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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 8, 1986)
5. Page 2 Daily Nebraskan Friday, August 8, 1986 New mest By the Associated Press t D Economists predict record deficit Shortfall to be 'worse' than Reagan administration estimate WASHINGTON Congressional economists on Thursday projected a record $224 billion budget deficit this year that is below the Reagan admini stration estimate, but said the 1987 shortfall will be worse than the White House predicts. The Congressional Budget Office said Congress will miss its Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction targets in fiscal 1987 even if every promise in the budget is carried out. The new CBO prediction is $6 billion below the White House estimate but $12 billion above the record set last year and $10 billion above the agency's son found guilty ui iiiurueriiig tobacco heiress FORT MYERS. Fla. - Steven Wayne Benson was found guilty Thursday of killing his mother and adopted brother and trying to kill his xister with pipe bombs in an attempt to got his moth er's $10 million tobacco estate. Benson. 35. sat stone-faced as the verdict was read before a hushed courtroom. Thejury found Benson guilty on nine counts: two counts of first-degree murder; two counts of felony murder; one count of attempted murder, and four counts of arson. The 12 jurors deliberated for 11 days. Thejury, which was sequestered at t hi start of deliberations Wednesday, will meet again to recommend a sen tence. Benson could be sentenced to the electric chair or life in prison with a minimum of 25 years. Benson was convicted of killing his mother, Lancaster Leaf Tobacco Co. heiress Margaret Benson, 63, and her adopted son, Scott Benson, a 21 -year-old aspiring tennis pro. Mrs. Benson's daughter, Carol Lynn Benson Kendall, 42, was severely burned in the -July 9, 1986. explosion outside of the Benson family home in nearby Naples. Prosecutors charged Benson planted the pipe bombs because he feared being cut out of the family's $10 million estate. They contended he had been siphoning off money from his mother's account and grew fearful when she dis covered the losses. a Dailv sorasican Editor News Editor News Editor Editorial Bob Asmussen. 472 1766 Kent Endacott Jetf Korbelik Jim Rogers Gene Gentrup Julie Jordan Hendricks Jef! Apel Charles Lieurance Paul Vonderlage Joan Rezac Kurt Eberhardt UNL Chapter. American Meteorological Society Asso Page Editor Wire Editor Copy Desk Chiefs Sports Editor Arts & Entertain ment Editor Photo Chief Night News Editor Art Director Weather General Manager Daniel Shattil Production Manager Katherine Polieky Asst Production Manager Judy Weidenhamer Advertising Manager Lesley Larson Assistant Advertising Mgr. Bryan Peterson Publications Board Chairman Harrison Schulti 474-7670 Professional Adviser Don Walton. 473-7301 The Daily Nebraskan (USPS 144-080) is published by the UNL Publications Board Monday through Friday in the fall and spring semesters and Tuesdays and Fridays in the summer sessions, except during vacations. Readers are encouraged to submit story ideas and comments to the Daily Nebraskan by phoning 472-1763 between g a m. and 5 p m Monday through Friday . The public also has access to the Publications Board. For information, contact Harrison Schultz. 474- 7670 ,-,c Subscription price is S35 for one year. Dftmictor- Conrl arMrPQC rhannps tn the n-,,1.. kiaKr.clnn Wehraclra I'ninn 34 1400 R St.. Lincoln. Neb. 68588-0448. Second-class postage paid at Lincoln. NE. Ll WAIERiAl COrTKlblU I960 UILI ncorwoium T T 1 last projection in February. CBO direc tor Rudolph G. Penner said part of the problem was that the anticipated re bound in the economy was occurring later than expected. "We thought we saw the light at the end of the tunnel," he said. "Unfortu nately, the tunnel moved on us." The Reagan administration on Wed nesday issued its prediction that the 1986 deficit, would balloon to $230 billion, up $27 billion from its earlier projection. But its economic estimates and spending predictions for next year were more optimistic than CBO's. . Reagan, Bush to take WASHINGTON (AP) - President Reagan and Vice President George Bush will take drug tests next Monday "to lead the way" toward achieving a drug free American workplace, t he White House said Thursday. Spokesman Albert Brashear said the 78 members of Reagan's senior staff also have been asked to give urine samples Monday if they are not on vacation, but he stressed that the tests were voluntary. "We're not out to pun ish anyone," he said. "The president has made it clear that he is seeking a drug-free work place for all Americans," the spokes man said. "He believes that all federal employees deserve a drug-free envir onment, and that federal employees should set the example for state and local government and the private sec Convicted child molester sentenced to life in prison FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - A Bro ward Circuit Court judge sentenced a Fort Launderdale man to life in prison on Thursday for the kidnapping and molestation