ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 7, 1997 TAG: 9702070039
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: TOWSON, MD.
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE CONVICTION FOR BEATING HIS WIFE was a barrier to Charles Weiner's country club acceptance.
A judge has agreed to clear a man of beating his estranged wife after attorneys argued the conviction was keeping the man from joining a country club.
Charles Weiner was convicted of battery in 1995, but his record will be cleared if he successfully completes five years of probation, Circuit Judge Thomas Bollinger Sr. ruled last week.
It was the second controversial decision by Bollinger, who was reprimanded three years ago for making insensitive comments during a rape case.
Weiner, a 50-year-old pawn shop owner, had been serving three years of probation after paying a $500 fine and receiving domestic violence counseling.
The beating was a terrible act, Bollinger said in his ruling, but keeping the conviction on Weiner's record served no purpose.
``All it really does is remove a stigma in the way that society looks upon him,'' Bollinger said in court.
Weiner's attorney, Steven Freeman, said his client's membership to Chestnut Ridge Country Club was rejected ``solely because Mr. Weiner had to admit that he has a criminal record.''
Prosecutors argued against dropping the conviction at a hearing last Friday, and a domestic violence counselor described Weiner in a letter to the court as one of her agency's ``most resistant and disruptive clients.''
Prosecutor James Gentry Jr. said Weiner's estranged wife, Robin Weiner, was upset by the ruling.
``She couldn't understand how a criminal record could be erased simply because someone wanted to become a member of a country club,'' he said.
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