ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 10, 1996 TAG: 9612100125
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
Ex-Klansmen plead guilty in burnings
CHARLESTON, S.C. - Two former Ku Klux Klansmen pleaded guilty Monday to federal charges that they conspired to burn down a rural black church and a migrant labor camp last year.
The fires, both in Bloomville, destroyed Macedonia Baptist Church and a migrant labor camp about 80 miles north of Charleston.
Hubert ``Herbert'' Rowell, 50, and Arthur A. Haley, 51, pleaded guilty to four conspiracy counts stemming from the fires. In return, prosecutors agreed to drop 16 other charges against the men.
Neither man was charged with setting either of the fires.
Prosecutors said Rowell and Haley provided the flammable liquids that two other men used to burn down the century-old church in June 1995 and also conspired in the fire that destroyed the camp in February 1995.
Each man faces up to 60 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
The indictment says the defendants instructed Gary Christopher Cox and Timothy Adron Welch, both former Ku Klux Klan members, in how to use the flammable liquids to burn the church.
Cox and Welch also pleaded guilty in August to setting the church fire, as well as a June 1995 fire that destroyed the Mount Zion AME Church in Greeleyville. They are awaiting sentencing.
- Associated Press
Injury awards set for keyboard users
NEW YORK - In the first verdict of its kind, a federal jury ordered computer maker Digital Equipment Co. to pay nearly $6 million to three women who suffered disabling arm and wrist injuries they blamed on their keyboards.
The verdict was returned last week in federal court in Brooklyn.
Patricia Geressy, a secretary at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, won nearly $5.4 million; Jill Jackson, a legal secretary, was awarded $306,000 and Janet Rotolo, a hospital billing clerk, was awarded $278,000.
The women worked on keyboards that Digital knew could cause carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive stress injuries, said their lawyer, Steven Philips.
``This is the first one of these cases to succeed,'' Philips said. ``We've settled cases before, and we've tried cases that have lost. Defendants always win in the early going. This is the moment where it turns around.''
- Associated Press
LENGTH: Short : 50 linesby CNB