of a teen-aged boy during a three-month, cross-country journey. Ronald Mulholland, 35, was convicted June 5 by a six-member jury of one count of kidnapping and 59 counts of indecent assault. Police found Mulholland with Jay Phillips, 14, at a Nebraska highway rest stop on Aug. 5, 1985, more than three months after the teen disappeared from his home in an unincorporated area near Fort Lauderdale. Phillips later told police of daily sexual assaults. "You are clearly a danger to children and I don't think you should see effing Judge sentences airman BEALE AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. - A military judge on Thursday sentenced to 25 years in prison an airman found guilty of passing classified Air Force documents about his spy plane unit to FBI agents posing as Soviets. Lt. Col. Harold Sweeney also reduced Airman 1st Class Bruce Ott to the low est rank in the Air Force, ordered for feiture of pay, and gave him a dishonor able discharge. Ott will be imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. Sweeney gave Ott 259 days' credit for time already served. Ott was found guilty Wednesday by Sweeney, who then held a brief sen tencing hearing. The defense attorney, Lt. Col. Wil liam K. Atlee Jr., asked for eight years because Ott "may have been a great fool, but he was not a great villain." But the prosecutor, Maj. Charles Wilcox II, requested 20 years. The max imum sentence was 32 years. The conviction and sentence will be automatically reviewed by Lt. Gen. The CBO projects that economic growth in calendar 1986 will be 2.9 percent, as measured from the fourth quarter of 1985, compared to a 3.2 per cent administration forecast. From the fourth quarter of this year to the end of 1987, the economy will grow 3.5 per cent, the CBO said. That compared to 4.2 percent predicted by Reagan's advi sers for the same period. The White House put Congress close to the $144 billion Gramm-Rudman deficit target, perhaps even below the $154 billion threshold for ordering across-the-boad spending cuts, either by legislation or automatically if law tor to follow in identifying users of ille gal drugs." The announcement sparked a flurry of questions about how voluntary the tests would be, what would happen to senior staff members refusing to take it and w het her the results would be made public. The White House staffers were noti fied up to five days in advance about the tests, thus raising questions about the effectiveness of the screening. For occasional drug users, most drugs would disappear from the body after one to four days. Under mandatory testing, there is no advance notice. Brashear said, "This is a voluntary program." Asked whether it might become mandatory, he said, "We're not at that point yet." another child eye-to-eye for the rest of your life," Circuit Judge Arthur Franza told Mulholland during his sentencing. Before sentencing, John Voigt, Mul holland's public defender, read a pre pared statement on behalf of his client. "I feel that due to the circumstances of the case, I had no chance even before I walked into the courtroom," Mulhol land's letter read. He said that wide spread media attention had made it impossible for him to get a fair trial. Voigt claimed during Mulholland's trial that Phillips willingly accompan ied the mechanic because the boy wanted to flee from a miserable home life. Assistant State Attorney Kathleen Kearney argued that Mulholland had eret James E. Light Jr., commander of the 15th Air Force, headquartered at March Air Force Base in Riverside, Calif. The case will also be reviewed by the Air Force Court of Military Review in Washington, D.C. If the conviction is upheld, the case will then go to the U.S. Court of Military Appeals in Washington. The final step in the appellate process is the U.S. Supreme Court. Ott, 26, of Erie, Pa., was arrested Jan. 22 in a Davis, Calif., motel when he allegedly passed a copy of an Air Force Strategic Air Command regulation on the SR-71 spy plane to two FBI agents posing as Soviets. He was found guilty of contacting the Soviet consulate in San Francisco without prior permission, and taking a SAC regulation with reason to believe it would be used to injure the United States. He was also found guilty of passing a copy of an Air Force unit recall roster to an FBI agent Jan. 13 during another clandestine rendezvous. makers follow through with pending legislation to revise a mandatory reduc tion mechanism overturned by the Supreme Court. But the CBO said the budget Con gress passed in June to meet the deficit target, would now yield $161 billion in red ink if followed to the letter. Letting current spending and tax policies continue would push the deficit $50 billion over target, to $184 billion, the CBO said, compared to $171.5 bil lion in the administration report. The $184 billion figure gives "a real sense of how much pain is necessary" to reach the deficit goal, Penner said. drug tests Reporters asked Brashear several times t o spell out the consequences for any members of t he senior staff who did not volunteer to take the test. "If they don't take it, they