ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 12, 1996 TAG: 9603120129
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
LOS ANGELES - The family of executed serial killer William G. Bonin agreed Monday to repay nearly $80,000 in Social Security disability benefits he received illegally while on death row, federal officials announced.
Citing privacy restrictions, officials did not disclose terms except to say that the settlement was for ``full restitution'' of benefits, paid for 14 years until Bonin was executed by lethal injection last month.
Criminals such as Bonin must be kept ``from committing a second crime against the taxpayer,'' said a terse statement issued by Shirley S. Chater, Social Security commissioner, and David C. Williams, the agency's inspector general.
Social Security officials were not available for comment late Monday afternoon.
The Social Security Administration came under fire last week for a snafu that sent $79,424 in benefits into a Southern California bank account held by Bonin and a second person.
Officials did not name the second account holder, but Bonin's mother, Alice Benton, told a newspaper she used the money to make about $75,000 in payments on her home. - Los Angeles Times Coffee not the pause that depresses
CHICAGO - Women who drink coffee are less likely to commit suicide than those who do not, suggests a study published Monday.
The author cautions, however, that the results may not be significant, because doctors might have told depressed patients not to drink coffee, a factor that wasn't studied.
The study of 86,626 female nurses from 1980 to 1990 found 11 suicides among those who drank two to three cups of caffeinated coffee per day, compared with 21 cases among colleagues who said they almost never drank coffee.
``Coffee drinkers seem to do everything that seems to put them at risk for depression and suicide, but they are highly protected,'' said the author, Dr. Ichiro Kawachi of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
He noted that many coffee drinkers lead stressful lives and smoke and drink alcohol heavily.
Kawachi's study appears in the American Medical Association's Archives of Internal Medicine. - Associated Press
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