Elko Daily Free Press from Elko, Nevada • 4

4 ELKO DAILY FREE PRESS. Elko. Nevada Friday. January 17. 1992 DO IT T- JUST News Capsules 1 II I i'll b'l i I I I I I It 0 BCCI arrest WASHINGTON (AP) Authorities have arrested a former top executive of the failed Bank of Credit and Commerce International, and investigators hope he will shed light on possible bribes to federal officials.

Sani Ahmad, who headed BCCI's Washington office from 1983 through 1990, was arrested Friday near Williamsburg, according to Thomas Love, an FBI special agent in Norfolk. Ahmad was arrested to ensure his appearance as a witness in the BCCI case but was not charged with any crime, Love said. BCCI's Washington office served as a liaison with government officials, foreign diplomats and other influential people in Washington, documents examined by congressional investigators show. The investigators believe that the office, whose 20-person staff included former high-ranking Pakistani officials, may have channeled bribes to U.S. officials and companies.

Ahmad may provide information to federal and New York state investigators about any such payoffs, said sources familiar with the case. They commented only on condition of anonymity. Ahmad, 53, appeared Monday in Newport News, before a judge who ordered that he be escorted by federal marshals to Washington. A federal judge in Washington on Tuesday ordered him held without bail and transferred to New York, where state authorities also are investigating the BCCI case. Child abductions FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) A man charged in three children's abductions will be returned to Texas by next week, authorities say.

Sammy Ray Hernandez waived extradition Wednesday in a Las Vegas court after he was ordered held without bond in the kidnappings of Val: erie Ann Ramon, 11, and her two brothers, Daniel 9, and Samuel, 7. Hernandez, the children's former Sunday school teacher and baby sitter, will be picked up by Tarrant County sheriff's officers and brought back to Fort Worth, department Capt Bcrta Gilbert said. "We have been notified by North Las Vegas authorities that he (Hernandez) signed documents after waiving extradition," she said. "For the safety of the prisoner and deputies, we cant tell exactly when, but he will be back here by next week." Hernandez, 20, was arrested Friday after police found him and the children sleeping inside the man's car, which had stalled along a Las Vegas road. Police said the children were taken from their mother's north Fort Worth home Jan.

4. Hernandez told investigators he took the children because their mother was too strict with them. Mental health notices LAS VEGAS (AP) Seventy seven state mental health employees in Southern Nevada have received notices that they are being laid off as part of Gov. Bob Miller's budget cuts. Another 53 received notices they will be bumping fellow workers with less seniority.

Statewide, mental health services may suffer 132 of the 266 layoffs announced Jan. 8 by Miller. The cuts may eliminate about 60 percent of community programs that serve more than 90 percent of the state mental health system's clients, staffers have said, and some 600 mentally ill patients in Southern Nevada will be impacted by the cuts. Slain officer LAS VEGAS (AP) A Clark County law officer who was killed 42 years ago will get his name on a national memorial honoring officers slain in the line of duty. Winnie Austin "Pop" Hansen was killed by a drunken driver while on patrol in 1950.

But his name was left off a new Police Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C., which lists 12,561 U.S. law officers killed while on duty since 1794. The October dedication of the memorial included a ceremony in which volunteers from around the country read a roll call of the dead against drug and alcohol abuse and warning children about "bad" gangs. His travels to Nevada schools are sponsored by the Nevada Mining Association and the Nevada Sheriffs and Chiefs Association. Cn tin.

Singer George Dare of Las Vegas 'v sang and presented his anti-drug message to pupils at Grammar School No. 2 this week. He also performed at 11 other Elko County schools during the week, mixing songs with talks Relatives Cyrus Wells of Las Vegas and Donna Newton of Henderson noticed Hansen's name was not on the memorial and contacted the Las Vegas office of Sen. Richard Bryan to point out the oversight Metro Police also initiated a search and confirmed the discrepancy. Metro has been informed that Hansen's name will be engraved on the monument sometime this spring or summer, Girls soccer RENO (AP) Washoe County school officials said starting a girls' soccer program would cost as much as $70,000 and the district doesn't have the money.

But a group of parents pushing for the girls' soccer program claim the estimate is too high. Linda Varela, who is coordinating the fight to implement the program, said costs could be reduced if the girls' and boys' teams share equipment and transportation. Varela and other parents have filed a complaint with federal authorities, alleging the district's soccer program discriminates against women. Washoe schoof trustees were scheduled to receive a report on the matter Tuesday. School officials add that high school soccer teams are open to both boys and girls.

