACT is seeing a
spike in popularity and acceptance, PAGE 4
BOOKING IT BACK Former UNC student
and best-seller returns to campus, PAGE 5
NOT UP TO SNUFF Officials say work is
needed to fix N.C. infrastructure, PAGE 9
Serving the students and the University community since 1893
ihr laily 3ar Hrri
Azar was not in a position to assess his mental
state or the conclusions from his evaluation
during the pre-trial hearing.
A date has not been set, but the trial could
begin as early as April.
“His case is next scheduled for arraignment
in December,” Williams said. “At that time, I
anticipate, assuming he is sufficiently mentally
stable, that we will enter a plea of not guilty.”
Taheri-Azar is charged with nine counts of
attempted first-degree murder, five counts of
assault with a deadly weapon with intent to
kill, inflicting serious injury, and four counts
of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to
kill.
Taheri-Azar turned himself in to police just
after the March 3 attack and admitted to driv
ing a rented Jeep Cherokee through the Pit to
avenge the deaths of Muslims. He is being held
in lieu of $5.5 million bail at Raleigh’s Central
Prison.
‘I know somebody is paying.’”
But both of those assumptions
proved to be wrong.
The bills showed that about
$37,000 was owed to UNC Energy
Services for steam, chilled water
and electricity.
At the beginning of the
2005-06 fiscal year, the esti
mated cost for these utility bills
upon which student activity
fees are based was closer to
SIOO,OOO.
For the current fiscal year, the
cost is estimated.to be $250,000,
Pomerantz said. The increase
can be accounted for because the
utilities will cover the entire fiscal
year. Rams Head Center opened
midway through the 2005-06 fis
cal year.
At a student fee advisory
subcommittee meeting Friday,
Pomerantz asked for a $2
increase in the Rams Head
Recreation Center fee. Students
questioned why the increase was
needed given the low cost of the
utility bill.
“You have to explain to the
students why there’s such a large
discrepancy in the costof utilities
SEE UTILITY BILL, PAGE 10
Previously on the
DavtdJones case
David Campbell Jones, formerly
of 113 Hampton Court, currently
of Concord, and then a teacher at
Phillips Middle School in Chapel Hill,
was arrested in August on charges of
soliciting a minor in Orange County
and taking indecent liberties with a
minor in Wake County.
He was released on bail.
“He could be charged with a
thousand felonies.”
According to arrest warrants,
the images in question show male
and female minors ranging from
approximately 5 to 14 years old
engaging in numerous sex acts,
. sometimes with adults.
Each of the child pornography
charges is second-degree exploita-
campus I page 6
HONORABLE STATS
Honor Court officials are
pleased that they now have
more scheduled cases than
unscheduled pending matters
despite a smaller staff.
www.dailytarheel.com
Orange County District Attorney Jim
Woodall said the effort to obtain documents
and evidence is essentially done, unless there
is any evidence from the past few months that
has yet to be collected.
“There’s been a lot of correspondence in this
case,” said Woodall, referring to more than 30
letters Taheri-Azar has written to The Daily Tar
Heel and police. “Tying to get a handle on that
has been a little difficult.”
Taheri-Azar last wrote the DTH in June.
Woodall said Taheri-Azar also had written UNC
Department of Public Safety a couple of months
ago, but he wouldn’t comment on the details of
that correspondence.
In letters to the DTH, Taheri-Azar wrote that
he would plead not guilty. But at his last court
appearance, he stated he would plead guilty.
“This case has been in the public eye so many
SEE TAHERI-AZAR, PAGE 10
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, .„„ DTWLEAH GRONNING
A flow yoga dass is filled to capacity Monday night at the Student Recreation Center. Despite the new bells and whistles provided at the Rams
Head Recreation Center, students and faculty still are flocking to the SRC Officials plan on better promoting what Rams Head has to offer.
BY ELISABETH GILBERT
STAFF WRITER
The Rams Head Recreation Center is state of the art and just
one year old.
