With the country in the midst of a severe economic slump.
Three cents a a lass small businessmen are finding it harder to make an honest
** dollar. But it seems there is always room for an enterprising
person who sells lemonade on a hot day.
Campbell reserves judgment
in Kaleidoscope Travel hearing
By JEFF DeBRAY
Collegian Senior Reporter
After hearing four hours of testimony,
Centre County Court Judge R. Paul
Campbell yesterday reserved judgment
on two charges of fraudulent conversion
of property filed against John Maes,
president of Kaleidoscope Travel, Inc.
Calling for the prosecution and the
defense to submit briefs detailing the
case’s legal arguments, Campbell said,
“This is a highly technical thing. The
prosecution must show, and beyond
reasonable doubt, that fraudulent intent
was involved.”
Maes, arrested March 6 in Grand
Mich., is charged by Centre
County District Attorney Charles Brown
with fraud in connection with Decem
ber’s aborted Sugar Bowl trip which left
about 70 area residents stranded at
Harrisburg International Airport Dec. 29
when the plane failed to ;arrive.
Maes collected about $15,000 from
area residents for the trip, sponsored by
the Interfraternity Council. Area
residents Frank Royer and Ronald
Tressler testified they received letters
postmarked Jan. 8 from Kaleidoscope,
promising their 1 money would be
refunded within ten days.
But the money was not returned,
prompting Royer and Matthew Lucchesi
to file charges against Maes for “ob
taining goods on false pretenses.”
Maes testified the Sugar Bowl trip fell
through because the' plane he had
chartered from Regal Travel for the
flight to New Orleans was grounded in
Santo Domingo and unable to fly to
Harrisburg.
Another flight was arranged for 3 a.m
Hartranft: scene
By STEVE IVEV
Collegian Staff Writer
Following three weeks of major and minor fires and
assorted acts of vandalism and destruction in Hartranft,
the residents of the third, fourth and fifth floors were
moved to Hoyt earlier this week.
Although most residents said they feel safer in their
new dorm, some were upset.
Kip Kitt (4th-education) said he thinks it was "unfair
that we had to move out while the vets stayed.”
“There were more of us than there were vets,” Kitt
said.
“They could have placed us in a closer dorm than
Hoyt. Instead, they put us in the farthest dorm,” he
added. -
“I’m very bitter about the move,” Michael Radasky
(llth-theater arts) told The Daily Collegian. “Putting us
in Hoyt was obviously a punishment, they wanted to
isolate us.”
The trouble in Hartranft had been brewing for the past
three weeks and University officials have blamed the
peculiar combination of students assigned to the dor
mitory. ,
The first two floors are assigned to the Veterans’
College Preparatory Program, while the upper three
floors housed special speech and hearing therapy
students, students participating in the Educational
Opportunity Program and regular undergraduates.
The trouble first started when ceiling tiles in the lobby
were poked out- and broken. Red cleaning fluid was
sprayed around the lobby and on furniture.
The vets blamed the other students for the damage.
The students on the upper floors put the blame on outside
students. ;
The situation quickly escalated to what one student
said were nightly incidents of harassment. The
harassment, took the form of stopping up toilets and
flooding different floors, fires in the janitor’s closets,
vandalism on the vending machines, and a major blaze
on the unoccupied sixth floor last Thursday night.
Collegian
the
daily
Dec. 30, but area residents were un
willing to take a bus from Harrisburg to
Pittsburgh, where the flight would have
originated.
Questioned about, hotel accomo
dations, which were to be included in the
$lB9 price, Maes said he did not make
any definite reservations “because I
wanted to keep things loose, since I was
not sure how many people would be
going on the trip.”
Maes added he “certainly intended” to
refund the money by arranging other
trips, specifically a Jan. 14 trip to the
Super Bowl. But this drip fell through
and he lost several thousand dollars on it
as a result of adverse publicity from the
cancelled Sugar Bowl trip, Maes
testified.
Under cross-examination by Brown,
Maes said it was “difficult to tag exactly
what happened with the money from IFC
because it all went into the same ac
count, but the Super Bowl flight lost a lot
of it.”
