The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 29

LOCAL NEWS WEATHER EDITORIALS ECTION TUESDAY Cos Angeles (Tunes SEPTEMBER 14, 1999 CC Ex-LAPD Officer Sentenced in Bank of America Robbery 'Babydol' Alleges Affair With Officer METRO I', Mi Crime: Man gets 14 years, 3 months in holdup carried out with aid of his girlfriend, a bank employee. He has refused to help locate $722,000 in missing money. the prostitution business. What officials did not mention, however, was that the book proposal written by Gibson alleges that she had an affair with a Beverly Hills police detective who was investigating her escort business. In the manuscript a key section of which Los Angeles police say they have not seen Gibson contends that the relationship played a crucial role in shielding her from prosecution during earlier investigations, sources said.

Describing the affair, which Please see BOOK, B.i Crime: Police look into accused madam's claim a detective helped shield her from prosecution. By CHUCK PHILIPS TIMES STAFF WRITER When authorities announced the arrest three months ago of Jody "Babydol" Gibson as one of Hollywood's leading madams, officials said they had seized a log book of her clients as well as a manuscript that details her life in America branch. David A. Mack, a national collegiate track star and decorated LAPD veteran, was convicted of staging the armed robbery in 1997 with the help of his paramour, an assistant manager at the bank branch near USC. Errolyn Romero, his girlfriend, ordered extra cash on the day of the robbery and buzzed Mack through two security doors leading to the bank vault.

She pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing. Two male accomplices got away. Before handing down the sentence Monday, U.S. District Judge Robert M. Takasugi asked the 38-year-old Mack if he cared to say where the stolen money could be located.

On the advice of his lawyer, Donald Re, Mack declined. He also passed up an invitation to speak on his own behalf. Assistant U.S. Atty. Stephen G.

Wolfe told the court that Mack has "not repudiated his behavior or expressed remorse" for his actions. By refusing to disclose where the stolen money is hidden, he said, Mack is "committing a continuing felony" under state criminal law. While not commenting on Mack's self-imposed silence, Takasugi held him responsible for the stolen money and ordered him to Please see BANK, B2 By DAVID ROSENZWEIG, TIMES STAFF WRITER Associated Press Still refusing to disclose what happened to the loot, a former Los Angeles police officer was sentenced to 14 years and three months in federal prison Monday for robbing $722,000 from a Bank of Jody "Babydol" Gibson Plan for Watts Movie Theater Taking Shape Community: Remodeling a school's auditorium could give the area something it hasn't had since 1965. tmmimmmmmmmmmKmmmimmmmmtmm ill i illtlJjiyaj)aa T- i i mm-. -J.

I- A. i 1 3. District Intervenes in Dispute Education: Official is sent to help principal after teachers complained about conditions. By LOUIS SAHAGUN TIMES STAFF WRITER Moving to avoid a confrontation with teachers at Fremont High School, Los Angeles Unified officials Monday assigned a mentor to work with beleaguered Principal Guadalupe Simpson. The action came three days after about 3,000 students walked off the South Los Angeles campus to call attention to the number of substitute teachers and searches by school police, among other complaints.

Fearing that Simpson had lost control of the campus, United Teachers-Los Angeles demanded that Supt. Ruben Zacarias replace her by today or it would recommend that its members report to district headquarters and request transfers to a safer school. The district responded by ordering Grant Middle School's acting principal, Ron Oswald, to immediately begin working side by side with the administrator to provide counseling and guidance, said Brad Sales, spokesman for Zacarias. "She needs some additional assistance right now," Sales said. "He will help de-escalate tensions and resolve issues." Simpson could not be reached for comment, but Bev Cook, vice president of the teachers union, supported the district's action.

"We just don't think it's a safe environment at Fremont right now," Cook said. "It's like a war zone." Simpson, who transferred to Fremont in 1998, has been at odds with the union for years. In 1986, as principal at Nimitz Middle School in Huntington Park, she weathered a confrontation with teachers who complained that her authoritarian style and encouragement of nontraditional teaching methods were divisive. Her problems worsened last spring, when a Fremont teacher received a death threat and, the union alleges, Simpson and her staff bungled the response to it. Teachers there have accused her of tyrannical behavior and losing control of the school.

They sav that she has failed to Please see SCHOOL, B3 By HUGO MARTIN TIMES STAFF WRITER If it were a movie script, the story of Watts after the 1965 riots would be a pretty grim tale. Once the violence ended and the fires, were doused, dozens of businesses closed, shop, including the only movie theatet in the community. For nearly 35 years, Watts residents have had to travel up to seven miles to see movies in Hawthorne, South Gate or at theaters near USC. But for moviegoers at least, there may be a happy ending in Watts. nonprofit group, with major financial backing from the city of Los Angeles and the support of school officials, is expected to submit construction plans this month to convert a school auditorium in Watts into a one-screen movie theater with 650 seats and a modern sound system.

Approval by state architects would allow the group to launch a $2-million renovation at the Markham Middle School auditorium, in hopes of offering Watts residents feature films at discount prices by June 2000. It won't be a traditional movie theater: The Wattstar Theatre, as it will be called, can show movies only on weekends and after classes, and it will show few first-run Hollywood films because of the high cost of renting them. i Still, Watts residents say that the new theater will be welcomed and may break a long-held stereotype that movie theaters cannot succeed in Watts, i 'There is a stigma that we are bad and we don't want to have anything in Watts," Please see WATTS, B3 Photos by CAROLYN COLE Los Angeles Times Trey Walper, 6, son of Stephanie Walper, who lost her job at the Pasadena YMCA, waits for her in the gym at the Y. State Investigates Pasadena YMCA Probe: The center ran up more than 1 million in debt, and the attorney general's office begins probe of its finances. call SJ by the former chief financial officer of the Los Angeles Music Center who was terminated in the early 1990s for his part in overstating fund-raising for the downtown complex.

