The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 23

Wk Jpfitlaklpfua Inquirer Section JPhila. woman is charged with fabricating her abduction. B2. News in Briefs B2 Obituaries, B6. Weather, B7.

i us Wednesday, July 8, 1998 Philadelphia Online: http:www.phillynews.com For N. Broad residents, supporting project is a leap of faith rJump Street USA promises jobs, shopping and plenty for the young to do. People are waiting to see how it will affect them. erties of New York, stood beside one of the lots to announce that the complex to be called Jump Street USA would help make the neighborhood a "destination" to rival Center City. While neighborhood residents and Temple University students look forward to hundreds of potential jobs, shopping in new stores and eating popcorn in a new movie theater, those who work and serve on the block are waiting to see what will happen to them.

The city has begun to acquire properties along the block for condemnation. Between the lots, the Women's Christian Alliance, a social service and counseling which includes more than 200,000 square feet of retail space and a nine- to 12-screen' movie theater with 3,000 stadium-style seats." "I think it'll make it nice and make a lot of people come here." Like the other vendors, Abou is all but certain city officials won't allow him to stay on the block. Where he would relocate, he doesn't know. "I'll wait until somebody tells me," he said. The future for the Women's Christian A1-" liance is somewhat clearer.

The alliance, which employs 138 people, is negotiating -See JUMP on B2 agency, operates from four four-story buildings on Broad Street and a two-story building on Carlisle Street. There's also the headquarters of the Cecil B. Moore Avenue Community Development Corp. and Atlas Insurance Agency, check-cashing and music stores, and three sidewalk vendors selling tapes, incense, clothes and barrettes. Vendor Mamadou Abou praised the idea for Jump Street USA while unloading cassette tapes from his car onto a table on a Cecil B.

Moore Avenue curb. "I think it's good," Abou, 47, said as he considered the development proposal, 1' By Herbert Lowe INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Both ends of the 1600 block of North Broad Street are the same: large lots enclosed by tall, barbed-wire fences, covered with weeds and surrounded, at least in spots, by piles of trash. Despite its haggard bookends, however, the block also bounded by Oxford and Carlisle Streets and Cecil B. Moore Avenue is productive. Not as productive as a $50 million entertainment and retail complex, as city officials and a developer have proposed to build over the next three years.

But people are making a living or helping others have peace of mind. On Monday, Mayor Rendell, City Council President John F. Street and developer Drew R. Greenwald, president of Grid Prop Labor leaders rallying behind transit union It Y.fc if 1 i- -i- (V, ll i in IE ill -at i i Am -jet ntjiUntt HI faaa -4 TWU and SEPTA negotiators met for the first time in a week. No progress was reported.

By Maria Panaritis and Elisa Ung INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS Local labor leaders pledged solidarity with the beleaguered president of the Transport Workers Union at a boisterous rally yesterday, after which TWU and SEPTA negotiators held their first face-to-face bargaining session in a week. The two-hour meeting ended with both sides reporting no progress toward ending the 37-day strike. No date was set for further talks, but officials said they would stay in contact with the state mediator. Hours earlier, nearly 1,000 members of the TWU and other area unions attended the noon rally at City Hall, cheering calls by TWU president Steve Brookens and other labor leaders to stage crippling protests in the days to come. With support from a dozen elected officials and union leaders, Brookens and leaders of several unions threatened to picket together.

It was part of an effort to dispel assertions that Brookens has little support from local labor and the 5,500 members of his union. "It's time to go to jail. It's time to do whatever we've got to do," Broo Steve Brookens, TWU president, gets a word of encouragement from Myron McNeely after addressing 1 ,000 supporters. Ruling clears Girard The school was sued after a boy allegedly was sexually assaulted. The Philadelphia Inquirer RON TARVER Members of TWU Local 234 march down Broad Street toward SEPTA headquarters.

They blocked midday traffic for about 15 minutes. Hit man gets death sentence in murder Jose De Jesus shot a man he mistook for someone else. He awaits trial in a pregnant woman's death. ....1 defendant with duct tape "if he utters one more sound." DeJesus did not. He next awaits trial for the May 30, 1997, murders of Felix "Chino" Varcas and Elizabeth "Lisa" Car-rasquillo, whose child survived after being delivered by cesarean section.

DeJesus also is awaiting a preliminary hearing, scheduled for today, for a man named "Capone," so he began firing. He said in the statement that he was sorry he "killed the wrong guy." "The deceased had the misfortune of having purchased that car that evening from Mr. Capone, the intended target," Assistant District Attorney Carlos Vega said. "DeJesus thought he was shooting at Mr. Capone." kens shouted to the biggest crowd to turn out for a TWU rally since the strike's second week.

"Ed Rendell, if you think the city's not hurting, keep watching. It's going to hurt real bad." Also yesterday, personal attacks were again publicly made against people involved with the strike. During the rally, TWU executive vice president Sabin Rich said Brookens had been offered money to sell out the union. Brookens later said that the offer had come from State Sen. Vincent J.

