The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 137

Page E2, Saturday, August 9, 1997 2 1 The Beacon Journal Two faces of slaying victim described! Portage deputy says Weeks showed only bruise, blood spot not the battered features when he was found dead. Defense contends later altercation killed him son left the party to find Weeks, Szabo testified. Weeks' body was spotted early the following afternoon in a ditch off North Fairfield Street in McElrath by a motorist who called police. Szabo testified that King, Rimmer and Johnson returned to the party, saying each of them had beaten Weeks because of the assault against Cox. King, Rimmer and Johnson have not been charged in Weeks' death.

A search warrant was issued last August for a tire iron from King's pickup truck, but none was found. King's truck was examined by investigators on Aug. 8, 1996, but investigators testified they found no blood in the truck, and acknowledged they did not know whether it had been washed in the 11 days since Weeks had died. Berger contend that Weeks was beaten hours after the fight with Cox. They say three men went after Weeks to avenge his assault on Cox.

Giulitto has accused Kelsey King of Aurora, Hayes Rimmer of Kent and Frank Johnson of Ravenna of inflicting the fatal beating on Weeks. The three men were subpoenaed to testify in Cox's trial, but all three failed to appear in court yesterday. Giulitto asked that statements the three men gave to investigators be admitted as evidence in the nonjury trial before Common Pleas Judge Joseph Kainrad. Kainrad is to rule later on the request. The trial will resume Tuesday.

Cox was at a party in Kent on the evening of Juty 27 when Weeks arrived and asked for a ride to Ravenna, saying he wanted to collect money that was owed to him, witness Jane Szabo testified Wednesday. Although she and others warned Cox not to go, Cox agreed after Weeks offered methamphet-amine, or speed, as payment for the ride. About 10:30 that night, Cox returned to the party, his shirt torn and bloodied and his right ear bleeding from a clearly visible bite that showed teeth marks, Szabo said. Cox called the Portage County Sheriffs Department to report that Weeks had assaulted him and tried to steal his car, Szabo testified, and Cox spent the next two hours filling out criminal complaints against Weeks at the sheriffs department, according to testimony. After Cox returned to the party bloodied, King, Rimmer and John By Dennis McEaneney Beacon Journal slqff writer Ravenna: Ray Weeks Jr.

had a bruise and a spot of dried blood on his forehead when he talked with a Portage County sheriffs deputy at 12:20 a.m. on July 28, 1996. But Weeks' face at 12:20 a.m. was nothing like the battered face Deputy Robert Longbottom saw in photos yesterday taken after Weeks' body was found early in the afternoon on July 28, Longbottom testified yesterday in Portage County Common Pleas Court. "No, he didn't look like that at all," Longbottom said.

In the photos, Weeks' face shows signs of a severe beating, and a deputy coroner testified that Weeks' body was covered with bruises and that his brain and internal organs showed extensive internal bleeding. Weeks, 45, had been in a fight about 10:30 p.m. July 27 with Mark Cox, 24, of Tallmadge. Cox, who has admitted hitting Weeks with a heavy flashlight in the fight, is charged with murder in Weeks' death. Longbottom testified that he was interviewing a man on South Fairfield Avenue in the McElrath neighborhood of Ravenna Township when Weeks walked up to hear what was being said.

Longbottom said he asked Weeks about the bruise on his forehead, but Weeks said, "It's nothing. It happened earlier." "After talking with him, it ap peared that everything was OK," Longbottom said. Longbottom said Weeks was coherent, did not appear to be badly hurt or need medical treatment, so Longbottom continued his questioning of the man wanted on the warrant and Weeks walked off. Longbottom said he didn't notice any unusual stains on Weeks' shirt, which was bloodstained in photos taken after his body was found. Longbottom said of the neighborhood where he talked with Weeks, "It's a high drug activity area." Although prosecutors argue that the blow from Cox's flashlight caused Weeks' death, defense attorneys Joseph Giulitto and Robert African-Americans are at a higher risk than whites for certain types of heart disease, according to the American Heart Association: The most recent studies (1993) found that coronary heart disease death rates were 4.7 percent higher for black males than for white males, and 34.3 percent higher for black females than for white females.

The same studies found that death rates for stroke were 94 percent higher for black males when compared to white males, and 76 percent higher for black females compared to white females. Compared to whites, young blacks (males and females) have a two-to-three-fold greater risk of having a stroke, and are 2V4 times more likely to die of a stroke. Blacks are more likely to have high blood pressure (hypertension) than whites are. Blacks develop high blood pressure at an earlier age than whites do and have more severe cases than whites. In 1993, death rates for congenital heart defects were 18 percent higher for black males than for white males, and 28 percent higher for black females than for white females.

