Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • Page 25

INSIDE SECTION 2 Metropolitan briefing 3 Metro State 7 Religion 8 Almanac 10 Obituaries 9, 10, 11 Weather 12 fl News from CHICAGO and the North and near West Subuibs inii i 4 Friday, April 16, 1999 Eric Zorn gambling, hopes Ryan helps buoy Sen. James Philip urges unified regulation of trucks. Page 7. a specific casino site, Ryan acknowledged no major gambling package could move forward in the General Assembly without the crucial support of legislators who want betting boats In the county. "I don't care whether Cook County's in the bill or out," Ryan said.

"That doesn't bother me one way or the other. "All I know is that I'm told By Ray Long and Rick Pearson Tribune Staff Writers SPRINGFIELD Gov. George Ryan provided momentum Thursday to supporters of legalized riverboat gambling in Cook County and boosted the potential for a spring-session gambling deal While not implicitly endorsing previous expansion efforts. Lawmakers from existing riverboat cities want dockside gaming but not necessarily the competition from Cook County. Horse-racing interests worry that casino gaming in the county will further drain away bettors.

And then there are plenty of legislators who will never budge from their outright opposition that the legislators from Cook County, if they're going to vote for a package, want to at least include Cook County." Still, the fate of any riverboat package is tied to several underlying issues that have doomed Cruz holds serve in juvenile attack on lies and whys to any expansion of gambling, either because of a philosophical belief or out of fear of retribution at the polls. Even within Cook County, the only Illinois county prohibited by law from having riverboat gambling, support for a single boat is not universal Many city legislators want several boats in Chicago, and other suburban See Gambling, Page 4 City plans new campus to energize Englewood Kennedy-King to be rebuilt and moved Eric Ersery, a student-athlete at Leo High School, stopped by to talk to Shamika Ingram, a young woman determined to turn her life around. Gunfire shattered the night and ended both of their lives. Veteran defense attorney Terence Gillespie no doubt learned a few confrontation strategies in law school, but for Thursday's courtroom clash with prosecution witness Rolando Cruz he dusted ofT a strategy most of us learned in preschool If you ask someone "why?" persistently enough, preferably on the same subject, you're bound to get a rise out of him sooner or later. Why did you lie to police who were trying to solve the murder of a little girl? Why did you lie to the grand jury? Why did you lie to them again? Why did you surround all your lies with details? Gillespie, who represents one of the a.att 'Questions and answers, 7 seven current and former law enforcement officials now on trial in DuPage County for allegedly 2 a-.

Judge William Kelly By Gary Washburn Tribune Staff Writer A new Kennedy-King College will be built to replace the current facility as part of a plan to make the college the cornerstone of a major redevelopment in the heart of the Englewood neighborhood, sources said Thursday. Mayor Richard Daley and City Colleges of Chicago officials have jettisoned the option of rehabbing the present Kennedy-King, 6800 S. Wentworth as too expensive. Instead, they have decided to construct a brand new facility at 63rd and Halsted Streets, designed to be the anchor for other developments nearby. Daley hinted at the plans in remarks to reporters after a Chicago Police Department graduation ceremony Thursday at Navy Pier.

He said bringing the current Kennedy-King up to good repair would "cost a lot of money. It has quite a bit of construction difficulties." A new facility would "help us tremendously in the commercial revitalization of the Englewood community and it needs it," Daley said. "It would be a great shot in the arm. The public institution stimulates a lot of private developments." "He jumped the gun," said one official familiar with the plan who expects a formal announcement by the mayor in the near future. That will come after the city's Planning Department works out details of the projects planned around the rebuilt college.

"The key here Is to make a strong connection with the com- See Campus, Page 2 A I A I It "0" M7 tl in IV til It 1 IllllHill JTilM 1 Tribune photos by Jose More The young men of Leo High School gather Thursday Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church, held a prayer morning in the school's cafeteria, where Rev. Michael service for Eric Ersery. Lives of Leo honor student, friend lost in hail of bullets Cruz for murder, put numerous variations on these questions to Cruz in 3'j hours of needling cross-examination in a Wheaton courtroom crowded with spectators. Cruz, 35, had his explanation down "I was a smart-ass street punk," which he repeated with dutiful regularity, more or less sums it up but by the end of the day his irritation was increasingly evident "Why did you want to (lie)?" Gillespie pressed during the final flurry.

"I've been explaining that to you over and over," Cruz said with exaggerated patience. "I don't know what part of the explanation you don't understand, sir." "I don't understand any of it," Gillespie snapped. 'Tell me again." No doubt Cruz will get many more such chances when Gillespie and at least two other defense attorneys resume the cross-examination Friday, when questioning will focus on particularly substantive areas. Thursday, the first job of the defense was to break down the studied calm that Cruz projected to the jury during the friendly direct examination from special prosecutor William Kunkle that concluded mid-morning. Gillespie asked mainly about tangential details from the life story Cruz had given Kunkle, poking and prodding at Cruz's character, honesty and memory while leaving for later the controversial periods during which Cruz became deeply involved as first a hearsay witness and then a suspect in the murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico of Naper-ville.

