Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 13, 1990                   TAG: 9004131075
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-3   EDITION: EVENING  
SOURCE: VICTORIA RATCLIFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CIRCUIT JUDGE DENIES BIAS AGAINST LAROUCHE/ MOTION HAD ASKED WECKSTEIN TO

In an 18-page motion, attorneys for Richard E. Welsh, 41, of Leesburg, asked Judge Clifford Weckstein to disclose any discussions he may have had regarding their client or LaRouche with Murray Janus - a Richmond lawyer who is an officer with the Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai B'rith.

The motion also included attorneys who have been involved in earlier cases, or with reporters and a former managing editor of the Roanoke Times & World-News.

The motion also asks Weckstein to disqualify himself from hearing the case against Welsh, the chief accountant in the finance department of the LaRouche organization. The judge denied the motion, saying it was, in some respects, "the most extraordinary document" ever filed over a lawyer's name in any case Weckstein has seen.

The cases of more than a dozen LaRouche followers were moved to Roanoke County from Loudoun County because of pretrial publicity. LaRouche, who was convicted of similar charges in federal court in Alexandria, is a perennial losing candidate for president and has been described by many as a political extremist.

The trial of Welsh is scheduled to begin April 30. He is charged with four counts of securities fraud.

The motion, heard Thursday by Weckstein, states that because the son of Weckstein's former law partner, Barry Lichtenstein, works in Janus' Richmond law firm, and because Janus is an official with the Anti-Defamation League, Weckstein is biased against the LaRouche organization.

The Anti-Defamation League monitors extremist groups, and has published negative articles about the LaRouche organization, calling it a cult.

Weckstein said Thursday that he has known Janus since the mid-1970s, when the two met at a meeting of the Virginia State Bar. He said he had one minor professional association with Janus, when the two were assigned to a continuing legal defense seminar on drunken driving. Weckstein said he has never associated with Janus or opposed him in any case, nor has Janus appeared before Weckstein since he has been on the bench.

Weckstein said he recommended John Lichtenstein to Janus when Lichtenstein applied for a job with Janus' firm. The judge added that he does not think he has talked with Janus since the cases of LaRouche's associates were assigned to him last year.

Weckstein said he had not read any Anti-Defamation League articles about the LaRouche organization, and he said he is not a member of B'nai B'rith.

Welsh's motion also questioned Weckstein's association with the Roanoke Times & World-News and various reporters there. The motion stated that the newspaper has given unfavorable coverage to the LaRouche organization, and that Weckstein's associations with representatives of the newspaper indicated that he was biased toward the group.

Weckstein is married to the daughter of John Eure, a former managing editor of the World-News. John Eure's son, Rob, is a reporter at the newspaper.

Weckstein said he and both Eures have not had any substantive conversations about the LaRouche organization except to discuss recent handbills the group has been circulating in the Roanoke Valley criticizing the judge's handling of the cases.

Weckstein declined last month to comment on those handbills, saying he was "prohibited by the Canons of Judicial Conduct . . . ." But in court Thursday, the judge said "my reaction to these was and remains one of amusement."

The judge said Rob Eure told him and his wife about a conversation with another LaRouche associate, Nancy Spannaus, who is running for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. Eure told Weckstein with some amusement that Spannaus said the judge had married someone "whose family controls the Roanoke newspaper."

The judge smiled and said that upon hearing about the conversation, his wife had said she would like to find out where was all the money she should be receiving for her controlling interest in the paper.

Weckstein said he found it "unusual and in the nature of preposterous" that Welsh's attorneys would suggest that because relatives of his work or had worked for the newspaper that he should be disqualified from hearing the case.

Weckstein said he had received inquiries from several reporters about the scheduling of proceedings in the cases of LaRouche associates and that he had joked with reporters about the handbills. But, he said, he has had no substantive conversations about any of the cases with anyone associated with the newspaper.

He said he also has had no off-the-record discussions with attorneys about any of the proceedings involving associates of Lyndon LaRouche other than discussions concerning the mechanics of the trials.