Courier-Post from Camden, New Jersey • Page 1

Z3 114 AIDS drug has promise Some sun HIGH Mid 40s LOW Low 30s hnliHnv filmed? 'y Rnnri nlixft Bond alive Blocks virus 10A Coming attractions -ID Movie review TGIF Complete forecast 2A GLOUCESTER COUNTY OUR ft Ml 7 Bf 1W GOP 0J Man arraigned for '91 slaying Panel jOKs Obesity fighter bill to enc shutdown Case: The panel boted 6-5 to recommend the sale bf anti-obesity drug dexfenfluramine. Threat: President Clinton vowed to veto the proposal that he said would cripple Medicare. CLINTON GINGRICH KO A A vy a. -7-lV, liL. By Avi Steinhardt, Courier-Post Charged: Charles Reddish is arraigned Thursday in Camden for the 1991 murder of Yeda 'DeDe' Rosenthal in Cherry Hill.

Reddish has admitted to killing Rosenthal during a burglary. I was a maintenance worker at i the Cherry Hill apartment by police, but not charged. Fifteen months after the woman's disappearance, Reddish was sentenced to a five-year term in state prison for robbery. He was paroled in September 1993. By LAURA MYERS Associated Press 1 SILVER SPRING, Md.

A federal advisory panel on Thursday narrowly recommended approval for sale in the United States of the first new anti-obesity drug in more than two decades. 4 The panel for the Food and Drug Administration voted 6-5 to recommend allowing Interneuron Pharmaceuticals Inc. to market the drug, dexfenfluramine. The FDA usually acts favorably on the recommendations of its scientific panels, but there was no immediate indication when tbe agency would act on dexfenfluramine. The drug has been available for sale in 65 countries for the past ten years, but the U.S.

panel of experts was concerned about possible adverse side effects of taking the drug over a long period of time. At the September panel meeting, Interneuron Pharmaceuticals said its dexfenfluramine helped 40 percent of patients in a study lose up to 10 percent of their body weight, twice the amount lost with diet alone. The drug works by altering the brain chemical serotonin to make people feel full even though they have eaten less. In France regulators allowed doctors to prescribe the drug for a maximum period of one year. According to the FDA panel's recommendation, U.S.

doctors qould prescribe the drug for years Please see DRUG, Page 10A Healthful potato chips? Olestra, an artificial fat, passes its first government test. Page 9A The House had approved the measure several hours earlier, in a midnight-hour roll call that produced surprising Democratic support. Clinton made plain he would veto the GOP legislation. Signing it, he said, would be tantamount to accepting GOP plans for "crippling cuts in Medicare" and unacceptable reductions in Medicaid, education and environmental protection. Clinton's resolve in the stalemate brought a swift rebuttal from Senate Majority Leader Bob, Dole, "He doesn't want a balanced budget.

That's the issue." At three days, the partial shutdown was the longest ever arising from one of the nation's periodic budget wars. And barring an unexpected concession, it seemed likely to stretch into Thanksgiving week. Republicans are hoping to pass a separate measure containing their balanced budget plan by the weekend, a proposal that squeezes hundreds of billions from Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs, and also finances a tax cut. Clinton has threatened to reject it, as well, in part over Medicare. Republicans and Democrats alike said they doubted serious compromise talks would begin until that veto had been cast.

Budget talk State Republican congressmen return to the fold. Page 2A Clinton surprised by Newt Gin-grich's complaints. Page 10A By DAVID ESPO Associated Press WASHINGTON Defying a veto threat, the Republican-controlled Congress passed legislation Thursday night to end the three-day partial shutdown of government, but only if President Clinton agrees to balance the budget in seven years. Clinton said the GOP proposal would lock in "crippling cuts in Medicare" and other programs and demanded unsuccessfully that lawmakers restore government services without preconditions. He also announced plans to recall thousands of furloughed workers to process claims for Social Security and other benefits.

With the two sides seemingly at gridlock, Democrats savaged House Speaker Newt Gingrich for claiming Clinton had snubbed him recently aboard Air Force One, and for saying he had toughened his terms on the budget battle as a result. Several lawmakers trooped to the House floor with oversized copies of the front page of the New York Daily News. It bore a huge headline of "Cry Baby" and a cartoon depicting Gingrich in a diaper, holding a baby bottle and throwing a tantrum. The legislation to restore government services through Dec. 5 cleared the Senate on a near party-line vote of 60-37.

