wm e OAllAnion H JKF JK HI |B tlmmH HI Hi .MB BB HI Vol. 87, No. 180 32 pages University Park, Pa. 16802 COLLEGIAN 100 YEARS ' * ©1987 Collegian Inc. Apri 11887-April 1987 Students fall prey By MARYANN LIDDY Collegian Staff Writer Students hoping to win eight times their original invest ment have been paying from $lO to $lOO to play one of several illegal pyramid football games running on cam pus and in town during the past few months. Although various versions of the game are circulating,, the basic structure of the pyramid is similar to the concept of a chain letter. Since involvement in a chain letter operation is a felony under federal law, the postal inspector’s office in Harris burg said those caught would face a possible five-year American was killed in firefight ' TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) An American engineer killed in northern Nicaragua was caught in a firefight between Con tra rebels and Sandinista militia forces, the largest U.S.-supported Contra group said yesterday. The account contradicted Nica raguan statements that 27-year-old Benjamin Ernest Linder, of Port land, Ore., was singled out by the Contras and slain. The Nicaraguan Democratic Force, or FDN, said it held Nicara gua’s leftist government responsi ble for the death of the first American to be killed in that coun try’s civil war. Nicaragua said the U.S. government was to blame for supporting the Contras. “The death of Linder was pro duced in the midst of a firefight between one of our patrols and a group of militia of the Sandinista army, which accompanied the U.S. citizen,” the FDN said in a statement released in Tegucigal pa. Linder’s body yesterday was taken to the office of the central government representative in Mat agalpa, a provincial capital in northern Nicaragua, where a cere mony was held in his honor. In Managua, Nicaragua’s capi tal, about 150 Americans including volunteer workers demonstrated outside the U.S. Embassy, carry ing signs that blamed the Reagan administration for Linder’s death. S. African conditions worry SHARE officials By CHRISTINE NICHOLAS Collegian Staff Writer Officials who implement the Uni versity’s aid plan for black South Africans are divided about whether its effects could be watered down by heightening political protests, news censorship and police takeovers of universities in South Africa. The five-point plan, SHARE, was developed in January 1986 by the President’s Advisory Committee on Responses to Apartheid. While focusing on scholarship and academic exchanges, SHARE is based on the concept that the Univer sity is not a political tool but should try to provide education and schol arships to qualified students and edu cate the University community about world events. weather This afternoon partly sunnny but breezy high 60. Tonight mostly clear and colder low 34. Friday mostly sunny and milder high 67 Ross Dickman prison sentence and fines from $lO,OOO to $250,000 for each count, said postal fraud team leader Roy Miller. One illegal pyramid scheme called the “airplane game” has been under investigation in New York state since early last month and 17 people were arrested March 13. Promoters of a pyramid game face a $5OO fine and a year in prison under New York state law. The local version of a football pyramid begins with a “quarterback” positioned at the top. Two “running backs” are in the position underneath him, each with two “linebackers” beneath them. Beneath the four “linemen” at the bottom of the ladder are eight “substitute” positions that must be filled by p :s *r';V>T f** ♦V '< < P a ,* , v. ,.f The body of Benjamin Ernest Linder, the first American killed in Nicaragua, is carried aboard a Soviet-made helicopter by Nicaraguan government soldiers. “An effort to establish linkages can’t be done outside of the context of what’s happening in the country as a whole,” said James Stewart, director of the University’s black studies pro gram. “A lot of us that are associated with the SHARE program are very concerned about the extent to which conditions seem to be worsening.” Other University officials, includ ing the chairman of the advisory committee, could not say how politi cal uprising in South Africa may affect the University’s plan. “I just can’t tell,” Donald Rung said. “It depends upon whether the various black educational organiza tions can still function.” One institution South Africa’s University of the North, in the black homeland of Lebowa has been Please see SHARE, page 2 ,4 4 V-'. ' 7 Goetz wanted to kill youths V on N.Y. subway, tape reveals : J NEW YORK (AP) Bernhard Goetz intended “to subway. His trial on attempted murder charges began -* mufder’ ’ the four youths he shot on a subway car “to Monday in state Supreme Court, the trial-level court in ! .. make them suffer as much as possible,” he told police New York. A- in a recorded statement played yesterday at his trial. Goetz described his own actions as “disgusting” and JH ■ “I admit, for those guys, all this time, I wanted to do “monstrous” in the two-hour audio tape, interspersing X jSKUm the worst possible that a human being could do,” descriptions of the subway encounter with digressions iHuranl Goetz, sounding nervous and at times emotional, told on his background and explanations of his fear of being police in Concord, N.H., where he surrendered Dec. 31, victimized. . JHHI j. 1984. “You have to think in a cold-blooded way in New . APLaserphoio Nine days earlier, Goetz drew a gun and shot four York,” said Goetz, 39, an electronics specialist. He had Bernhard Goetz young men he claimed were trying to rob him on the carried a gun since he was mugged in 1981, he said; in Ronnie dies while awaiting PITTSBURGH (AP) - Ronnie DeSil lers, the 7-year-old Florida boy who received three liver transplants and Americans’ support, died yesterday awaiting a fourth transplant at Chil dren’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, accord ing to his mother. Ronnie died at 8:15 p.m. EDT in the hospital’s intensive care unit, said his mother, Maria DeSillers. “We kept talking to him and tears “He kept on fighting. He went like a would come out of his eyes,” she said, champion. Doctors and the nurses in “I miss him already.” the ICU couldn’t believe it really. It was like he was going into battle,” a to pyramid game investors. When the eight substitutes are filled, the quarterback wins and collects the money paid by the substitutes. “(The quarterbacks) make out on the deal because they never have to invest,” said University student “Susan,” whose name, like those of the other students in this article, has been changed. “The uninvolved entrepreneur, the one who starts the game, is the real winner,” she said. “The object is to fill the eight sub spots,” said “Sally,” a University student who invested in a $lO game. “You all work as a team to fill the spots in order to move up the ladder.” v i.t***''’ *• i V “ <4 'T*' 1 ' *? fc tearful Ms. DeSillers said at a hospi tal news conference. “I guess it got to the point where he couldn’t fight anymore,” she said. Ms. DeSillers, seated at a table next to her fiance, Jose Castillo, and her brother, Osvaldo Marchante, told reporters that her heavily sedated son suffered a cardiac arrest. Ms. DeSillers said she would con tinue her fight to increase organ * ” * ■ ‘ /; '< * i ; *• t. donor awareness, despite her only child’s death. Ronnie’s condition took a drastic turn for the worse Sunday night, a day after he was placed back on the waiting list for a fourth liver trans plant. The third liver, which he re ceived Thursday, never began to function properly. Ronnie first made national head lines in February when President Reagan sent him a letter and later contributed $l,OOO to his operation after some of his medical money was stolen. “(The quarterback) is then out of the game and the original pyramid splits into two separate games. The existing running backs each move up to become quar terbacks, with the linemen filling the running back positions on the new teams. “After winning once, the quarterback is out of the game but can reinvest as many times as he wants by coming back in at the bottom as a substitute,” Sally said. “June” is a University student who managed to win twice in a $lO game organized in her residence hall. When she reinvested for a third time, however, her luck ran out. 4th liver ll| v- Please see PYRAMID, page 2 r ■* 4 V > & Ronnie DeSillers
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