The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current, March 09, 1994, Page 2, Image 2

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    Bjorklund
Continued from Page 1
allowed to walk outside their cells for
a short time. Bjorklund initiated all
the conversations with him, he said.
O’ Kelly said Bjorklund spoke many
times about the movie “Silence of the
Lambs,” and said Hannibal the Can
nibal was his hero.
“They played with her body after
her death,” he said. “Bjorklund said
he cut her open and ate her liver.”
O’Kelly also claimed Bjorklund
bragged about other murders that
Bjorklund said he committed. Defense
attorneys, however, said the people
Bjorklund claimed to have murdered
were either alive or didn’t exist.
Goos said O’Kelly had provided
federal authorities with information
concerning 15 or 20 drug felons. He
also said O’Kclly had provided infor
mation about relatives to save him
self.
Deputy Lancaster County Attor
ney John Colbom said O’ Kelly agreed
to testify before the possibility of a
sentence reduction was discussed.
Johnson said he heard Bjorklund
telling O’Kelly that Bjorklund and
Barney had committed several rob
beries and that Bjorklund didn’t un
derstand why Bamcy was “ratting on
him now.”
Johnson said he overheard
Bjorklund say Barney fired the first
two shots at Harms.
“He told Mr. O’Kelly that Scott
Barney shot Harms twice,” Johnson
said.
Johnson said Bjorklund told
O’ Kelly he then shot Harms four times
after returning for a blanket that he
and Bamcy left with Harms’ body.
Johnson said Bjorklund said he in
tended to use a fifth bullet to shoot
himself, but that the gun went off a
fifth time without Bjorklund attempt
ing to shoot himself.
Johnson said he heard Bjorklund
say that Harms’ neck broke when she
and Bjorklund fell to the ground.
“He made statements that he had
his arm around her throat when they
fell. I believe he said it was an acci
dent,” Johnson said.
Chief Deputy Public Defender Scott
Hclvie said other conversations be
tween O’Kelly and Bjorklund would
have been monitored if they had exist
ed.
Other witnesses called by the pros
ecution testified about items they had
found that were stolen in robberies
allegedly committed by Bjorklund and
Barney.
-44
(Bjorklund) was not
remorseful at all,
and he said if he
got out, he would
do it again.
— O’Kelly
inmate housed near
Bjorklund
-tf -
Kenneth Stratton said he and his
wife, Charlotte, were fishing at
Conestoga Lake west of Lincoln June
5.1992, when they reeled in a pillow
case containing a brick, a cash register
drawer, a set of keys and a wallet
containing numerous credit and iden
tification cards.
The items were identified by two
armed robbery victims. David Meter
said he was working at Econo Lodge,
5600 Comhuskcr Highway, on Sept.
7.1992, when he was held at gunpoint
by a “really stocky” man (about 5-feet,
6-inches tall, about 230-240 pounds)
who wore a nylon stocking on his
head.
Meter said the man pushed him to
the floor and struck him on the head
several times before leaving with the
cash registerdrawer, which contained
about $800 to $900.
Mark Larson said he was working
at Stop’N Sleep, 1140 Calvert St., on
Dec. 1. 1992, when a man he de
scribed as about 5 feet, 10 inches tall
and 180 pounds pointed a gun at him
and demanded cash.
Larson said he was not injured.
Helvie said the prosecution did not
establish a definite connection be
tween the robberies and Bjorklund
and Barney. Both Larson and Meter
said they had not been asked to iden
tify the men in a lineup or by police
records.
Sgt. Mark Hellingof the Lancaster
County Corrections department was
the last witness called by prosecutors
Tuesday.
Helling testified that he had wit
nessed a fight between Bjorklund and
an unidentifed man at Chesterfield’s,
245 N. 13th St., in the fall of 1992 in
which Bjorklund held a knife to the
man’s throat.
Bjorklund’s sentencing hearing
will resume at 9 a.m. today in Lancaster
County District Court. The hearing is
expected to last about three weeks.
VISION appeals fines
From Staff Reports
The Association of Students of
thcUniversityofNebraska Elector
al Commission levied $47 in fines
against the VISION party Tuesday.
Mark Byars, ASUN electoral
commission chairman, said VI
SION was fined $25 for taking
down other parties’ campaign post
ers.
