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

DATE: THURSDAY, February 9, 1995                   TAG: 9502090084
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ARLINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

LORENA BOBBITT BACK AT WORK - WITH A FILE

Lorena Bobbitt, the manicurist whose unkind cut became an international joke and a rallying cry against wife battering, has resumed her former career, her employer said Wednesday.

Bobbitt has worked for about two weeks as a manicurist at a small hair salon in an upscale shopping plaza in suburban Northern Virginia, said salon owner Irma Wheeler. The shop, called Illusions, is about 20 miles from the apartment where she severed her husband's penis as he slept in June 1993.

``I think she will do very well here,'' Wheeler said. ``She is a very sweet girl and she is a good nail technician.'' Bobbitt also does body waxing, Wheeler said.

Bobbitt has not worked as a manicurist since shortly after her arrest on malicious-wounding charges. She admitted cutting her husband, but said she did not remember the act.

She fled the apartment clutching the penis and a kitchen knife. John Wayne Bobbitt's penis was reattached, and doctors have said he is recovering well. Bobbitt displayed the scar in a pornographic film last year called ``Uncut.''

Lorena Bobbitt has kept a low profile since a jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity last January in the attack on John Bobbitt.

Her trial, aired live on CNN, was a two-week media big top that featured a sobbing Lorena Bobbitt describing rapes, batterings and emotional torture at John Bobbitt's hands.

Bobbitt denied abusing his wife and was acquitted in a separate trial of sexually assaulting her on the night she attacked him.

Lorena Bobbitt, 25, did not go to work Wednesday, the day a local newspaper first reported her new job.

``She knew everyone would be coming in here looking for her,'' sighed Yvette Morales, the receptionist at Illusions.

The new manicurist is an object of rather polite curiosity among employees of neighboring shops.

``We see her walking by, and at first no one could believe it,'' said Rich Schucker, a waiter at the California Pizza Kitchen next door to the salon.

``But the other day I looked in and sure enough, there she was, just doing some lady's nails. My attitude is: Live and let live.''

In a brief interview with The Arlington Journal, Bobbitt said her customers have so far been pleasant.

``They know who I am, and I know they know who I am,'' she said.

Through her attorney, she has declined other interview requests.

The South American-born Bobbitt has lived with her parents for the last several months in nearby Dale City. Her divorce from John Bobbitt is pending.

by CNB