The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 15

TUESDAY, JULY 19, 1994 The Palm Beach Post SECTION GAG RULES VARY Restrictions on judges change with geography PAGE 2B NIGHTCLUB DEBUT Florida Repertory Theatre to become dance club BUSINESS, 5B ocal New: Lake Park boy, 15, shoots stepfather, police say By JOE BROGAN Palm Beach Post Staff Writer LAKE PARK A 15-year-old boy who had been receiving counseling to improve his relationship with his stepfather shot the man in the head Monday morning, police said. Michael Cooper, 31, of 308 Foresteria Drive, was in critical condition late Monday in the intensive care unit at St. Mary's charges regarding the weapon. Some of the friction may have arisen because Cooper was a firm parent, Dobson said. Several weeks ago, the boy had been in counseling sessions to help him improve their relationship, Dobson said.

Police records showed no pre vious calls to the Cooper home, and the victim didn't have a criminal record, Dobson said. boy's mother, Eleanor Cooper, come out of the house screaming. "She ran toward me yelling to call 911," Taylor said. "She was really scared and holding onto me. The stepson was pacing back and forth right next to me while I called." Police wouldn't reveal where the boy had gotten the gun, but said there may be additional Hospital.

The boy told investigators he thought his mother was being abused by Cooper, but police said there was no evidence of any abuse. The boy, whose name was not released because of his age, was charged with aggravated battery with a firearm and taken to the juvenile detention center in West Palm Beach. Police said there was no argument before the boy went into the stepfather's bedroom and fired a semiautomatic pistol three times as Cooper prepared for work. One shot struck the victim, police said. "There was no confrontation prior to the shooting," said Detective Sgt.

Bob Dobson. "The stepson was upset about a domestic-type situation that he perceived as more serious than it really was." The boy told investigators he was not beaten or abused by his stepfather, who is a long-distance truck driver. After the shooting, the boy threw the weapon into the back yard and waited for police Marc Taylor, an air-conditioning technician working across the street, said he called 911 on his vehicle phone when he heard the Missing ranch worker spotted 'fee 'V'' 1 VZ-v'SA" mtm Graham wins shot at keeping; the Expos Commissioners agree to change the! way the city approves leases, giving! the mayor two months to find the votes for a deal with the team. By JOEL ENGELHARDT Palm Beach Post Staff Writer WEST PALM BEACH The acrimonious de-j bate over whether the Montreal Expos would be! getting a new stadiufti ended Monday with a resound-! ing "yes" when city commissioners agreed to change! the way they approve long-term leases. Commissioners voted 4-1 to ease the lease! requirement, then agreed to hold a workshop to talk' about putting the question on a referendum to let; voters decide.

The workshop would not be held until Septem-; ber. The deadline for getting something on the Nov. 8 ballot is Sept. 9, but residents hope to force the commissions' hand by collecting enough signatures on petitions. 0.

1- 1 it I I An employee of a missing Loxahatchee bird breeder was in New York selling exotic birds last month. By CAROLYN FRETZ Palm Beach Post Staff Writer A ranch hand who worked at a bird farm where hundreds of parrots were found dead or dying was in New York last month trying to sell exotic birds for about a third of what they're worth, investigators said Monday. Roland Eyoum, a native of Africa who was staying at Bhagwan "Moses" Lall's 5-acre bird farm on Velazquez Road in Loxahatchee, was in New York on June 9 with several exotic birds, said Howard Voren, a Loxa hatchee bird breeder. Eyoum has been missing since authorities began investigating Lall's disappearance. Also Monday, investigators said they In the interim, Mayor Nancy Graham is free to bring forward a 20-year lease agreement with the Expos calling for construction of a $16 million spring training stadium at Military Trail and 45th Street.

The action Monday allows the commission to approve the lease by a 4-1 vote instead of a 5-0 vote, as has been required since Lall 4 at least 1973. Graham Commissioners Jeff Koons, Howard Warshauer, Joel Daves and Mary Hooks voted to change the requirement while Commissioner Sarah Nuckles voted against. Hooks had opposed the measure in the past. Daves suggested holding a workshop on a charter change that could make the requirement a part of the city charter. Voters could decide to make it 3-2, 4-1 or 5-0.

But that gives Graham more than two months to Please see EXPOS1 IB SCOn WISEMANStaff Photographer mock rescues as part of a 'practical test' taken by MacQueen and two other lifeguards. The test is a prerequisite for a training officer's position currently available. The new officer will train new lifeguards and oversee physical conditioning for the patrol staff. Lifeguards Put To The Test LAKE WORTH Palm Beach County Beach Patrol Safety Supervisor Tom Hutton watches Al Mac-Queen, a county lifeguard, as he checks the vital signs on Beach Patrol Lt. Joe Nardi.

