DATE: Wednesday, October 1, 1997            TAG: 9710010496

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B4   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: From wire reports 

                                            LENGTH:  102 lines

VIRGINIA - NEWS BRIEFS

CENTRAL

Judge wants state money for court to aid drug addicts

RICHMOND - A judge asked the General Assembly for $434,000 Tuesday to fund a special ``drug court'' designed to rehabilitate longtime addicts and keep them out of prison.

``It's a better use of taxpayer dollars . . . than to incarcerate people at a much higher expense to the taxpayers,'' Richmond Circuit Court Judge Donald W. Lemons told the State Crime Commission.

Lemons said the experimental program has had some success, but money for it has almost run out. Lemons volunteers his time as judge of the Richmond court, one of only two in Virginia.

The Richmond drug court pilot program began in November 1996 with a $304,000 grant from the U.S. Justice Department and $250,000 from the General Assembly, enough for one year.

The other Virginia drug court, in Roanoke, still has some federal grant money remaining.

Lemons said the program is worth keeping for more than a year. ``If I'm successful, then we've made a financial savings in addition to a real human savings in helping a person with a longtime problem,'' he said.

So far, 18 of 89 participants have completed the Richmond drug court program, and 35 others are still working at it, Program Director B.J. Hice said. The remaining 36 are in other treatment programs, back in jail or back in the traditional court system.

Most of those who participate in drug court would face jail time for repeated cocaine or heroin possession convictions. They report daily for supervision and counseling, receive drug testing and take job training courses.

Another Richmond Circuit Court judge, however, questioned the value of the drug court program and said the money should be spent sending repeat offenders to prison.

``I just think we're fooling ourselves,'' Judge J.B. Wilkinson said. ``People are not being rehabilitated. You never hear the statistics of how many people are cured or how many people are off the drugs.''

The commission did not vote on the request, but at least two members expressed support for Lemons' court.

Sen. Ken Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, said he supports the concept, but suggested that Richmond's program consider patterning itself after Roanoke's drug court. Roanoke's court focuses on first- and second-time offenders, not people who violate drug laws repeatedly.

The commission will send Lemons' proposal to the House Appropriations Committee staff for consideration.

``Stealth bandit'' receives seven years for robberies

RICHMOND - The so-called ``stealth bandit,'' who robbed banks without ever showing a weapon, was sentenced to seven years in prison for robbing four city banks.

``The repercussions are way beyond what I expected,'' Val Keith Yuen told Judge Thomas N. Nance in Richmond Circuit Court on Monday.

Yuen, 40, faces eight more charges of robbing banks in Chesterfield and Henrico counties, and he could get much more time for those crimes, police said. He has admitted to the county robberies, and he was carrying a gun during the final Henrico robbery that led to his April 15 arrest.

The stealth bandit got his nickname from his reputation for strolling into banks, handing tellers notes demanding modest sums of money, then making small talk with the employees as they complied. He never displayed a weapon, and coolly walked away afterward with only the teller aware that the bank had been robbed.

But on April 15, Yuen robbed a Henrico County Jefferson National Bank branch and police spotted his getaway car shortly after the robbery. Yuen pulled an Uzi machine gun during the ensuing chase but never fired it. He led police through suburban Richmond and down Interstate 64 before he was forced off the road and arrested. Yuen had worked as a cook in a downtown motel, but was unemployed when the first robbery occurred in Chesterfield County in 1996.

NORTHERN

Revelations cause Cooke's lawyers to seek punishment

WARRENTON - Jack Kent Cooke's widow should be punished for revealing private, personal details about the habits of the late Washington Redskins owner, lawyers for Cooke's estate complained.

The lawyers asked a judge to punish Marlena Ramallo Cooke and her lawyers for making public a statement by a Cooke employee describing how her boss recorded his telephone calls and tracked his wife's whereabouts.

Marlena Cooke is suing for a share of her late husband's estimated $825 million estate. The estate claims she is not entitled to anything because she violated terms of her premarital agreement with Cooke, which required that the couple live together as ``man and wife.''

Cooke died in April at 84. Weeks before his death, he disinherited his 44-year-old wife without explanation.

In a motion for sanctions, attorneys for the estate told the Fauquier County Circuit Court that Marlena Cooke and her attorneys inappropriately released information about the ``private and confidential practices of Jack Kent Cooke.''

The motion, filed late Friday, said attorneys for Marlena Cooke violated a protective order that bars the release of depositions, such as the one that contained testimony from Jack Kent Cooke's assistant about relations between the Cookes.

A judge may impose fines or restrictions on attorneys who violate court orders. The request will be heard Oct. 14.

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