The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 466

I.OS ANGELES TIMES VC'FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1991 A3 and the West Doctor Who Created AIDS Drug Charged Medicine: An Orange County physician faces 16 felony counts in connection with an unproved treatment. He says his prosecution is the product of 'mindless innuendoes and Metro Center Blue Line Station i 1 Bradley Seeks OK of Traffic Measures Commuting: Two proposals are meant to encourage workers to car-pool or take public transportation. I I Opens February 15,19 Come Ride to Long Beach By LILY DIZON IIMS STAFF WRITER VILLA PARK In the first case of its kind in the state, an Orange County physician has been charged with 16 felony counts for distributing an unproven drug he claims is a breakthrough treatment for AIDS. DriStephen David Herman, 54, who was arrested by state in January, 1990, but not charged until' denounced the charges Thursday as "mindless innuendoes and attacks" by. city and state officials.

Herman was arrested after a patient, Mark Snider, a floral designer from Los Angeles, died of blood poisoning on Nov. 12, 1989, two weeks after being injected with Herman's drug. Three other AIDS patients treated by Herman have died since, officials said. Deputy Dist. Atty.

Connie Johnson, who filed the charges, said prosecutors had contemplated filing manslaughter charges, but determined that there was hot enough evidence that the drug caused the deaths. Instead, they charged Herman with falsely advertising, selling and misrepresenting the drug Viroxan, which Herman said he invented. Health officials said Viroxan, a liquid which is injected intravenously or into the muscles, is not approved by any government' Please see AIDS, A30 1 gar ByJANEFRITSCH TIMES STAFF WRITER Mayor Tom Bradley asked for quick approval Thursday of two: measures intended to cut traffic; one offering cash instead of parking subsidies to workers who share rides, and the other setting aside public funds to pay for workers' taxi rides home in emergencies. Bradley said both proposals wilt be sent to the Los Angeles City, Council soon. They are among the first measures to be sent to the council from a 20-point plan to reduce traffic congestion announced by Bradley last Novem-, ber.

Council President John Ferraro endorsed the measures and sug-l gested the city may have to begin! giving hiring preference to applicants who intend to car-pool or, take public transportation. The city has imposed an indefinite hiring; freeze, Ferraro said, and no formal! proposal has been made on the; hiring practice. It is not clear whether either! proposal will be supported by the; council, but the parking subsidy measure is expected to be the more! controversial. The measure would require, companies that subsidize employee! parking to offer workers the cash; value of the subsidy. In return, the! workers would have to participate' in a ride-sharing program or take public transportation to work.

The measure would have the' greatest impact on areas such as; downtown and Century City, where businesses pay garages and parking lots as much as several hundred dollars a month per em-! ployee. In some circumstances, the mea-' sure would apply to businesses that own their own parking garages or lots. Details of the proposal are still being drafted and were not availa-! ble. Martha Cox-Nitikman, a spokeswoman for the Building Owners! and Managers said officials of the group had not seen the proposal and had no immediate response. It was not possible to determine what the cost to businesses might be.

Bill Chandler, a spokesman for Bradley, said that in most cases the parking subsidy measure would impose no additional cost on busi- nesses. However, some potential prqb-; lems remain to be worked out.j For instance, workers who already car-pool or take public transportation would not be eligi-. ble for the cash value of their companies' parking subsidies, while their colleagues who have Please see BRADLEY, A40 No-Contest Plea Made in Fatal Fire at Fraternity House From Associated Press BERKELEY A 23-year-old man turned himself in to authorities Thursday and pleaded no contest to charges stemming from a Sept. 8 fire at a UC Berkeley fraternity house that killed three students. Brian Hilton of Pleasanton surrendered to authorities at 2 p.m.

and was immediately arraigned before Berkeley Municipal Court Judge Julie Conger. He pleaded no contest to one count of unlawfully starting a fire and three counts of involuntary manslaughter. Sentencing was scheduled for April 16 in Alameda County Superior Court and bail was set at $10,000. Hilton, who was not a student or a member of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity, was visiting a friend who lived at the house, Police Capt. Phil Doran said during a news conference.

Hilton told investigators that he accidentally set a living room couch on fire with a butane lighter after a night of bar hopping, Doran said. He mistakenly thought he had patted the flames out and left the house, Doran said. Police focused their investigation on Hilton after his friend at the fraternity named him as a suspect. Doran: said the friend had urged Hilton to turn himself in. Jim Ciller, an Oakland lawyer defending Hilton, characterized his client as a "good, decent young man who feels very remorseful about this." Hilton was taken to City Jail, where bail was expected to be posted.

His parents attended the hearing but had no comment. Please see FLEA, A34 wm4? IFH I lil Underground Opening The 7th StreetMetro Center Station, the final link of the Long Beach-to-downtown Metro Blue Line, opens today. It is the only underground station on the Blue Line, and workers on Thursday were preparing for the first passengers. Top, Art Gomez, left, and Arnold Hernandez attach a sign outside the station, which is at the corner of 7th and Flower. At left, Harland Potter adjusts a ticket machine Inside the station.

