By The
Associated Press
Edited by Kristine Long
NEWS DIGEST
Net^raskan
Thursday, January 13,1994
Rival skater’s bodyguard
confesses to role in attack
PORTLAND, Ore—A bodyguard
for figure skating champion Tonya
Harding has admitted being involved
in the attack that knocked Harding’s
main rival, Nancy Kerrigan, out of the
national championships, according to
published reports.
Shawn Eric Eckardt confessed to
being involved in the Jan. 6 attack at
the U.S. Figure Skating Champion
ships in Detroit, according to NBC’s
“Now” program and The Oregonian
newspaper. Both cited anonymous
sources. A man struck Kerrigan with
a club after a practice session, severe
ly bruising her right leg and forcing
her to withdraw from the competi
tion. The attacker escaped.
Earlier, Eckardt had called allega
tions he was involved in the attack
“absurd.”
NBC and today’s Oregonian also
quoted unidentified sources as saying
the club had been found in a trash bin
behind the arena where Kerrigan was
attacked.
Deputy Detroit Police Chief Benny
Napoleon said at a news conference
no arrests had been made, but that the
investigation was “progressing satis
factorily.” He would not comment on
whether anyone had confessed.
“People have been interviewed by
the FBI. The contents of those inter
views will not be shared at this point,”
he said. Harding won the U.S. cham
pionship at the trials. She has denied
any link to the attack, saying she felt
cheated of the chance to compete with
Kerrigan. The International Com
mittee of the U.S. Figure Skating
Association named Kerrigan to the
U.S. Winter Olympics team even
though she didn’t compete at the cham
pionships. Harding was the other skater
named to the team, which will com
Pete in Lillehammer, Norway, from
eb. 12-27.
Kerrigan’s brother, Michael, de
livered a brief statement for the fam
ily outside their home in Stoneham,
Mass., just outside Boston.
“We are sure the law enforcement
authorities are working very hard on
this case and we hope their efforts are
successful,” he said.
Harding was scheduled to fly to
Fairfax, Va., Wednesday for the
NationsBank U.S. Olympic Festival
on Ice. But she canceled, said Barry
Geissler, general manager of the Pa
triot Center, the site of the event.
A representative of Bill Graham Pre
sents, the event’s promoter, said
Harding told producers she was “hav
ing a few media problems.”
No one answered the telephone at
Harding’s house, and her coach, Diane
Rawlinson, did not reply to a message
left on her answering machine. A call
to the U.S. Figure Skating office was
not returned.
The Oregonian reported Wednes
day that the FBI was investigating
Eckardt and Harding’s husband, Jeff
Gillooly.
A Portland minister went to the
FBI after hearing a tape recording in
which the two men allegedly spoke
with a “hit man” from Arizona about
attacking Kerrigan, said private in
vestigator Gary Crowe. Crowe said
Harding evidently knew nothing about
any plot to attack Kerrigan.
Crowe said the minister, Eugene
C. Saunders, came to him for advice
after an acquaintance played the tape
recording for him.
Crowe said Saunders told him the
tape recording made it clear that
Kerrigan was the target.
Saunders told him a man’s voice
on the tape asked, “Why don’t we just
kill her?”
The response was: “We don’t need
to kill her. Let’s just hit her in the
knee.”
He said Saunders identified the
voices on the tape as those of Gil looly,
Eckardt and an Arizona man.
Saunders was friends with Eckardt,
Crowe said, but he didn ’ t know wheth
er it was Eckardt who had provided
the tape.
No one was home at Saunders’
house Wednesday. He did not return
phone messages left on his answering
machine.
Gillooly told The Oregonian that
he had been questioned by the FBI,
but denied that he was involved in the
attack.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Gillooly said.
“I have more faith in my wife than to
bump off her competition.”
Clinton seeks special counsel
for Whitewater investigation
WASHINGTON (AP) - President
Clinton today will ask for appoint
ment of a special counsel to investi
gate his investment in a controversial
Arkansas real estate development, a
senior White House official said.