SOURCE: American Heart Association TV sports goes new Phil Ferguson decides not to be part of newscast planned for cable channel BY R.D. Heldenfels Beacon Journal television writer Phil Ferguson, announced as part of an Akron newscast planned for September, said yesterday he will not be part of the program. Ferguson blamed the confusion on a misunderstanding between himself and Canal Communications the organization preparing a weekly newscast for showing on Time Warner Cable Channel 48. The former sports director for WAKC (Channel 23) said he had met about two months ago with the Rev. Raymond Burgess and other Canal representatives to discuss his involvement in the program.

At the time, he also posed for photographs of the organization's news team. But after the meeting, Ferguson decided not to be involved, in part because Canal's news operation is all volunteers and Ferguson has been cobbling together paying broadcast jobs since Channel 23 ended its local newscasts in February 1996. He currently does occasional reports for Cleveland radio station WCPN (90.3-FM) and will announce some high-school football broadcasts for WAPS (91.3-FM). He also was involved with In the Zone, a Hired driver accused of stealing van, rugs NATO Center, think tanks host conference in Greece Continued from Page El duces publications about the history and shape of the world's last major military alliance. It does all this with a shoestring budget and good connections.

"People in other countries don't realize it's a very modest group," said Kaplan, who continues to be active in the center. Retired from Kent State and now living in the Washington area, he recently was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Defense to write a biography of former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. Richard Grimmett, senior defense specialist with the Congressional Research Service and a former student of Kaplan's, said the seed for the center was planted long before it was founded. "It was a formalization of what Larry Kaplan had utilized in the classroom," said Grimmett, who participates in the center's programs and conferences.

"The seeds were in the mind of Larry Kaplan by the time I left Kent (in 1973)." Grimmett, who specializes in international security policy, said he doesn't know of anything comparable in the country. While there are centers for international studies at schools like Georgetown, Harvard and Yale, he explained, none is focused solely on the study of NATO. Despite the center's support from NATO, the EU and people like Grimmett, financial and staffing shortfalls have left the center in a tenuous state of existence. "We were devastated by retirements," said Papacosma. Papacosma, whose expertise is recent Balkan history, expanded the center's focus when he introduced Wargo Coventry district now on financial watch list Continued from Page El net school for performing arts and college-bound students.

Through the state's open-enrollment policy, students flocked to the new Coventry North Campus, their state education stipends enriching Coventry's coffers. Many students came from the neighboring Akron schools until Akron plugged the hole in the dike and stopped other students from transferring. Meanwhile, some residents complained that the program wreaked havoc in other parts of the district. While Coventry beefed up the North Campus, students in other schools lacked basics, like books and toilet paper, according to some reports. By this summer, the district was on the state board of education's watch list which means it must file a five-year financial recovery plan with the state on how it plans to get out of debt.

Now, in addition to climbing out of that hole, Coventry will pay War-go, over the next couple of months, $9,255 in unused vacation and retroactive pay increases of 3 percent that other administrators were given for the last two years, plus Funeral to be today for Beacon Journal staff report NORTHFIELD: Funeral services for Jason W. Rees, a St. Barnabas Catholic School eighth-grader who died Monday of complications from a brain hemorrhage, will be at 10 a.m. today at St. Barnabas Catholic Church in Northfield.

Jason was 13. He was an all-around athlete, active in soccer, basketball, swimming and track. He played summer baseball in the Nordonia Hills Athletic Association league. the study of the European Union in 1991 a move Kaplan praises. In October, the center, along with the European Community Studies Association and Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, one of Greece's two foreign policy think tanks, will sponsor a conference in Thessaloniki, Greece, about the (relationship between NATO and the EU.

International scholars and policy makers from the U.S. Department of Defense, London School of Economics, Russian Academy of Sciences and the EU Commission itself will speak at the gathering. "The conferences gave us a real name around the NATO world," said Kaplan, who will open the Greek conference. On Sept. 25, Klaus Hansen, former president of the European Parliament, will speak at Kent State, sponsored by the Lemnitzer Center.

"This center has been an avenue of real strength for the university," said KSU communications director Paula Slimak. "We would like to retain that strong presence." While the praise is welcome, Kaplan was more blunt about what the center needs. "It needs a staff," he said. Papacosma and his associate director, Mark Rubin, whose primary job is directing Kent's Center for International and Comparative Programs, are the only two staffers at the Lemnitzer Center. Some faculty still help, but not as many as before the retirements, Papacosma said.

