Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 3, 1990 TAG: 9004030703
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
At a court hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Harold Greene announced that a reporter had contacted one of the jurors, Leroy Witherspoon.
Greene called Witherspoon into the courtroom.
Witherspoon said a Washington Post reporter telephoned him late Monday afternoon just as he arrived home from jury deliberations.
The reporter, Nora Boustany, asked him when the jury was supposed to deliver a verdict, Witherspoon said.
The juror hung up on the reporter, but the phone rang again and she said the two must have gotten cut off, Witherspoon said. Witherspoon hung up again.
Another juror, William Harris, said he received a telephone call from a woman identifying herself as a reporter. Harris said he hung up the phone.
Greene said he will have the jury sequestered at a hotel for the duration of jury deliberations.
That means the jurors will be brought to the U.S. courthouse each day by deputy U.S. marshals and will be housed at a hotel by the government until they reach a verdict.
"I have decided to sequester the jury," Greene said. "The irresponsible behavior of the press leaves me no alternative."
He said the explanation given him was that the reporter had just come to the United States from Lebanon and didn't know the "ground rules."
Greene called that "a lame excuse."
Poindexter, who was national security adviser to then-President Reagan from late 1985 to November 1986, is accused of five counts of conspiracy to obstruct Congress, making false statements to lawmakers and obstructing congressional inquiries.
The indictment charges that he lied to congressional committees by denying in 1986 that White House aide Oliver North was orchestrating private military aid to the Nicaraguan Contra rebels at a time direct U.S. assistance was banned by Congress.
by CNB