The White House will announce
the decision later today, said the offi
cial, speaking to The Associated Press
on condition of anonymity.
The reversal of the White House
policy came as Senate Republican
Leader Bob Dole called for appoint
ment of a special Senate committee to
investigate the Clintons’ 1980s in
vestment in the Whitewater Develop
ment Corp. The White House had no
immediate action to Dole’s demand.
“Regardless of what the attorney
general docs. Sen. Dole feels Con
gress ought to be involved on a bipar
tisan basis, just as it has been in con
troversies in the past, said Dole
spokesman Clarkson Hine.
The White House for weeks has
opposed Republican demands for an
independent investigation of the
Whitewater investment, arguing that
an ongoing Justice Department inves
tigation was adequate.
Echoing the White House, Reno
has said she did not believe it was
necessary for her to appoint a special
counsel, and has said that if she did
Republicans would then question the
investigator’s objectivity.
But Republicans have been relent
less in their criticism of White House
handling of the controversy, and the
calls by a growing number of Demo
crats for Clinton to call for an inde
pendent review stripped the adminis
tration of its argument that Republi
cans were trying to embarrass Clinton.
Lorena Bobbitt testifies in trial
MAN ASS AS, Va. (AP) - Lorena
Bobbitt took the stand today in her
trial for cutting off her husband’s
penis, testifying about her Catholic
upbringing and her early romance
with John Bobbitt.
She described how they met at
an enlisted men’s club on the
Quantico Marine Corps Base where
Bobbitt was stationed, how they
dated for 10 months and how he
proposed to her when she was 19 in
front of her mother.
“I was in love with him. To me
he represented everything,” she
said. As for him, she felt “he was in
love with me.”
Mrs. Bobbitt said she was
brought up with strict Catholic
views against premarital sex, abor
tion and divorce. “My family
wouldn’t allow it,” she said.
Of divorce, she said, “It’s a hu
miliation, it is a shame.”
She said her family resolved
conflict without any screaming and
that she expected to solve her mar
ital problems the same way.
Mrs. Bobbitt claims she cut off
her husband’s penis with a kitchen
knife only after he sexually assault
ed her.
Bobbitt, 26, was acquitted last
year of that charge. He testified
Monday on the first day of her trial
that he was too exhausted to have
sex when he returned early that
morning from a night out.
Mrs. Bobbitt, 24, is charged with
malicious wounding. If convicted,
the Ecuadoran-born manicurist
could get up to 20 years in prison
and be deported.
A chronology of
the Bobbitt case
• Juno 18,1989: John W. Bobbitt marries Lorena L. Gallo.
• Juno 1991: Couple's first separation, lasted two weeks.
• October 1991: Bobbitt returns to his family's home in upstate New York.
• September 1992: Couple reconciles in Manassas.
• May 1993: Couple discusses divorce.
• June 18,1993: Mrs. Bobbitt alleges her husband raped her.
• June 22: Mrs. Bobbitt tells a neighbor her husband is abusing her.
Bobbitt and a house guest go out Tor a night of drinking.
• June 23: Bobbitt returns home in the early morning hours. He claims he
went to bed and did not attack his wife. She claims he was drunk and
abusive, pinning her to the bed and raping her.
• June 23: Mrs. Bobbitt severs Bobbitt's penis with a red-handled kitchen
knife, flees the apartment and tosses the organ from her car window.
• June 23: Bobbitt goes to Prince William Hospital, where doctors reattach
the organ in a nine-nour operation.
• June 23: Mrs. Bobbitt charged with malicious wounding.
• July 1993: Bobbitts file for divorce.
• August 1993: Bobbitt charged with marital sexual assault.
• Nov. 8: Bobbitt*s trial begins.
• Nov. 9: Mrs. Bobbitt testifies that husband raped her; Bobbitt denies it.
• Nov. 10: Bobbitt acquitted by jury of nine women, three men.
• Jan. 10,1994: Start of Mrs. Bobbitt's trial.