Byars said it was VISION’s word
against the word of the other par
ties.
LETTUCE accused the party of
the offense last week, Byars said,
and Gary Doyle of Students for
Dave accused VISION of the same
this week.
VISION presidential candidate
Andrew Loudon said his party
planned to appeal the decision.
He said the electoral commis
sion accused VISION of something
they did not do.
“I’m not going to pay (the $25
dollars)—that’s for sure,” Loudon
said.
The commission also fined VI
SION $22 for not having the proper
logo on some graduate student can
didates’ signs. Loudon said that
fine was justified.
226 "S" 9th Street.
_ESI jnltf cajl 477-1667
TONIGHT
Presenting to the
ladies
AmerIcan
MaIf 1
Net>ra§kan
FAX NUMBER 472-1761
Th« Daily Nebraskan (USPS 144 080) is
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Readers are encouraged to submit story
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ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT
1094 DAILY NEBRASKAN
Clinton admits to more contacts,
appoints Carter aide as counsel
WASHINGTON (AP)—Presi
dent Clinton acknowledged addi
tional White House contacts with
federal regulators about the
Whitewater investigation Tuesday.
He said his administration would
cooperate if Congress held
Whitewater hearings.
“I haven’t done anything wrong
and I’m not going to do anything
wrong,” Clinton said. “I revere the
responsibility that I have been giv
en and I’m not going to abuse it.”
Clinton appeared at a news confer
ence to announce the appointment
of respected Washington attorney
Lloyd Cutler as senior counsel, re
placing Bernard Nussbaum who
resigned under fire.
Clinton said that Cutler, 76,
would bring “a firm, uncompro
mising and steady hand” to the
White House. Cutler was White
House counsel under Jimmy Cart
er.
Cutler said he agreed to take the
job for only 130 days. The limited
assignment means he will not have
to sever ties with his law firm.
“In government, as in other as
pects of life, trust is the coin of the
realm, and Mr. President, I pledge
myself to do what I can to assure
that trust is maintained,” Cutler
said.
Clinton acknowledged there
were additional contacts beyond the
original three but said they were
“incidental and were follow-up con
versations which had nothing to do
with the substance of the RTC in
vestigations.”
White House Press Secretary Dee
Dee Myers said the contacts in
volved press inquiries and were
made over the phone or by “bump
ing” into people in the halls. She
said the additional contacts would
be documented in material sent to
special prosecutor Robert Fiske.
The White House had resisted
Republican calls for congressional
hearings into Whitewater, Fiske
also has argued against the hear
ings, saying they would pose a se
vere risk to the integrity of his
investigation.
President
Bill Clinton
Scott Maurer/uN
-44
I haven’t done
anything wrong and
I’m not going to do
anything wrong.
— President Clinton
-ff -
Cutler said that if the House
Banking Committee went ahead
with hearings, “it would be my
recommendation that everyone in
the White House cooperate.”
Clinton said Nussbaum and four
Treasury offic ials were subpoena in
the Whitewater investigation.
Nussbaum resigned under pres
sure Saturday, criticized by many
While House aides as lacking a
solid political judgment and for
making Clinton’s problems worse.
The subpoenaed officials were
ordered to testify on Thursday after
it was learned they had been briefed
on the status of the Whitewater
investigation by federal regulators,
raising questions about whether the
probe had been compromised.
“He should resign,” the dean of
the Tennessee congressional dele
gation, Republican Rep. James
Quillen, said. “His staff has fum
bled the Whitewater affair by ask
ing for briefings of the status of the
case. That’s unheard of. It looks
like President Clinton is trying to
whitewash the Whitewater affair.”
Clinton went on to accuse Re
publicans of trying “to make polit
ical hay out of this ... that’s their
real concern.”
Clinton seemingly ruled out in
voking executive privilege to avoid
releasing information to investiga
tors.
“It is hard for me to imagine a
case in which I would invoke it,” he
said.
After the news conference,
Clinton andCutler, joined by Hillary
Rodham Clinton, Vice President
A1 Gore and Chief of Staff Mack
McLarty, went to the East Room to
lift the spirits of 400 assembled
aides.
Clinton emphasized that the staff
should do its best to live up to high
ethical standards and that
Whitewater shouldn’t deter them
from pursuing his agenda.
“It was actually pretty upbeat,”
one staffer said.
