THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Thursday, September 19, 1996          TAG: 9609190339
SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A4   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: Staff report

                                            LENGTH:   23 lines

NORFOLK JUDGE WAS CHOSEN TO TRY 1973 AGNEW TAX CASE

When district court judges in Maryland disqualified themselves from the income tax-evasion case of Spiro T. Agnew in 1973, U.S. District Court Judge Walter E. Hoffman of Norfolk was chosen to try the vice president of the United States. Under a plea-bargaining agreement, Agnew resigned and entered a plea of no contest to a single charge. Hoffman fined him the maximum of $10,000 and placed him on three years' probation. However, Hoffman would have preferred to send Agnew to jail. He said from the bench that he would have sentenced Agnew to prison if U.S. Attorney Elliot L. Richardson had not personally argued that ``leniency is justified.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Hoffman

KEYWORDS: SPIRO AGNEW DEATHS by CNB