AP
Clinton optimistic after NATO meeting,
BRUSSELS, Belgium—Pres- ,
ident Clinton conceded Wednesday
that a plan to dismantle Ukraine’s
nuclear force could face a tough fight
in the former Soviet republic’s parlia
ment. but he predicted its approval.
P* c »*1t nt
BtU
“Executives of
ten have to sell to
their legislative
branches what they
know is in the best
interests of their
country,” Clinton
said.
He likened
Ukrainian president Leonid m.
Kravchuk’s fight for the new pact —
announced on Monday — to his own
battle for U.S. congressional approv
al of a contentious free-trade pact
with Mexico and Canada.
Clinton spoke at a wrap-up news
conference after a two-day NATO
summit.
Clinton met afterward with Euro
pean Union leaders and urged the 12
nation trading bloc to match NATO
overtures to former Warsaw Pact
countries by keeping markets open
for goods from Eastern and Central
Europe.
“We must continue our efforts to
expand global growth and world mar
kets,” he said.
Later, Clinton flew to Prague, cap
ital of the Czech Republic, to do a
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-44
We must continue our efforts to expand global
growth and world markets.
—Clinton
- ft"
saJes job of his own — persuading
former Soviet-bloc nations to em
brace his “Partnership for Peace” plan.
“They will clearly understand that
this is a very serious proposal” that
will expand NATO rather than limit
it, Clinton said. President Vaclav
Havel showed Clinton around Prague
Castle and spoke favorably of the
NATO-backed partnership.
The Czech Republic is “ready to
implement it immediately in concrete
terms,” Havel said. Asked about full
NATO membership for his and other
former Soviet-bloc countries, he said
the plan “provides an open door for all
of us,” but he did not speculate on a
timetable.
Clinton, offering reassurances to
nervous neighbors of Russia as he
stood at Havel’s side,said the security
of Eastern European nations is “im
portant to the security of the United
States, to Europe and the Atlantic
Alliance.”
Havel, asked if he was nervous
about the rise of ultranationalists and
communists in Russia, replied: “The
development in the Russian Federa
tion is very dramatic, extremely com
plex, very painful.”
And yet, he said, “we believe that,
step by step, even in the Russian
Federation, we will see democratiza
tion and market economy.”
The plan offers the new democra
cies in Central and Eastern Europe
limited association with the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization.
“Ultimately the partnership will
lead to an expansion of NATO.’
Clinton said.
Lithuania quickly expressed its
intent to enter the partnership, with
President Algirdas Brazauskas in
structing his government to start “im
mediate preparation” to sign the doc
ument with the Western alliance.
Lithuania’s interest in the initiative
has drawn a sharp response from
Moscow, which is opposed to the
NATO alliance expanding to its bor
ders.
State —
Additional charges filed in triple murder
r/vLLa L-i i i — i wo men ac
cused of murdering three people, in
cluding a woman wno posed as a man,
were charged Wednesday with break
ing into the farmhouse where the bod
ies were found.
Marvin Nissen, 21, and John Lotter,
22, who already face three counts of
first-degree murder apiece, were
charged with additional counts of
bundary, being felons in possession
of firearms and being habitual crimi
nals on the charges stemming from
the execution-style shootings at a ru
ral Humboldt farmhouse on New
Year’s Eve.
Lotter also was charged with three
additional counts of using a danger
ous weapon to commit a felony.
Richardson County Attorney l~u
glas Merz did not return a phone
message Wednesday seeking com
ment.
The burglary counts stem from a
break-in at the house where the three
were killed, and the new weapons
charges relate to the Dec. 31 deaths.
Nissen and Lotter are accused I ot
shooting to death Teena Brandon, 21,
of Lincoln, Lisa Lambert, 23, ot
Humboldt and Philip DeVine, 22, ot
Fairfield, Iowa.
Lotter also is charged with kidnap
ping and first-degree sexual assault in
an alleged Christmas Day rape ot
Brandon. Nissen is charged with kid
napping and aiding and abetting first
degree sexual assault.