Albuquerque Journal from Albuquerque, New Mexico • Page 37

NEW MEXICO Saturday, April 21, 1990 Albuquerque Journal Page 3, Section Barbara's Wife Jailed Pending Sentence By Bill Feather THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Barbara was convicted in July 1988 of racketeering, five counts of fraud over five counts of security, fraud and one count of criminal solicitation. The indictment returned by a Dona Ana County grand jury alleged Barbara, Inmon and others used bogus assay reports at Barbara's Golden Gulch Mine in Sierra County to sell stock at inflated prices. The Santa Fe County jury that tried Barbara found him guilty of taking over the Picacho Hills Country Club in Las Cruces by getting its owners to trade the club for stock in the bogus mine. Inmon was charged with 31 counts of fraud, racketeering and criminal solicitation. She was acquitted of four charges at the July 1988 trial and faced retrial on 27 remaining counts on which the jury was unable to reach a verdict.

Barbara failed to appear for sentencing in September 1988. Encinias sentenced him in absentia to 19'2 years in prison, issued a fugitive warrant and ordered forfeiture of his $100,000 appeal bond. Documents have been presented to the court purporting to prove that Barbara died of cancer Jan. 30 in Tampa, Fla. Inman failed to appear as ordered in October for setting of the retrial and was sought as a fugitive.

Under an agreement between the state and the defense, Inmon pleaded guilty Friday to a charge of willful failure to appear. Before accepting the plea Encinias advised her of her rights to be tried by a jury, to confront her accusers and to present witnesses on her behalf. "This is a serious charge," Encinias told her. "It could mean up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine." Inmon broke into tears when Encinias asked, "What is it you are getting out of this?" Pearlman told the court that under terms of the agreement, if Inmon pleaded guilty to the failure-to-appear charge and appeared for sentencing, pending charges in Dona Ana County and Santa Fe County would be dismissed. There was no agreement on the sentence, he said.

"We wish to proceed to immediate sentencing," Knanishu said after Inmon pleaded guilty. "She understands this is something she must do as you have admonished her." Pearlman told the' court the state had no objection to beginning the sentencing proceeding. But he said the state needs more time to review the information provided by Inmon and to investigate her assertions that Barbara is dead. Encinias said he has received materials! regarding Barbara's purported death, including a death certificate and photo-; graphs. Pearlman said the information includes a death certificate signed by a doctor who wasn't present at the time of death and a report that the body was cremated.

SANTA FE Candace Inmon, wife of convicted stock swindler Maurice "Ed" Barbara, pleaded guilty Friday to a charge of willful failure to appear and was ordered jailed until sentence is imposed. Inmon, who had been a fugitive since October 1988, entered the plea before District Judge Art Encinias. Her attorney, Martin Knanishu of Placi-tas, asked that sentence be imposed immediately. But Encinias granted a request from Assistant Attorney General Dan Pearlman that sentencing be postponed for 30 days to give the state an opportunity to investigate assertions that Barbara is dead. urder Trial a For angas I oved to Taos A.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 1 A ti if S4l I- 4' and a motion for a new preliminary hearing. The judge said all statements made by Braun to police following his arrest would be admissible at the trial. Harris on Thursday rejected 35 other defense motions and approved four others. Defense attorney Gary Mitchell of Ruidoso had submitted 42 defense motions. Harris rejected challenges to the constitutionality of the death penalty as well as motions seeking an increase in the number of peremptory challenges for removal of potential jurors and seeking two separate juries to decide the guilt-innocence phase and penalty phase, if any.

Harris also rejected, along with several other motions, a request that the questioning of jurors about the death penalty be delayed until after the guilt-innocence' phase ended. Harris did approve Mitchell's motion to provide Braun with psychiatric evaluation before trial and a related motion that would provide medication if deemed necessary. He also agreed Thursday to a defense motion to restrict questioning of jurors to small groups of two to five panelists on the death penalty and on any prior knowledge of out-of-state cases involving Braun. LAS VEGAS, N.M. A state district judge Friday granted a defense motion for a change of venue in the trial next month of a Kansas man accused of fatally shooting a convenience store clerk last year.

District Judge Jay Harris moved the trial of Gregg Francis Braun to Taos. Braun, 28, of Garden City, admitted shooting the store clerk, Geraldine Valdez, last July 23 in Springer, N.M. Braun is scheduled to go on trial May 7. Braun is being held at the Colfax County Detention Center. He also is charged with four other counts of murder in the July 19 shooting deaths of two convenience store clerks in Garden City, in the July 20 killing of a photo processing shop owner in Pampa, Texas, and in the July 21 slaying of a woman in an Ardmore, flower shop.