Harassment MINDEN (AP) An out-of-court settlement has been reached in a sexual harassment complaint filed by a female Douglas County Sheriffs Department employee against two officers. The settlement was reached in November but was not confirmed until Saturday by County Manager Richard Gruber, the Nevada Appeal reported. Gruber said the incident took place last summer and a $23,140 award was made Nov. 8 after a three-month investigation. But he said he could not disclose the nature of the incident or the identities of the parties involved because it was a personnel matter.

Both officers involved were suspended without pay for several days because of their role in the incident. Sheriff Jerry Maple refused to comment on the matter, saying it was an internal affair. Gruber said he held a meeting with staff members to review the county's sexual harassment policy following the incident. Department heads also participated in a training session by an outside consultant on how to deal with harassment complaints. "We've taken very strong steps to advise our people that this type of behavior is not acceptable," he said.

"We don't tolerate that crap." Parole violator accused of two California slayings Court agrees to stay ruling in murder case issue of how courts deal with religious beliefs. Meantime, state prosecutors are preparing to refile charges against Lafferty in preparation of another trial, should the justices decline to hear the case. RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) The man accused of. killing two women and under investigation in 17 other slayings told neighbors he was a police officer, but he was really a Texas parole violator who killed his infant child in 1973.

A Texas jury in 1974 needed less than 30 minutes to convict William L. Suff and his wife of beating their 2-month-old daughter to death. Suffs California neighbors said he frequently volunteered to babysit neighborhood children. He also claimed that he once stopped a robbery and bragged that his wife was a virgin before their marriage. "He did not like women to wear lots of make-up," said Pamela Jones, who was Sufi's neighbor in a Lake Elsinore apartment complex.

"He chewed out my teen-age daughter one time about it. He told her to take that stuff off because she looked like a damn prostitute." Dominic Castro, a neighbor at SufTs apartment complex in Colton where he was arrested, said the Texas parolee drove a van that displayed stickers that looked like they were for official county purposes or law enforcement. Castro added that Suff carried himself as though he were involved in police work. "Like he was some wanna be cop," Castro said. Suff said he was a police officer when he moved into the Lake Elsinore apartment more than a year ago, although he was never seen wearing a uniform or driving a police car, said Guyla Lovely, daughter-in-law of the complex manager.

"Nobody ever saw a car or a uniform, but he said he was a cop who patrolled the lake area," Ms. Lovely said. "He kept late hours and when he was home the shades were always down. Nobody knew much about him." The 41-year-old Suff, charged Tuesday with two of 19 serial killings reported in Riverside County since October 1986, was sentenced to 70 years when the baby died. The jury recommended 70-year prison sentences.

Teryl SufTs conviction was reversed 20 months later by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. But the court upheld SufTs conviction, citing an "appalling history of abuse of the dead girl and her brother." After his parole in 1984, Suff returned to Riverside County, where he attended high school. Former Perris High School vice principal Joe Beeson, 73, remembered Suff as a "pathetic" youngster who had few friends. "The other kids just ignored him," said Beeson. "He was a loner.

He I was different from the other kids, don't think he ever had a girlfriend. don't think he was ever interested in girls." One former neighbor, Eric Demau-ney, said Suff remarried after returning to Riverside County from Texas. Suff said he met his wife, Cheryl, when he stopped a robbery at a convenience store and held a suspect until police arrived, Demauney said. A woman who lived near Suff said that when he met his wife he "bragged about how she was a virgin." The comments of the woman, who declined to give her name, were reported by the Riverside Press-Enterprise. Another former neighbor said Suff frequently offered free babysitting services, and was kind and careful with her children.

"My oldest girl would crawl to him the minute he came in and she called him "Unkie Bill," said the woman, also quoted anonymously by the Press-Enterprise. According to the California Department of Corrections, Suff was required to adhere to both Texas and California parole guidelines. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles issued a warrant for Suff on Friday, after his arrest in Riverside, charging him with failure to file an annual report, spokeswoman Raven Kazen said. Suff had been on annual report status, meaning he just had to mail in a report each year, since 1987. He has not reported since 1988, she said.

Parolees are given annual reporting status "because they've had a very satisfactory adjustment," she said. "He had done everything straight down the line, and when you do that for a number of years, you are given annual report status, letting them mail a report in once a year." "Apparently his adjustment was that good, or we thought it was. That was a decision made by the California authorities in conjunction with us." I i0x ft: 4j" vv "r''Ma 7 1 i1 DENVER (AP) The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to stay its ruling overturning Ronald W. Laf-ferry's two murder convictions and death penalty. The stay will remain until March 13 hile the state seeks to appeal the ruling to the U.S.