Above, a street sign directs passengers to the station entrance. Photos by RICK MEYER Los Angeles Times Border Patrol Urges Action Against Agent Who Fired Into Van Gay, Lesbian Couples Get 'Partnered' in San Francisco By PATRICK McDONNELL TIMES-STAFF WRITER SAM DIEGO The U.S. Border Patrol has recommended disciplinary action possibly including a suspensionagainst an agent who last May fired his service handgun into the back of a van filled with illegal aliens, wounding an El Salvadoran woman, 24, and a Mexican boy, 16. Authorities have determined that the agent violated patrol guidelines and should be subject to administrative penalties, which could range from a written reprimand to firing, said Ted Swofford, supervisory patrol agent in San Diego. Officials declined to specify what sanctions will be imposed.

The proposed punishment must be approved by Gustavo De la Vifla, the chief patrol agent in San Diego. The agent has the right to challenge the finding before the chief and in a subsequent hearing before a Please see BORDER, A34 Although the first day of registration drew a large turnout of homosexual couples, there also were a few non-traditional heterosexual couples among the applicants. "Marriage is something we don't want," said Meredith Nielsen, waiting for her certificate with her partner, Hal Danielsen. "It's nice to be in a city that feels the same way about traditional couples as they do about non-traditional couples." Danielsen nodded, adding: "I don't want to havea wife. I don't want to be a husband." F.

Joseph Leonard of San Francisco said he took the day off to fill out the paperwork to recognize his relationship with his companion, Rick E. Campoy. He called Proposition "a step in the right direction" but added that he would someday like to see marriage legalized for same-sex couples. "We've already got wedding gifts," he said, smiling at Campoy. Both men plan to have their last names legally changed his to F.

Joseph Leonard-Campoy, his partner's to Rick E. Cam-poy-Leonard. Across the room, at another table, Mari Coates and Monica Rosenthal were poring over two pink and white forms used to declare the partnership. "I'm nervous," Coates said. "This is public acknowledgement of a relation-1 ship.

It's a powerful statement." The declaration was made somewhat, easier, Coates said, by the tolerance and support oi local voters. "Thank God for San Francisco," she said. Proposition Hundreds take advantage of the new law on Valentine's Day to formalize their relationships. By CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT TIMI-S STAFF WRITF.R SAN FRANCISCO-With the debut of a landmark new law, hundreds of gay and lesbian couples celebrated Valentine's Day here by doing the next best thing to getting married. They got partnered.

For the first time ever Thursday, the pairs could swap rings, flowers and kisses in a short civil ceremony, plunk down a $35 fee and walk away with purple and white certificates of domestic partnership. Like marriage, the ritual simply referred to as "partnering" by some, organizers is usually accompanied by the exchange of vows. Under Proposition a domestic partnership measure adopted by voters, same-sex and non-traditional couples are permitted to formalize their relationships, but do not get any of the legal benefits of marriage. To qualify for a domestic partnership certificate, a couple must declare that they share living expenses and have lived together for half a year. The law went into effect on Valentine's Day, the busiest day of the year for civil marriages.

Proponents of the' measure said the timing was coinciden- Martha Cody, left, and Susan Berry, with Christopher Minor, left, and Richard Mulholland were the first lesbian and gay couples on Valentine's Day to take advantage of San Francisco's new law recognizing domestic partnerships. For the Record INS official The Times on Thursday incorrectly attributed to Immigration and Naturalization Services spokesman Verne Jervis a statement that a program to deportsmugglers and repeat border crossers had been "forgotten" in the field. Actually, Jervis had said that the number of arrests was low, but that the program is continuing. Iraqi arms A drawing that accompanied a story in Wednesday's editions stated that the United States provided battle tanks, artillery, antitank missile launchers and helicopters to Iraq. In fact, of those items, the United States provided only helicopters.

Navy drones Because of an error in the transmission of a pool report, AAI Corp. of Baltimore, maker of remote piloted vehicles for the Navy, was mistakenly named as AIA in Monday's editions of The Times. aloft their new certificates as an announcer introduced them, two by two. Britt, speaking to a crowd of about 500 supporters gathered below in the atrium, compared the day to an "important event for the American family." "The American family must not be an institution of fear, but an institution of care and understanding," Britt said. "The lesbian and gay family is not an abstraction it's you." tal, but recruited volunteers to direct the 325 non-traditional couples who flooded City Hall on Thursday.

"It couldn't have happened on a better day," said Kurt Barric, an aide to Supervisor Harry Britt, the sponsor of Proposition K. An elaborate late-afternoon ceremony ended the day, with dozens of couples descending the stairs of the City Hall rotunda, many of them proudly holding.