Harris granted the change of venue on the basis of pretrial publicity and because Harris said it would be difficult to come up with a sufficient number of potential jurors in Colfax and Union counties. Harris denied a defense motion to suppress Braun's confession during a preliminary hearing last August 'j VS'j ff: Tlrith; ViHs Viz -V A ti' lN 4v Roundup Pits Snake Trappers, Activists By Bill Diven OF THE JOURNAL'S LAS CRUCES BUREAU LAMOGORDO As Delbert Slater talked, the rattlesnake coiled around his neck began to move. Soon the head of the pit viper emerged from behind Slater's long beard. Its dark tongue darted about sensing the surroundings. "He won't bite me because I'm too big to eat," Slater said.

Slater, a retired heavy-equipment operator, drove from Bakersfield, for the third annual Alamogordo Rattlesnake Roundup. Zona, his pet Arizona western diamondback, rode in its terrarium behind the front seat. Unlike most rattlers, Zona rarely rattles and isn't poisonous. In a 15-minute operation, the snake's poison ducts were cut. The roundup began Friday and continues through Sunday at the Otero County Fairgrounds.

Cash prizes are awarded to snake hunters who bring in the heaviest, longest and most total pounds of rattlesnakes, said Tom Moore, one of the roundup organizers. All the snakes are milked for their venom, and the smaller ones returned to the wild, he said. The rest 1,200 pounds last year are sold for their meat, skins and rattles, he said. In addition to a cobra-handling demonstration, the roundup includes a children's petting pit of non-poisonous snakes. Last year, the event drew about 3,000 people, including a small group of animal-rights protesters who plan to picket the roundup again today.

"Alamogordo and Otero County are celebrating Earth Day with what we consider to be earth rape," said Bob Young, director of the Sangre de Cristo Animal Protection Inc. chapter in Las Cruces. "Taking these rattlers out of their habitat is prone to increase the population of rodents who not only carry plague-infested fleas but can be Pollution Plagues Indians, Lawyer Says By Susan Landon JOURNAL STAFF WRITER AARON WILSON JOURNAL neck Friday during the first day of the annual Alamogordo Rattlesnake Roundup. Delbert Slater of Bakersfield, lets his pet diamondback rattlesnake curl around his Slater also has been bitten, by a snake with an extra poison duct overlooked during the operation. He sper.t nearly two days in a hospital, including 17 hours in an intensive-care unit.

"To me it wasn't that bad, but they had to take precautions," he said. Pet rattlesnakes are handy for encouraging boring company to leave, Slater added. rattles made conversation difficult. "At first I was kind of scared, but now I'm used to it," Levi said. "I still kind of jump when they strike at me, but it doesn't bother me.

Last year, Bill Hornback, another roundup organizer, was bitten by a small snake hidden under a bigger one he picked up. He was hospitalized briefly. a problem for farmers." Moore said the roundup is held on the same weekend every year, and the timing with Earth Day was accidental. On Friday, a walled arena held about 65 snakes, all coiled and nervous. When snake hunters like Moore's 12-year-old son Levi prodded one with a hooked, metal rod, scores of buzzing Digest COMPILED FROM JOURNAL STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS and dumped hazardous materials in remote areas.

The committee learned that reservations need hundreds of millions of dollars to bring landfills, dumps and other sanitation facilities up to federal standard. But Heeley said only about $25 million of the EPA's total $42 billion budget over the past 15 years has gone to Indian lands. "Tribes are in competition with states for money from the EPA," he said. Several committee members have introduced a bill that would provide $5 million annually for the next six years to help tribes improve the quality of the environment on their reservations. The proposed "Indian Environmental Regulatory Enhancement Act of 1990" would award grants to tribes for 75 percent of the cost of developing programs to protect the land.

Tribes would pay the other 25 percent. Other speakers at the forum said tribes' traditional values provide guidance in how to treat the Earth. Roger Russell, a Winnebago who serves as spiritual leader for the Southwest Indian Students Coalition, said, "Walk gently on Mother Earth. Make each step like a prayer." Author Vine Deloria who wrote "Custer Died for Your Sins," said science takes too long to prove the existence of environmental problems. He noted that President Bush would like more evidence that global warming is really occurring.