Supreme Court It could be made permanent if the high court agrees to hear the case. Lafferty was sentenced to death for the July 24, 1984 slashing deaths of his sister-in-law, Brenda Wright Lafferty and her 15-month-old daughter, Erica, who were found murdered in their American Fork home. Lafferty claimed he and his brother, Dan, had received a revelation ordering them to "remove" the victims. The revelation said they were standing in the way of preparations for the second coming of Jesus Christ. The brothers fled to Nevada and were arrested in Reno.

Dan Lafferty also was convicted for the killings but was sentenced to life in prison after a jury deadlocked 11-1 on the death penalty. By a vote of 2-1, a panel of circuit court judges ruled Dec. 9 that the judge in Laflerty's trial used the wrong legal standard in determining his competency to stand trial. The court set aside Laflerty's conviction and sentence but said the state is free to retry him. The Utah attorney general's office asked for the stay last Thursday after it failed to win a rehearing before all 10 appeals court judges.

Assistant Utah Attorney General Charlene Barlow said she is preparing a brief to present to the U.S. Supreme Court. She said it will address two issues she hopes will pique the high court's interest conflicting opinions on the case issued by the Utah Supreme Court and the appeals court, and the in prison for his daughter's death. Texas Department of Corrections spokesman Charles Brown in Hunts-ville said Suff was paroled on March 6, 1984. The couple's daughter, Dijanet Suff, was dead on arrival at a Fort Worth hospital in September 1973.

An autopsy revealed she had been hit with a blunt instrument until her liver ruptured. Suff was indicted for murder, and his wife at the time, Teryl Rose Suff, was indicted three months later on similar charges. Teryl SufTs attorney at the time, Kenneth Pounds, said Tuesday that he remembers the case "like it was yesterday" and still sees "pictures of that poor little baby in my mind." "These people were strange, cold," Pounds said. "Remorse was not an emotion they seemed to express." Pounds said he believed Teryl Suff divorced her husband and moved to Austin after her release from prison. The couple's son, William Suff apparently was put up for adoption, Pounds said.

A Tarrant County, Texas, medical examiner testified at trial the child sustained 13 broken ribs and a broken wrist about 10 days before her death. The child's foot had been burned, probably by a cigarette, the examiner said. The couple denied the allegations. Teryl Suff testified she believed the girl's then-21-month-old brother, William had injured her by "hugging and loving" his sister too much. Witnesses testified that both children bore symptoms of physical abuse.

Suff testified he was a medic in the pediatrics ward of a hospital at Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth. He was discharged after 15 months in the military. Suff said he later worked as an ambulance attendant and a parking lot attendant. He testified he had been unemployed for about a month Hampshire, the president said his package would stimulate investment and create jobs, stop a slide in real estate values, provide affordable health care and "make America more competitive." The Post said the Bush administration is considering a three-pronged approach to health care that would provide tax credits to low-income Americans, create tax deductions for the middle class and limit to $4,000 the amount companies can deduct for the health insurance costs they pay for each of their employees. Artist Lyle Ball dies at age 82 RENO (AP) Prolific Reno artist Lyle Ball has died at a local hospital.

He was 82. Ball produced nearly 4,000 paintings and won numerous awards. He grew up working at Nevada ranches and mines, and his paintings reflected various Nevada themes. Among other places, his work was exhibited at Society of Western Artists Shows in the de Young Museum in San Francisco and The Artists Professional League Shows in New York City. Founder and owner of Ball Sign Co.

for 40 years, Ball retired in 1968 to become a full-time artist Active in community affairs, he was a past president of the Reno Host Lions Club with a 56-year perfect attendance record. Bush's economic plan said to include tax cut On a Class hy Dtself Over 70 efficiency Incorporates Living Flame technology Primary heat source Inexpensive to operate Can heat up to 3,000 sq. ft. depending on layout of home. NON-POLLUTING, NO PELLETS OR WOOD, CLEAN BURNING! AVAILABLE WASHINGTON (AP) The White House is nearing completion of an economic package that would cut taxes by as much as $50 billion over five years, a newspaper reported today.

The Washington Post quoted congressional sources as saying the plan would provide tax cuts this year of $15 billion to $17 billion, with its main feature being an increase in the tax break for families with children. White House press secretary Martin Fitzwater said today "I cant confirm any of that" Noting that many reports are circulating about Bush's economic proposals, he said that some have details "that are essentially right, some that are essentially won't confirm any specifics." The personal exemption for families with children could rise by as much as $1,000 to $2,000 per family, but to control costs the deduction may be phased out for the wealthiest Americans, the newspaper said. It quoted other government sources as saying Bush's package would also include a $5,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers, phased in over two years, that would be designed to help the ailing real estate industry. Bush, under election-year pressures to revive the nation's sagging economy, is expected to unveil many of the measures during his Jan. 28 State of the Union address and his budget proposals the next day.

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