"The Lemnitzer Center would be in a better position for outside funding if more people with expertise were involved with it," he said. Both Kaplan and Papacosma believe the center could become more of an academic force at Kent State by capitalizing on its international reputation to attract students who want to study NATO and the EU. Then it could move out of the Bowman catacombs. Eventually, Kaplan said, "I'd like to see it turn into a research and teaching center." $20,246 in severance pay. Then in January and in January 1999, he'll get a total of $84,362 in salary and benefits.

That will include $2,000 in longevity pay, $3,360 for a supplemental contract for serving as the district's asbestos removal coordinator and $5,500 for an annuity. Some in the education community wonder whether the board was wise to buy out part of Wargo's contract, which was to have expired in July 2001. Conrad Ott, a former Akron superintendent now on the Akron school board, said Wargo's payout "wasn't a king's ransom in today's market, given the amount that basketball and baseball players get." But he said that he knows and respects Wargo and that Wargo was doing a good job. "He's sufficiently competent to have completed his contract," Ott said. "I think he should have been held to his contract.

He would have made no more mistakes than his successor." Pat Corbett, former head of Revere schools and new superintendent in Cuyahoga Falls, said he didn't know of any other area superintendent who had closed a similar deal. "I've never seen it before," Corbett said. "These are unusual times." The Coventry school board will tentatively meet on Aug. 18 to discuss replacing Wargoand will hold its regularly scheduled meeting at 7 p.m. Aug.

19 at the North Campus. St. Barnabas 8th-grader He was a member of Boy Scout Troop 575 and was a carrier for a weekly newspaper. Jason was adept at computers and hoped to be a scientist. He- is survived by his parents, William and Vicki Ann; a sister, Erin and grandparents, Emelie Rees and Richard Madej.

Entombment at All Saints Mausoleum will follow the service. St John funeral home of Bedford is handling arrangements. director direction Phil Ferguson reports sports for Cleveland radio station WCPN (90.3-FM) and broadcasts for WAPS (91.3-FM). short-lived local sports series. "I think the newscast is a great idea, but with my situation, it would be difficult to be part of it," he said.

Although he had not told anyone directly that he was dropping out, Ferguson said he had not attended any more meetings with Canal nor had any contact with the organization in the last couple of months. "I thought maybe the show wasn't going to get going," he said. He was accordingly surprised to find himself mentioned as sports director for Canal in a story in Thursday's Beacon Journal. "I should have called them back the next day" after his meeting, Ferguson said. "I called Reverend Burgess this morning to clear things up," Ferguson said.

"I said I'd be glad to help out as a consultant, to find someone else and to get some people on the show. I wish them all the best." Canal representatives could not be reached for comment yesterday. Khajehzadeh told police that when he and Rogers reached Milwaukee on July 31, they argued. Rogers attacked him and took his leaving him stranded, police said. Rogers drove the van to Chicago, where he sold three rugs and pawned two more to get money for gas and food, detectives alleged.

Rogers, who has relatives in Summit County, drove to Akron and tried to sell the remaining rugs to a local rug merchant, according to Bralek and Humphrey. The merchant became suspicious and called the police, who staked out the firm's parking lot Thursday afternoon. Bralek and Humphrey said they arrested Rogers when he showed up in Khajehzadeh's van. Dozens of rugs in the van were valued at about $40,000, according to police. Khajehzadeh is coming to Akron today to pick up his van and rugs, detectives said.

Milwaukee police have issued a robbery warrant for Rogers. Wooster shooting Jones to the hospital. They told notice their names wrpr P-assanrira Williams and Paul Miller. Williams said she lives in the 1800 block of Gasche Street in Wooster, but police learned yesterday she does not live there. Miller gave his address as Cleveland Heights.

Williams told officers in the emergency room that Jones had been shot by someone in a car at SuperAmerica on East Liberty Street. Williams and Miller supposedly were outside the car, and when they got in to leave, Jones said he had been shot, Edwards said. When police tried to question Williams and Miller further, they fled from the hospital. Police were unable to find them yesterday. Workers at SuperAmerica said they did not remember the three people nor had they heard gunshots eariy yesterday.

The sisters were careful not to be food cops. There was plenty of roast beef, potato chips and other popular, high-cholesterol standbys. As a highlight of the three-day event, the oldest family members will share their secrets to a long, healthy life. "We are blessed that everyone is here," Evans Viola Johnson, 69, who came to the reunion from College Park, said she has had some heart and blood vessel problems. But she still swims and does water aerobics.

"I want to keep my weight down," Johnson said. Guy McCoy, 32, of San Francisco, said he already knows that he has a higher risk of heart attacks and stroke because of his race, so he works out in a gym and jogs a couple of times a week. "I try to stay away from eating too much fat but occasionally have a burger," he said. The reunion concludes tomorrow with a church service memorializing deceased relatives, some of whom died of heart attacks and strokes. Next year, Evans and Bell said, they plan to check up on their relatives to see whether this year's efforts changed any lifestyles.