He dispensed with gentle preliminary questions and led off by pouncing on Cruz's spotty work record since he was acquitted at his third trial and released in November, 1995, and insinuating that his testimony would be tainted by his pending civil suit against DuPage County. "If some jury felt it was right you'd take $100 million bucks, wouldn't you?" he said. "As you would, yes, sir," Cruz parried. And they were off. Gillespie accused Cruz several times of making things up on the spot and Cruz responded with growing, sometimes icy bitterness that Gillespie was putting words into his mouth.

Gillespie also asked numerous follow-up questions that slightly mis-paraphrased what Cruz had just said, a tactic obviously designed to frustrate. Though Cruz testified that his attorneys advised him to answer questions "yes or no" as much as possible, he seemed to find it more and more difficult not to spar with Gillespie. "Can I answer your question?" Cruz asked when Gillespie cut him off in mid-sentence. "No," Gillespie said. "Then you shouldn't have asked it" Cruz said.

Several times Judge William Kelly had to tell the combatants to play nice, not call names and not talk over one another "Questions and answers, gentlemen," he scolded at one point For real drama, the day was a disappointment Defense attorneys had said they were "salivating to get (their) teeth into (Cruz)" but Gillespie barely pierced the skin. He showed that Cruz was a lying low-life who still has trouble telling plausible stories and keeping them straight but that's nothing new, even to the jury. Thursday's sandbox fight may have revealed flashes of Cruz's unattractive side, but at the same time it also may have made St it Court gives Lady Elgin to diver i i A By Melita Marie Garza and Myriam Vidriales Tribune Staff Writers On the spoUess glass coffee table inside Lisa Jones' home are the accolades afforded her son, symbols of a young man of promise. There's a sophomore football plaque emblazoned in brass, "Most Improved Player, Eric Ersery," and "Rookie of the Year, Wrestler, 1995-1996," and a car bumper sticker, "Proud Parent of Leo Honor Student." Inside the neat brick bungalow on Chicago's South Side there are also three college acceptance letters, including one from the University of Illinois, addressed to Ersery, ranked third in his class at Leo High School. Until late Wednesday, Ersery, 17, never knew trouble.

But as he stopped to chat with a friend, Shamika Ingram, 17, on her front step in the 8000 block of South Laf-lin Street, the two were shot to death. Police said the killer or killers walked up and shot them point blank. "Just three weeks from graduationthree weeks from the prom there are no words to Lisa Jones fights to hold back the tears while talking about her son, Eric Ersery, who was fatally shot Wednesday on Chicago's South Side. boys' school's annual tuition. Police had no suspects, no motive and little information about the shootings Thursday.

Family members said Ingram was shot once in the temple and Ersery was shot sev- See Shooting, Page 4 describe how I feel," Jones, 35, said, fighting to keep her composure. Jones had struggled to support and protect her son. The day before Ersery died, she had gone to Leo High School to pay his graduation fees and make a final payment of $900, one-quarter of the Catholic By Casey Bukro Tribune Staff Writer The Great Lakes "have drowned full many a midnight ship with all its shrieking crew." Herman Melville, "Moby Dick" The Lady Elgin sank 139 years ago in a violent Lake Michigan storm that claimed about 380 passengers and crew, lying unnoticed in a watery grave more than a century before it became the object of a 10-year legal battle. On Thursday, the Illinois Supreme Court, in the latest of a series of seesaw rulings, decided the scattered wreckage on the lake bottom about 10 miles off Highland Park belongs to Harry Zych. "I don't hear the fat lady singing," said Zych, owner and operator of American Diving and Salvage Co.

in Chicago, still leery despite the victory after a long series of conflicting rulings. He might be right David Blanchette, spokesman for the Illinois Historic Preservation Society, said the State of Illinois is considering taking the battle to the U.S. Supreme Court Despite their differences, both sides agree that the Lady Elgin is See Lady Elgin, Pae 2 'Peg Leg' didn't start Great Chicago Fire, jury finds on what may have actually caused the blaze on Oct. 8, 1871. Mrs.

Catherine O'Leary's mucn-maligned cow, regarded for more than a century as the party responsible for starting the Great Fire, was exonerated by the Chicago City Council in 1997, based on the research of See Fire, Page 2 him a more sympathetic figure to jurors than he was in the abstract The Cruz legend is that he was victimized in the mid-1980s by a bunch of better-educated men who saw him as utterly contemptible and therefore worthy of the low tactics they used to put him on Death Row for a murder he had nothing to do with. In trying to rewrite that legend, the why's guys drooling over him in court risk writing another chapter. By James Janega Tribune Staff Writer More than 127 years have gone by since the Great Chicago Fire, but it took a John Marshall Law School moot court jury only 20 minutes Thursday to find one of the more colorful characters in the city's fire legend not guilty of lying about standing-room-only crowd at the law school's South Loop campus and winking at jury members, including City Clerk James Laski, Police Supt. Terry Hillard and former State Comptroller Loleta Didrickson, the defendant's Irish brogue and false peg leg added personality to a murky piece of the city's history, but did little to shed light how it started. Daniel "Peg Leg" Sullivan, portrayed by actor Andrew White, appeared confident during his mock trial on two counts of perjury Thursday, despite the time lapse since the fire and gross violation of the three-year statute of limitations on felonies.

Drawing laughs from the.