The new South Campus facility includes cardiovascular and weight
training facilities, three basketball courts, an indoor climbing wall, an
indoor running track and lockers. It cost $14.5 million to build.
At the moment though, it is being overshadowed by the Student
Recreation Center, located on South Road. Last week the SRC drew
in 6,891 visitors, while Rams Head received just 3,972.
tion of a minor, a Class F felony.
Jones, 46, was charged with
soliciting a minor in Orange
County and taking indecent liber
ties with a child in Wake County
in August.
The original charges came
after police say Jones solicited
a boy via e-mail and the boy’s
father reported the incident to
police.
The sheriff’s department
arrested Jones after a four-day
sting operation by the Cyber
Crimes Unit
After his arrest Jones was
confined in lieu of $1 million
bail. Bail later was reduced to
$50,000, and Jones was able to
leave confinement.
Other conditions also applied
to his release, including that he
not have contact with minors
SEE JONES, PAGE 10
UNC puts nix on ‘Psycho T shirts
BY KAYLA CARRICK
ASSISTANT CITY EDITOR
. Tar Heel basketball fans hoping
to sport one of the “Psycho TANARUS” shirts
with starter Tyler Hansbrough’s
picture on it are out of luck.
The shirts on sale at Schoolkids
Records were pulled from the
shelves after local T-shirt company
The Merch received a cease-and
desist letter from University staff.
“Carolina thought they were
related to Carolina basketball
enough for it to matter,” said Chip
Hoppin, a Merch partner.
The letter, which asked the
company to stop selling the shirts,
was from Larry Gallo, senior
associate athletic director. It said
Hansbrough had not authorized
the use of his image.
Merch partners said they had
no problem stopping sales.
“We called them and said, ‘Hey,
we’ll stop printing them,’” partner
SportS | page 13
ALIVE AND KICKING
The Tar Heels knock offVCU
3-1 Tuesday night in a game
that saw several key UNC
players sit on the
sidelines with injuries.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20,2006
**mL Wm
DTH/SAMANTHA LEVY
Mohammad Taheri-Azar sits in Orange County Superior Court on
Tuesday during his pre-trial hearing. His next appearance is Dec. 12.
“A lot of students probably don’t even know that it exists,” said
Marty Pomerantz, director of campus recreation, in reference to
Rams Head Recreation Center.
The facility, part of the Rams Head Center which includes a
dining hall and parking deck is a vital part of plans to bring more
traffic to South Campus, officials said. *
“People who work out at the SRC are familiar with that facility and
continue to use that facility,” said Lauren Mangili, associate director
SEE RECREATION, PAGE 10
Patrick Cudahy said. “We want to
be legitimate about what we do.”
Steve Kirschner, associate ath
letic director for communications,
said Hansbrough was dubbed
“Psycho TANARUS” because of his intense
weight room work outs last year.
Employees in the art department
at The Merch came up with the
design after hearing the nickname.
Hoppin said the company print
ed them to support the team.
“We definitely did not mean to be
in any disrespectful way for him,” he
said. “We were trying to give him as
many props as possible.”
NCAA rules state that a com
mercial business can’t sell the like
ness or image of an athlete.
“Nobody is allowed to,” Kirschner
said. “This isn’t anew rule.”
Gallo said the University can’t sell
individual players’ images either,
“I want to emphasize, this com
pany did nothing wrong,” Gallo
this day in history
SEP! 20,1988...
Mark Davis, a medical school em
ployee, hands a UNC cashier 6,540
pennies as payment for his parking
fines to protest UNC's 'ridiculous
and inconsistent” parking policies.
A shirt with Tyler Hansbrough's
face was pulled from shelves after
a request from University staff.
said. “We appreciate it, but we
have to ask them to stop printing it
because it jeopardizes die student’s
ability to play.”
Hoppin said he understood
Gallo’s reasons.
“I think what the University does
SEE PSYCHO TANARUS, PAGE 10
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