Black was named acting director in January 1996 and retired in June. Reached at his home Monday, Black said he's not to blame for the shuttering of the venerable YMCA branch. And he said he left it "a viable organization." But a month ago, the attorney general's charities division seized its computer records, and 25 of the 26 local YMCA board members resigned. It is unclear who alerted the state to the financial problems of the nonprofit. Please see YMCA, B2 By RICHARD WINTON SPECIAL TO THE TIMES The Pasadena Family YMCA has shut its doors amid mounting debts and a state attorney general's investigation into its finances, leaving the city without a for the first time in 1 13 years.

Dozens of employees lost their jobs as a new management team changed the locks Friday on the main facility, located on Pasadena's eastside, and began exploring ways to pay off more than $1 million in debts. The closure comes just three months after the departure of the Pasadena Y's chief executive officer, James B. Black i Only in L.A B3 i Lottery B3 i Weather B5 i Editorials B6 i Commentary B7 An instructor's note is posted on d.oor. The Charro Spirit Survives and Suits Us Well This week, as we celebrate Mexican Independence Day and kick off another Hispanic Heritage Month, hundreds of men and women, boys and girls, throughout I aoutnern California will 1 suit up as charros and charros, an outfit whose origins are said to trace to 16th century Salamanca, the lively Spanish city where Cortes, the A6USTIN GURZA An early photograph in our family album shows three children in charro outfits. My older brother and sister and the first three siblings born in Mexico and brought to the United States, are facing the camera a little uncomfortably, unaware we were about to be captured in a meaningful immigrant moment.

My parents were red-blooded Mexicans from the hot northern regions of cattle and cotton, home to wealthy hacendados and to guerrilla leader Pancho Villa. Surely, they knew why they would have us wear Mexico's ornate national costume in the cold, snowy towaof Tacoma, where we lived until I was 6. We must have made quite a sight, this tiny trio of traditionalists from Torreon, among the Ozzie-and-Harriet families we suddenly called neighbors. By dressing us as charros, even just for a Sunday snapshot, our parents were imprinting Mexico on our minds. They understood that their children, eventually eight in all, would become Americanized, a source of both satisfaction and sadness for transplanted people as rooted in their culture as they were.

But they also knew the power of the centuries-old charro costume, symbol of Mexican pride and nationalism. They may as well have draped us in the Mexican flag. 100 years later. The charro has been likened to the American cowboy, a facile comparison that ignores deep historical differences. Yes, they were both frontier horsemen whose roping and riding skills are now displayed mostly in rodeos and charreadas.

But while the cowboy developed as a rugged individualist in the Wild West, the charro was grounded in a strict colonial system, the hacienda, with its hint of chivalry and its caste distinctions. The Spaniards, who brought the first horses to Mexico, at first prohibited Indians and criollos from owning them, on penalty of death. In 1619, the Viceroy Luis de Tovar Godinez signed the first permit allowing 20 Indians to "freely mount horses" on the Hacienda de San Javier in the state of Hidalgo, marking the birth of the charro. Putting horses in the hands of his subjects was the viceroy's big mistake. Two hundred years later, charros of mixed blood rode alongside Indians as the vanguard for independence led by Miguel Hidalgo Costilla, the revolutionary priest who sounded church bells as a battle cry for freedom on Sept.

15, 1810. On the haciendas, the charro developed a distinctly Mexican character, just as he developed a unique riding saddle adapted to his circumstances. "Charros are noble, loyal and brave to the point of rashness, willing to risk their lives," writes Guadalupe Silva Corcuera on Mexico Desconocido Virtual, a cultural Web magazine. "Hospitable and sentimental, they sing and dance with great spirit and are drawn to vigorous, dangerous exercise which rely on skill, strength and cool-headedness." After the revolution, the haciendas were abolished as a result of agrarian reforms. The charro lifestyle disappeared from the countryside and became instead a national sport, complete with associations and national competitions.

Yet, the charro spirit survives, even among young people like Sandy Garcia, a mariachi singer born and raised in Santa Ana. She speaks English and could pass for just one more Mexican American kid at Santa Ana College. Until she puts on her elegant charro costume with the transforming powers my parents understood so well. "When I have that on, trust me, I wear it with so much pride, always my head held up high, bien firme," Sandy says. "I don't feel Mexican American anymore.

kind of strange, not knowing what it is to live in Mexico, but feeling like a true Mexican." Agustin Gurza's column appears Tuesday and Saturday. Readers can reach Gurza at (714) 966-7712 or online at agustttt.gunalatlmes.com. conqueror of Mexico, spent part of his youth. Today, Mexican charros wear long tight pants decorated with gold or silver down the sides, a short embroidered coat, big silk bow tie and broad-rimmed hat. The women wear matching apparel with a long, ankle-length skirt, also embroidered.

Most people expect to see such costumes during Mexican holidays, and might assume they're meant for folkloric dancing or as quaint mariachi get-up. But the charro really represents a historic persona in Mexico, a national figure who emerged on the old Spanish haciendas and whose skill on horseback made him an invaluable weapon during the war for independence in 1810 and the Mexican Revolution.