Fumo Phila). When told later of the allegations, Fumo was livid, branding them a lie. Fumo has scheduled a press conference for today to address what one spokesman called "the scurrilous allegations" made by the union. Last week, after talks between SEPTA and the union collapsed, Fumo blamed the collapse on Brookens, saying the union leader was more concerned about being reelected to his post than in signing a contract for his membership. The union said yesterday that it See SEPTA on B4 Jose DeJesus was charged in four murders.

sault for shooting Carlos Martinez, 26, to death on June 30, 1997. DeJesus, having mistaken Martinez for another man, fired 16 rounds from an AK47 semiautomatic rifle from the second floor of a house in the 2900 block of Palethorp Street, hitting Martinez, who was driving by. The fusillade also wounded the 2-year-old boy, who was on a bike, and a 30-year-old man, who had been washing a car. DeJesus did not testify at his trial but told homicide detectives in a statement read in court that when he saw a car coming down the street, he thought the driver was a By Linda Loyd INQUIRER STAFF WRITER A man charged in four murders, including that of a pregnant woman, was sentenced to death yes- terday for killing a North Philadelphia man and wounding a 2-year-old boy and another man last summer. After deliberating for a day and a half, a Common Pleas Court jury re- i jurned the death sentence for Jose ''Little Bert" DeJesus, 19, who, police say, was a hit man for a North Philadelphia drug gang.

"I The same jury convicted DeJesus 1 on Thursday of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated as fourth killing, that of David Sims, 38, who was shot to death Aug. 24 at 3200 N. Randolph St. Carrasquillo, 18, who was days away from graduating from Corn-See DEATH PENALTY on B7 As the death sentenced was announced, DeJesus shouted an obscenity at the jurors, then sat down, pointed a finger at Vega, and muttered, "And you!" Judge James A. Lineberger ordered sheriff's deputies to bind the By Joseph A.

Slobodzian INQUIRER STAFF WRITER A federal judge has dismissed a civil rights lawsuit by the mother of an 8-year-old boy who said Girard College officials failed to protect him from sexual assault by three fellow students from 1995 to U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell ruled Monday that the mother of the child identified as "John Doe" failed to prove that Girard College had the special custodial relationship over the boy necessary to sue under federal law. Dalzell also dismissed the lawsuit's contention that Girard officials had denied equal treatment to Doe and all other African American students by underfunding and understaffing the North Philadelphia school since 1968, the year nonwhites were first admitted to Girard under court order. A spokeswoman for Rhonda Hill Wilson, who filed the suit in March for Doe and his mother, said Wilson was traveling and would not com- ment until she had read Dalzell's opinion. Howard Rosenthal, the lawyer representing the Board of City Trusts, which administers Girard could not be reached for comment.

Girard College was established in 1848 by merchant-banker Stephen Girard and funded by his currently valued at $300 million. It was founded as a private residential school to teach white male orphans from first grade through high school, but a 1968 federal court ruling opened its doors to nonwhites, and later decisions extended entry to girls and children from single-parent households. The Doe lawsuit contended that-' African American students at rard had attended an institution-See GIRARD on B7 Plea deal expected in prom death have made it difficult for him to live a normal life. When asked to comment on the plea, Monmouth County Assistant Prosecutor Elaine Leschot, who would have prosecuted Drexler at trial, refused to comment. In the past, she has said she could not legally disclose details of the case, citing a gag order from Judge John Ricciardi.

Monmouth County Prosecutor John Kaye, who Leschot has said would have to approve any deal, did not return phone calls yesterday. Defense attorneys Steven Secare of Toms River and Donald R. Venezia of Fairview also declined to comment. close to the case said that plea negotiations had been in See PROM on B7 By Jennifer Farrell and Angela Couloumbis FOR THE INQUIRER A year after being charged with murdering her newborn son at her high school prom, 19-year-old Melissa Drexler will plead guilty tomorrow to the lesser charge of aggravated manslaughter, sources close to the case said yesterday. The plea, expected at a hearing scheduled for 9 a.m.

in Monmouth County Superior Court, comes a day before Drexler's 20th birthday, and means that she could be eligible for parole by the time she turns 23. In Order to plead guilty to aggravated Drexler will have to admit to causing the death of her Uaby through extreme indifference to human life, according to New Jersey law. Under the plea agreement, prosecutors will likely ask the judge to sentence Drexler to no more than 15 years, with at least three to be served without parole, the sources said. Drexler pleaded not guilty last year when she was charged with murder after an autopsy by the Monmouth County Medical Examiner's Office determined that her 6-pound, 6-ounce, full-term baby boy had died from asphyxia due to manual strangulation or obstruction of the mouth or nose. Doctors at Bayshore Hospital in Holmdel, Monmouth County, where Drexler and her newborn were taken on the night of her June 6, 1997, prom, confirmed at the time that the child had been born without any abnormalities that would ft It i I 1 The Philadelphia Inquirer VICKI VALERIO They're brigljt pink and sassy, and Justine Williams, 5, thinks her new shades are ihe cat's meow.

Justine, of North 43d Street, got the glasses as a gift for helping a neighbor do some shopping..