He said it has not been his policy until
now to put the funds he receives in
escrow so he can refund it if something
goes wrong with a planned trip.
Maes now is employed by a New York
City-based travel agency, One Price
Europe, since Kaleidoscope no longer is
functioning because of a lack of funds.
He said he is willing to use his salary, as
well as $12,000 from another proposed
flight he is arranging, to repay the
money he owes.
In his closing argument Maes’ at-
William Donovan, said, “The
case presented has been one of a debt
owed by a poor businessman, not
fraudulent activity. No fraudulent intent
That fire brought the situation to a head, and the next
day M. .Lee Upcraft, director of residential life
programs', decided to move some of the residents out.
Gary Walker (lst-music) was in the fifth floor study
lounge the night of the fire.
He told the Collegian he “was studying with two other
guys when we looked up at the lights and saw some
smoke. I went up the stairs and found the whole sixth
floor filled with smoke. It was too smoky and too dense
for me to see the alarm. I felt along the wall for it, and
rang it. I ran back downstairs and started to wake
everybody up.”
Walker said.it was hard to get the speech therapy
students out of bed because they could not hear the
alarms.
He added that as the building was being evacuated,
someone ripped the water hoses out of third-floor
washing machines, drenching the floor.
Some vets and the resident assistants succeeded in
putting out the burning paper and five; burning lounge
chairs. !
That night Campus Patrolmen were stationed at the
dorm for the protection of the residents, Upcraft said.
All of the students interviewed vets, EOP and
regulars —'agreed that the conflictdid not have a racial
overtone. ■
Veteran Wayne Watson (lst-broadcasting) blamed the
tensions and conflict on the age differences. The vets, he
said, “are men.”
“We know more about life and we are older than those
teenager?,” he said.!
Watson added that! he thinks the privileges the vets
have by being over 21 antagonized the younger students.
Another yet, Dennis Durkin, said the younger students
resented the vets. “Maybe we did tease them about it
sometimes,” he said. j
Durkin said most it hard to get close to the
other students because of the age difference.
While Durkin said he believes “the people
Photo by Ed Golomb
existed in John Maes’ mind.
“Certainly if he’s convicted and sent to
the penitentiary, there will be no
possibilities for payback.”
But Brown, citing other court
decisions, argued that the case was not
just an attempt to collect a debt.
“The breech of trust is the key here to
this crime,”: Brojvn said. Mr. Maes
diverted other people’s money away
from the purpose they gave him the
money. The fact he stated he intends to
repay the money is not a defense to this
case.
“The title-stayed with' the people who
gave him the money,” Brown said.
Questioning Brown’s argument,
Campbell said, “Carried to the logical
extreme, every one who charges
bankruptcy would be charged with
fraudulent conversion.”
Noting the displeasure at the judge’s
decision to reserve judgment by several
courtroom spectators who lost their
money on the trip, Campbell said he
sympathizes with them.
“In the meantime, I hope the defen
dant (who will remain free on bail), will
pursue every possible opportunity to
show good faith to return the money,” he
said.
After the trial Brown expressed
displeasure with the decision.
“I am not finished with the legal
arguments. This case is very com
plicated,” he said. “It is not easy to
determine the criminality of the
defendant, but it is the mishandling and
misdirection of funds of others that
makes this a crime.”
Maes refused to comment on the trial
on the advice of his counsel.
of age conflict
Nixon challenged
WASHINGTON (AP) President
Nixon yesterday defied demands from
Congress and the government’s special
prosecutor for Watergate-related tape
recordings and documents. The Senate,
Watergate committee voted
unanimously to sue him, and the
prosecutor challenged him in court.
Nixon said through a White House
spokesman that he would abide by a
definitive ruling by the high court and
expressed confidence that the eventual
decision would uphold him.
Yesterday’sevents began unfolding
when notified the Senate
Watergate committee by letter that he
would ribt comply with the committee’s
two subpoepas. They demanded that he
turn i over his tape recordings,
and documents bearing on
the' Senate’s investigation of last year’s
wiretapping and burglary at the
Watergate headquarters of the
Democratic National Committee.