Nardi was posing as an unconscious drowning victim in one of two are not sure if a man stopped in Georgia and charged with driving with a suspended license was Lall, even though the man was carrying Lall's identification and booked under Lall's name. Georgia authorities have sent the man's photograph and fingerprints to investigators here so detectives can determine if it is Lall. i The man stopped in Georgia June 7 was 5-feet-7 and dark skinned, said Richmond Hill Police Chief Billy Reynolds. Lall is 5-feet-8 and light skinned. Lall, 31, and his aunt Lilawattie "Lila" Buerattan, 35, have been listed as missing since mid-June, when neighbors called police to say the farm looked deserted.

When officers went onto the property, they found more than 400 dead birds worth more than $500,000 and more than 300 critically ill from lack of food and water. Shortly after Lall was last seen, Eyoum contacted an exotic animal broker in New York and offered to sell 78 -year-old scuba legend Harold Gordon dies after dive not determined the cause of death. "He lived and breathed div ing, said Jim Barry, the environmental director of Palm Beach County's coastal and wetlands division and a 30-year diving partner of Mr. i wasn't anything like it is today," Barry said. "You wouldn't see another boat.

People thought if you went in the water out there you'd be eaten by sharks." Ten years ago, when Mr. Gordon was diagnosed with cancer, he told his doctor he wasn't interested in surgery if it would mean he couldn't dive anymore. A heart attack, two years ago, didn't keep him out of the water, either. With his doctor's blessing, he returned to the water as soon as he could after each illness, Jim Gordon said. when we were 8 and 10," said Jim Gordon, 47, the younger of Harold Gordon's two sons.

Harold Gordon was the owner of Harold M. Gordon Son a company that sells and installs sliding glass windows and doors. Mr. Gordon started diving in 1951 and was a past president of the Palm Beach Fin Divers Club one of the first diving clubs in Palm Beach County, the Marine Aquarium Society of the Palm Beaches and the Palm Beach Shell Club, Jim Gordon said. "When we started diving it Mr.

Gordon's diving partner, Gary Kitchens, 49, of West Palm Beach went to the back of the boat and found Mr. Gordon reaching for him with a hand that was already turning blue. Kitchens pulled Mr. Gordon aboard and called for help on his marine radio. Florida Marine Patrol officers took Mr.

Gordon to the dock at the Port of Palm Beach, and fire rescue workers took him from there to St. Mary's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Investigators with the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner's Office have By CAROLYN FRETZ Palm Beach Post Staff Writer WEST PALM BEACH One of the pioneers of scuba diving in Palm Beach County died Sunday in exactly the setting his family and friends say he would have chosen diving in warm water with no surf and good visibility. Harold Gordon, 78, of 825 Valley Forge Road in West Palm Beach, surfaced from a 75-foot dive off Palm Beach at about 4:30 Sunday afternoon and pounded on the back of his 20-foot dive boat, the Sous Marin. 17 "My Mf" GOfd0n brother and I got our first tanks the birds for about a third of their market value.

She called Voren to see if he would buy the birds. "The story I got was that he (Eyoum) had been in 3 Shrieks signal 'horrible' clash between Centre mice, staff Buerattan t. ii I Ji, A7 cat and its litter box outside the office of her boss, Circuit Judge Hubert Lindsey. "They're very blatant. They just come running out, they leave their little present for you and they go away." Rodents are a common problem in 50-year-old buildings such as the Centre, said Mike Armand, the building's $120-a-month pest control man.

But the past two weeks have been the worst in the five years the county has rented the temporary courthouse for monthly payments of $197,201. Employees want justice. Armand blamed the problem in part on progress downtown construction that forces rodents to migrate but also offers them incentive to stick abound for workers' lunch leftovers. volved with Moses in a reptile deal that went bad," Voren said. "Moses owed him some mon- ey and paid him off in birds." Voren called Palm Beach County investigators and they have been trying to reach Eyoum in New York, Detective Sgt.

Ken Deischer said. Lall's mother said she spoke to her son from their native Guyana June 4. After the man booked as Lall made bond in Georgia, he fled, leaving behind a van filled with parrots and turtles. 'He never returried for a court hearing scheduled for July 11. By JOE CAPOZZI Palm Beach Post Staff Writer WEST PALM BEACH An infestation of mice in Palm Beach County's halls of justice has come down to this: rodents leaping from court files, floors mined with peanut butter-laced traps and a judge under guard by a cat named Rosie.

"Maybe something's going on with the universe," mused Circuit Judge Howard Berman, who said he knew the on-again, off-again mouse problem at the Centre downtown was on again last week once he "heard the screaming." One rodent greeted a clerk who opened her desk drawer on the second floor. "Horrible!" fretted judicial assistant Dorothy Reitano. She resorted to her own defense Monday by setting up camp for her SCOn WISEMANStaff Photographer Judicial assistant Dorothy Reitano is putting up her own defense. She brought her cat, Rosie, to work Monday to fight the Centre mouse infestation. 4.