But in the traditional Indian way of looking at the world, it's obvious something is wrong, he said. Indians believe "alarming changes" in nature mean there is "something bad in human society." Federal laws have failed to adequately protect Indian lands from pollution, an attorney for the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs said Friday. "Indian lands are lost in the shuffle," staff attorney Steve Heeley told Indian students and others attending the Southwest Indian Student Coalition's environmental forum at the University of New Mexico. Speakers and audience members attending the conference talked about what can be done to bring nature "back into balance" to repair the damage that has been inflicted on the Earth by humans.

The audience was told the U.S. government should have a big role to play in healing the land, but so far hasn't met its responsibility. Heeley said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency provides technical assistance to states and then lets the states run their own environmental programs. But states don't have jurisdiction over Indian land, and the EPA doesn't have adequate resources to respond to all environmental problems on reservations, he said.

Meanwhile, the EPA, Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health Service have conflicting ideas over which agency should help pay for pollution cleanups on Indian lands, he said. Heeley, a Pottawatomie tribal member, said the Senate select committee found extensive environmental problems on tribal lands during hearings last year. For example, senators were told of cases where trucks from outside the reservation came on Indian land achievement among minority college students and develop draft policy recommendations that will be sent to state and institutional leaders this summer for their reaction. Indian Puppeteer To Perform Indian puppeteer and magician Buddy Big Mountain will perform today at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, 2401 12th St. NW.

The shows are scheduled for 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Big Mountain, a resident of Wichita, will tell stories with the aid of his puppets Iron Horse, Awesome Fox and Wendell Snod-grass III. He also uses marionettes, such as a lion that performs to the tune, "Stray Cat Strut." In his show, Big Mountain said, he tries to discourage voune DeoDle from taking they contact. The Census Bureau and the state Department of Labor have received reports that callers have been asking residents for details about the banks they use, checking and savings account numbers and balances.

The callers identify themselves as quality control managers for the Census Bureau, police said. Census Bureau officials said the problem appears to be limited to the Clovis area and doesn't seem to be widespread. "This type of telephone fraud involving the census is kind of a rare thing," said Don Mitchell, a Census Bureau official in the Denver office. "Problems that are happening in other states mostly involve people going door to door pretending to be census workers." Governor To Head Task Force SANTA FE Gov. Garrey Carruthers will head a meeting Wednesday of the National Task Force for Minority Achievement in Higher Education.

"Minority achievement in higher education is critical to New Mexico and to the United States," the governor said. New Mexico has promoted such achievement by funding a minority doctoral assistance program designed to produce minority role models in colleges. The task force, which will meet at the El Dorado Hotel in Santa Fe, is part of the Education Commission of the States. Carruthers is the 1990 chairman of the commission. The group is to work on ways to increase racial diversity on college campuses, raise academic Teachers Back King, Minzner The New Mexico Federation of Teachers has endorsed Bruce King for governor and state Rep.

Dick Minzner of Albuquerque for attorney general in the June 5 Democratic primary. King also received the endorsement of the governors of the Eight Northern Indian Pueblos Council, which passed a resolution this week stating a desire to "establish a cooperative relationship with the executive branch of state government." John Mitchell, president of the teachers organization, said his group interviewed "some very good" candidates. However, he said in a news release, "we believe that Bruce King and Dick Minzner are the best education candidates in the Democratic primary." There was no endorsement in the four-man race for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. Only one Republican is running for attorney general. Mitchell cited King's "strong support" of public education during previous terms as governor and state representative.

Minzner is the best candidate for attorney general because of his 10-year legislative record in support of education, and his training and experience, Mitchell stated. False Census Workers Reported CLOVIS Clovis police are investigating reports that individuals posing as Census Bureau employees are trying to obtain information about the financial records of the people i drugs or abusing alcohol. He Big Mountain THE RECORD encourages them to finish school and to have self-esteem. The 34-year-old puppeteer said he is part Comanche, Apache and Mohawk. Big Mountain said he became interested in ventriloquism when his family was performing Indian dances at a theme park in Kentucky.

He said he liked to imitate a ventriloquist who was also appearing at the park. The American Indian Week celebration at the center continues through Sunday. Today and Sunday at 9 a.m., a wholesale arts and crafts show will be held at the center. SANTA FE In a story in Tuesday's Journal, The Associated Press erroneously identified a student at Albuquerque Academy who was selected to be honored at a "Recognition of Excellence" program sponsored by the state Board of Education and the Governor's Business Advisory Council. I The student to be honored is Peter Holderness, an eighth-grader at the academy.

Robert Bovinette, identified in the story as a student, is actually the headmaster at Albuquerque Academy. The error was contained in information provided by the state Department of Education. i.