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

DATE: FRIDAY, June 1, 1990                   TAG: 9006010286
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: ATLANTA                                LENGTH: Short

RACIAL INCIDENT BELIEVED A HOAX

What had been depicted as racial harassment that left a black student at Emory University here traumatized and mute was instead apparently a hoax, the authorities said Thursday.

Local prosecutors reviewing the case of the student, Sabrina Collins, who received national attention after she had reported receiving racially motivated hate mail and death threats in recent months, said the overwhelming weight of the evidence suggested she had staged the episode herself.

The officials said their conclusion was based on the outcome of separate inquiries by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, whose report on the case is to be issued today; by the DeKalb County police, and by Emory University's security force.

People familiar with the report said that its format was strictly investigative and that it therefore drew no conclusion on its own implicating Collins.

Officials also said Collins' accounts of racial harassment had apparently coincided with an Emory honors code investigation of suspicions that she had cheated in a chemistry class.

by CNB