Etjrlichma
WASHINGTON (AP) John D.
Ehrlichman told the Senate Watergate
committee yesterday that there was
another White House “plumbers” unit
investigation that cannot be made
public.
Ehrlichman said revealing the ac
tivity would compromise national
security.
The disclosure came hours after the
committee voted to challenge President
Nixon in court over his refusal to turn
over tape recordings and documents
bearing on the Watergate scandal.
Ehrlichman, a former' top aide,
ctefended the President’s stand.
Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr., R-Tenn.,
noted that a memorandum in evidence
before the committee had one paragraph
PSUBranch
PLRB
By RICK NELSON
Collegian Managing Editor
The question of whether the University
used harassment and coercion in
denying a Penn State faculty member
sabbatical leave awaits a Pennsylvania
Labor Relations Board decision, ac
cording to a PLRB Spokesman.
Arguments in the case were heard
Wednesday by’ a PLRB hearing
examiner at Centre County Courthouse
in Bellefonte.
The case, filed by PSUBranch, the
Commonwealth Campus collective
bargaining organization, charges that
Lita L. Schwartz, associate professor of
educational psychology at Ogontz
Campus, "was denied sabbatical leave
because of her participation in
PSUBranch.
PSUBranch negotiator Thomas
Badger said Schwartz submitted her
application for leave Oct. 18 to S.F.
Nicol, assistant director for resident
instruction at Ogontz, to forward to
University Park before the application
due date of Nov. 15.
Badger said Nicol testified he did not
forward the request before the Nov. 15
deadline because the absolute deadline
was April and more time was needed to
study the feasibility of granting leave.
Badger said Nicol cited a faculty
were screwing themselves and causing the damages,”
Watson said he thinks it was an outside individual who
caused the damages.
“I refuse to believe that any vet had anything to do
with the destruction of the building, and I couldn’t say if
the upper floors did damage,” he said.
He added, “No one with a sane mind would destroy
their own home.”
Don Sturgis, former third floor RA, said that “there
were a lot of outsiders coming in and out of the building
because of the vets.” He also said he thinks that an
outsider caused the damages.
One student said he saw the damages as a result of
conflict between two “very tight and close groups that
failed to try to understand each other at all.”
Sturgis said, “It was a bad move on the University’s
part to put freshmen and vets together. Plus, with EOP
and speech therapy students mixed in, things were
bound to happen.”
Upcraft said that before last Thursday’s fire, he had
tried to get both groups together. The fire prompted him
to decide between splitting the students up or imposing
what he called concentration' camp security on the
students.
He and other University administrators Friday
morning decided to put the EOP and regular students in
Hoyt. The speech therapy students were assigned to
Nittany at their own request.
No one interviewed knew the amount of damages
incurred in the last three weeks of conflict. Estimates
ranged from sl,ooo to $1,900.
A meeting is scheduled for this morning to determine
the exact amount of damages and how the cost will be
distributed among the students.
“I think the students have suffered a great deal,”
Upcraft told the Collegian. “They are the real losers.”
C DEFT .
PASSES LmAST
CA«BS
Friday, July 27, 1973 <■
University Park Pennsylvania Vol. 74, No. 16 8 pages
Published by Students of The Pennsylvania State University
Nixon also wrote U. S. District Court
Judge! John J. Sirica, in answer to a
subpoena from special prosecutor Ar
chibald Cox, that he would not release
nine tape recordings. Cox sought. Nixon
did, however, produce two of the
documents Cox’s subpoena asked.
Cox j immediately asked for a cpurt
order requiring Nixon’s compliance with
the subpoena and Sirica gave the White
House| until 10 a.m. EDT, Aug. 7 to
respond.
Sen.. Sam J. Ervin Jr., D-N.C.,
chairman of the Senate Watergate
committee, read Nixon’s letter to him at
the opening of yesterday’s nationally
televised hearings. In the letter, Nixon
said he would not give up his tapes but
would-produce some documents if the
committee would be very specific about
what documents it wanted.
Ervin branded that response totally
unacceptable.
“We are not he said.
left blank and asked Ehrlichman if he
could provide it.