Gordon, a cardiologist, said the Bell family reunion "shows the love these two ladies have for their families." "It's a pro-active sort of reunion and I applaud them," he said. ing. When he raised his weapon, it seemed like he was moving real slow, although everything actually went pretty quickly." Freeman mostly relied on his police training. He threw in a little judo, which he learned in high school from a former Stark County sheriff. "I owe a lot to all my instructors," Freeman said.

"But especially, I thank my dad for giving me the emotional strength." He rushed to tell his father the news of his brave act "I knew it would be something he'd be proud of," he said. "(My father's) had enough bad things happen. It's nice to have something good happen." Robert Freeman was relieved to hear that his son only bruised his knees in the incident. "Chris knew what he had to do," the elder Freeman said. "I'm sure glad.

He's a man of honor and courage. He's 100 percent loyal to those he serves. And he's not afraid of anything." Christopher Freeman has been an officer with the Defense Protective Service for 13 years. He joined the emergency services team to help with hostage situations. In high school he had dreamed of joining the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"But I didn't pursue it that heavily," he said. "I'm happy where I am, so I haven't tried hard to get anywhere else." And he doesn't plan to change his policing style much after what has happened. "I'll pretty much work the same way," Freeman said. "But now, I think my awareness is going to be heightened a little." Heart Sisters offer relatives some low-fat food choices Continued from Page El the American Heart Association, said the new push toward reaching people at risk began six months ago. The heart association is working to enroll more minority members and to give healthy lifestyle talks to inner-city children.

The task force has also established Search Your Heart, an outreach program that furnishes medical equipment and educational material to churches. Church volunteers, including Bell and Evans, have reached more than 3,000 blacks locally in that program with blood pressure checks, stress tests, nutrition tips and exercise regimens. Bell and Evans took a similar approach with family members, laying out a spread of stir-fried veggies, fresh fruit and low-fat hot dogs. Their message? "Not just that it's low-fat, but you can make healthy alternatives and still have a good time," Evans said. Hero Officer thanks father for 'emotional strength' Continued from Page El the Pentagon's emergency services team in 1989.

He feared for his son's safety. "I've been concerned about him being on that team," the elder Freeman said from his Canton home. "Being on that team is not an easy go." In the end, there was no need to worry about Christopher Freeman. He protected himself and most likely saved some other lives. When approached Tuesday morning by a gunman who demanded to see the "admiral in charge," Freeman did what he was trained to do: He grabbed the man's hand, forced him to the floor and twisted the pistol away.

The man accused of trying to get past Freeman at the entrance of the Pentagon is Raymond Steve Maestas, 36, of West Covina, Calif. He was being held in the Alexandria City Jail yesterday pending a detention hearing. Freeman wouldn't say much about the accused gun toter except that he was "kind of big" about 60 pounds heavier and 4 inches taller than Freeman, who weighs 180 pounds and stands 5 feet 7 inches tall. "My adrenaline was going, so he didn't feel all that strong," Freeman said. "It was weird and seemed kind of surreal when it was happen- By Robert Hoiles Harold Rogers took a magic carpet ride this week to the Summit County Jail.

It was a trip that took Rogers, 44, from his hometown of Arlington, to Chicago and Milwaukee where he allegedly stole a van filled with dozens of oriental rugs he had been hired to sell and on to Akron, where he was arrested Thursday. Akron Detectives Paul Bralek and Rick Humphrey charged Rogers with two counts of receiving stolen property when they arrested him trying to sell rugs to an Akron carpet merchant. The rugs' owner, Mohammad E. Khajehzadeh, 33, of Arlington, told detectives that he hired Rogers in Arlington to help him drive his van on a sales trip to Chicago and Milwaukee. The police said Khajehzadeh told them that he hired Rogers off the street, in an area called "Four Mile Run," where people looking for temporary jobs congregate.

Police investigate BY SALLIE COOK Special to the Beacon Journal WoosTElt Police are investigating a shooting, but are unsure of the victim's name or where the shooting occurred. The victim, who gave officers the name Anthony Jones, is recuperating in Wooster Community Hospital from a gunshot wound in the lower right side of his stomach. Wooster Capt. Don Edwards yesterday said Jones told officers that he lived in Miami, but detectives are uncertain whether a Thomas Street address is valid. Jones said he is 34.

"We're not sure he is being honest with us," Edwards said. Police became suspicious of Jones' story when he told them he had been shot while at a pay phone booth on Spink Street in Wooster. Edwards said there is no phone booth on Spink Street. I A woman and a man brought.