just choose not to take it," he said at one point. But he also said, "I'm sure that it (the refusal to submit) would be noted that they didn't want to do it. . .proba bly by their supervisor." He said he did not know how many of the senior staff members would submit to the test, which screens for the use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, PCP and certain forms of amphetamines and barbiturates. Brashear refused to say whether the White House would reveal how many of the officials refused to take the test, and said no test results would be made public. befriended and then seduced the boy. At the sentencing, Kearney played a videotape of an FBI special agent des cribing Mulholland as a psychopath and pedophile who was a danger to society. According to the boy's mother, Con nie Landers, her son suffered emo tional damage from the experience and said that trauma will be with him for the rest of his life. Landers was at Mul holland's trial and sat weeping when the guilty verdicts were read. Landers met Mulholland when he worked on her car. After her divorce from Phillips' father and the death of her second husband, Landers said she allowed her son to associate with Mul holland, hoping he would provide a male role model for the boy. Ex-CIA agent MOSCOW Fugitive ex-CIA agent Edward Lee Howard, who vanished last year just before being charged with sel ling U.S. secrets to Moscow, has received political asylum in the Soviet Union, the government newspaper said today. Orye U.S. newspaper recently quoted sources as saying the information How ard gave the Soviets devastated the CIA operation in Moscow and led to the execution of a Soviet engineer who was an agency contact. Howard was "given the right of resi dence in the U.S.S.R. for political" and humanitarian reasons, the newspaper Izvestia said in a brief announcement on its back page. He was believed to be the first former or current CIA agent to defect to the Soviet Union and the first American to defect to Moscow since the 1960s. Howard, 34, worked for the CIA from January 1981 until June 1983, when he was fired, according to the FBI. He had been preparing for a post at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, where he was to operate under the cover of being a Chernobyl deatMoll at 31 MITINO, U.S.S.R. Another per son was buried this week at the grave site reserved for victims of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, indi cating that the death toll from the world's worst nuclear disaster stands at 31. Western reporters today found the grave of K.I. Luzganova, a woman, topped by a white card saying she died Monday. It was the third new grave found at the Mitinskoye Cemetery since the last official death toll of 28 was issued on July 19. The two other new graves were for men, A.V. Novik, who died July 29, and Y.A. Vershinin, who died July 23. The three deaths have not been officially announced, and there was no official confirmation that the death toll had risen from 28. The name cards on the new graves do not mention Chernobyl, but the graves are in an area that a ceme tery official said was for victims of the accident. FCC cuts AT&T's rate of return WASHINGTON - The Federal Com munications Commission today lowered the American Telephone & Telegraph Co.'s allowable profit margin from inter state telephone operations from 12.75 percent to 12.2 percent. The commission lowered from 12.75 percent to 12.0 percent the maximum profit margin that local telephone com panies can earn for providing connec tions to long-distance companies. Commission chairman Mark S. Fowler said the two moves will save telephone users $600 million a year. Most of the savings will be felt by AT&T's inter state long distance users. Leased pri vate line charges will also be lowered. The rate will be reconsidered in two years. The FCC meeting was held an hour earlier than usual so the commission could act before the opening of the stock exchanges. AT&T spokesman Herb Linnen said the company was unhappy with the rate and was weighing an appeal. He said the lowered profit margin would not necessarily mean immediate reduc tions in long-distance charges, but could be translated into delays in future increases. given asylum budget analyst. He later got a job in Santa Fe with the New Mexico Legislative Finance Committee. He quit his job suddenly last Sep tember and was charged a few days later by the FBI with selling U.S. intel ligence to Soviet KGB agents in Aus tria. But by then he had disappeared, leaving behind his wife, Mary, and their 3-year-old son, Lee. Federal sources in Wrashington said the FBI had been watching Howard's house, but FBI agents said he covered up his moonlit escape by placing a dummy in his car. Administration sources said last October that Howard had flown to Fin land and was believed to have entered the Soviet Union. U.S. officials said they believed Howard was paid $6,000 by the Soviets for selling secrets. They said the money appeared in Howard's bank accounts shortly after Sept. 20, 1984, when he allegedly met with KGB officials in St. Anton, Austria.