House Banking Committee Re
publicans released a list of 40
Whitewater witnesses they want to
call before a March 24 hearing.
They don’t have power to force
them to testify.
The list includes Arkansas fig
ures, current and former senior
White House aides, officials of the
savings and loan cleanup agency
and federal prosecutors.
A new poll by ABC News found
that 36 percent of Americans be
lieve both the president and his wife
acted illegally in their Whitewater
dealings. Forty-nine percent said
Whitewater was a serious matter.
The survey showed that Repub
licans in Congress also got low
marks. Fifty-eight percent of re
spondents said the GOP was press
ing the issue just to score points
against Clinton.
Senate
Continued from Page 1
than $5 per week, little more than the
cost of a hamburger, fries and drink at
McDonald’s.
Duncan said he disliked the idea
that additional revenues generated by
the increase of parking permits would
be used to finance other university
services, such as the busing service.
“It’s really a tax,” Duncan said.
“Parkers arc being taxed to pay for the
bus system.”
Herb Howe, associate to the chan
cellor, said the university needed a
comprehensive parking plan that in
tegrated parking and transportation
services. The faculty permit increase
would give the universityenough mon
ey to solve the parking problem in a
comprehensive way, he said.
“1 appreciate the economic impact,”
Howe said, “but I’m afraid we’re
dooming ourselves to forever wrestle
with parking.”
Christina Brantner, UNL assistant
professor of modem languages and
literature, said the faculty had to bear
more of the burden for supporting
parking.
“For many years at this university,
you’ve received minimal services at
bargain prices,” she said to faculty
members. Students especially have
suffered by the lack of paved lots and
adequate lighting, she said.
Unless faculty is happy with the
parking situation, they should support
the increased rates, she said.
“We need to rethink our concept
here and have a real parking and
transportation system and not these
half systems and half solutions,” she
said.
Kerrey
Continued from Page 1
public investment than I do with this
one,” he said. “Unless our people re
alize these skills, the opportunities are
apt to go unrealized.”
Kerrey said technology promised
jobs and money—which he estimated
to be trillions of dollars — for the
state.
But to get there, he said, the state
would have to change its schools —
philosophically and structurally.
Developing and pricing a technol
ogy system would have to come first,
he said. After that, a method of train
ing parents and teachers would have
to be set up.
Texas, for example, has built mul
tiple sites for year-round training, he
said. The people in the state must
think they arc getting their money’s
worth, Kerrey said, because every pol
itician in the slate is taking credit for
them.
Kerrey then spoke of the state fund,
ensuring equal distribution of the tech
nology and establishing an institution
to oversee the operation.
“The promise of technology is to...
increase our understanding of where
we are in time, where we are in space,”
he said.
After everything is in place, Ne
braskans will be better equipped to
compete in and understand local, na
tional and world markets and events,
he said.
“The decisions that we (Ameri
cans) are having to make are getting
more complicated,” he said, “ft’s not
possible for us to make good decisions
about what we’re going to do... with
out understanding much more than
we have in the past.”
But resistance getting there is
strong, he said, and the majority of
citizens have not been convinced that
there is a reason for getting there at all.
“The promise of communication
technology... is a radical change," he
said. “But change is not an easy thing
to do.”
Kerrey told of a recent experience
he had while on a airplane (light.
Sitting next to an95-year-old man,
Kerrey said he made the mistake of
saying to him: “Gee, 95 years old. 1
guess you’ve seen a lot of changes.”
The man turned, Kerrey said, nar
rowed his eyes and said: “Yeah, that’s
right, sonny; I’ve seen a lot of chang
es. And I want you to know, I’ve been
against every single one of ’em.”
Legislature
Continued from Page 1
Sen. John Lindsay of Omaha ques
tioned if the state would be open to
lawsuits if LR29CA passed.
Chambers said with the creation of
a right, a system needed to be set up
where aperson denied that right could
seek reparation. He said LR29CA did
not have that system.
An amendment to LR29CA pro
tecting the state of Nebraska and all
political subdivisions was offered by
Chambers and Lindsay, but was de
feated.
Sen. Curt Bromm of Wahoo of
fered another amendment saying the
legislature would be responsible for a
system of reparation. The amendment
passed unanimously.
LR29CA was passed to final read
ing by the legislature with only Cham
bers voting in opposition.