“I’d probably be violating two or three
statutes if 1 provided this,” Ehrlichman
said. He added it involved a 1971 in
vestigation no way related to the
Watergate affair.
“Is it a co-iningling of Watergate and
other matters?” Baker asked. 4
“Notj inherently,” said Ehrlichman,
but an inquiry into Watergate leads to an
inquiryj to this matter which would
compromise it.
The known activity of a special White
House investigative unit known as the
plumbers includes the break-in of Daniel
Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office, in
vestigation into leaks concerning the
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, and a
charges\ unfair practices
decision awa
shortage as the reason for delaying
Schwartz’s leave request.
Nicol j yesterday would not tell The
Daily Collegian if he ever submitted the
request.: He said, “I don’t think it’s
approprjate to make any comment at
this time.”
PSUBranch also presented testimony
charging other instances of unfair
treatment of PSUBranch participants by
the University at the hearing.
A PLRB spokesman said PLRB should
reach a decision in three of four weeks.
The Schwartz complaint is one of three
PSUBranch cases currently before
PLRB. |
A complaint filed May 18 on behalf of
the Commonwealth Campus science
faculty charges the University with
harassment and “alteration of initial
conditions of employment.” It charges
the College of Science with demanding
research in addition to a full teaching
load.
PSUBranch also has filed before
PLRB exceptions to a June 6 PLRB
ruling that PSUBranch cannot organize
branch campus faculty separate from
University Park faculty.
The exceptions are scheduled to be
heard Sejjt 19.
A PLRB decision refusing to let
University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown
faculty members organize separately
Barricaded doors . . ;
. . . WILL PREVENT THE VETS on Hartranft’s first two floors from going any
place but down. The students on ihe upper floor were moved to Hoyt following
dorm-wide vandalism, floodings, and a major fire on the unoccupied sixth floor.
19 rOPTffi
cites
U.s. POSTAGE
STATE COLLEGE
PA. 16801
PtfSBTT AO.IO
“You can’t identify a document you’ve
never seen.”
The committee vice chairman, Sen.
Howard Baker, R-Tenn.,. then proposed
that the committee take the President to
court and the motion - was adopted
unanimously.
“The chair recognizes that there is no
precedent for litigation of this nature,”
Ervin said. “I think this, litigation is
essential if we are to determine whether
the President is above the law, and
whether the President is immune from
the duties and responsibilities of this
kind that evolve upon all the other
mortals that dwell in this land.”
At issue are Nixon’s contention that
executive privilege and the doctrine of
separation of powers permit him to
withhold the tapes and documents, and
the committee’s insistence- that its
charter from the Senate permits it to
subpoena White House material relevant
to the Watergate investigation.
probe
probe into publication of White House
discussions about the Bangladesh civil
war.
Ehrlichman’s lawyer, John J. Wilson,
produced a recent letter from White
House special counsel J. Fred Buzhardt
“directing us to claim executive
privilege on a matter identified only as a
fourth instance of the.activities of. the
plumbers.”
Ehrlichman said he would tell the
senators about it in closed session if the
White House approves.
Ehrlichman had intimated Tuesday
that other activities of the plumbers had
not come to light, but this waS the first
specific exploration.
ted
from the Pitt main campus faculty may
affect the PSUBranch decision.
Badger said PSUBranch is attempting
to organize- main campus faculty
members along with the branch campus
faculty as a collective bargaining unit if
PLRB upholds its earlier decision.
He said efforts are underway to
organize a steering committee on main
campus to set up an all-University
bargaining unit called the Association of
Pennsylvania State University Faculty.
He said that while PSUBranch
members had contended that each unit
should be considered autonomous,
PLRB prohibition of separate wage
negotiations (except for Hershey
Medical Center) supported one
bargaining unit for all campuses.
He said that in addition to PSUBranch,
the American Association of University
Professors also is voting for the position
of Penn State faculty bargaining agent.
Weather
Cloudy today with showers this
morning; high of 76. Fair and cooler
tonight; low of 68. Mostly cloudy
Saturday with showers in the afternoon;
high of 76. Variable cloudiness and cool
Sunday; high of 72.
photo by Steve Ivey