Seven Democrats sided with Republicans, but the roll call was still short of the two-thirds majority that would be needed to override a veto. ROSENTHAL By RENEE WINKLER Courier-Post Staff CAMDEN Bail was set Thursday at $500,000 cash for Charles E. "Crazy Eddie-Reddish Jr. for the 1991 murder of a Cherry Hill woman. Reddish, 34, of Burlington Township, was arraigned Thursday on charges of murdering Yeda "DeDe" Rosenthal during a break-in and robbery at her Cherry Hill apartment on Feb.

23, 1991. Rosenthal was last seen alive Feb. 22, 1991, and her disappearance had mystified police and a private detective hired by her anguished family in her native Ontario, Canada. Last month, Reddish was charged with hacking his girlfriend, Rebbeca Wertz, to death with an ax. While in police custody, Reddish told investigators he suffocated Rosenthal with his hand while burglarizing her Somerset Towers apartment, then later dumped her body in a weedy area off Route 130 in Penns Grove, Salem County.

Despite several searches in that area, Rosenthal's body has not been recovered. The area has been used to deposit sludge removed from the Delaware River as part of a dredging project. Law enforcement authorities don't doubt Reddish's confession, saying Reddish provided details of the slaying that only the murderer would know. At the time Rosenthal disappeared, Reddish Reddish appeared at Thursday's arraignment unshaven and wearing the dark-green jumpsuit that designates sex offenders at the Burlington County Jail. During the 10-minute hearing, he said only that he was being represented in Burlington County on an unrelated murder case by a public defender, and would need representation in the Cherry Hill case.

1 Assistant Camden County Prosecutor James Conley said Reddish faces the death penalty because Rosenthal was killed in the course of another felony, the burglary and robbery. On Oct. 6, Reddish was charged with murdering Wertz at his home on Crestwood Drive in Burlington Township. Wertz, 43, was hacked repeatedly in the head and neck with an ax after arguing with Reddish over the use of her car, money and drugs, authorities said. Reddish was also charged with raping Wertz's teen-age daughter.

Pennsauken man guilty of attacking two women Death of beaten infant brings murder toll to 53 Reno tells of disease Attorney General Janet Reno says her newly diagnosed Parkinson's disease won't force her to resign from office. Page 9A Nation-World New Jersey South Jersey Classified Real Estate Housing information Living FYI Sports Scoreboard Money Dow up 46.61 to 4969.36 Dropped: The jury cleared him of assaulting a high school student the same day. E3 T( I Weekend guide to entertainment Teaming up Report savs New Jersey school districts should share services to save money. Page 4A No deal No plea agreements were reached for two suspects accused of killing a police officer. Page IB Campbell earnings Campbell Soup Co.

says first-quarter net income rose 11 percent on strong sales. Page 10E Mistrial opposed By RENEE WINKLER Courier-Post Staff CAMDEN A Pennsauken man was convicted Thursday, for he second time, of striking a township woman on the head Jith a rock and kidnapping her in anuary 1990. Frank M. Vergilio, 40, of Oak terrace, who recently had worked is a delicatessen manager, also was convicted by a jury of five women and seven men of assault-big a second woman and attempting to kidnap her several hours earlier. Several hours into their fourth day of deliberation, the jury acquitted Vergilio of assaulting a high school student the same day.

It also cleared Vergilio of any sex crimes in connection with the three incidents, which took place over a 10-hour period on Jan. 10 and 11, 1990. Vergilio had been convicted in 1991 of kidnapping and assaulting all three women, but the state appeals court ordered a retrial in the case because one of the original jurors complained his colleagues refused to listen to his point of view during By FRANK KUMMER Courier-Post Staff CAMDEN Beaten severely as an infant in 1991 by her teen-age mother, tiny Bernadette Moses struggled to live with the resulting brain damage until this year when she died because of it. On Thursday, authorities officially logged the permanently disabled girl as the blighted city's 53rd murder victim of 1995, already a record-setting year for homicide. Bernadette, 4, actually died in October.

But it wasn't until Thursday that a Camden County medical examiner's report was released and cited the beating as responsible for the death. Toya Kim Walls, the girl's natural mother, was immediately charged with Bernadette's murder. Walls, now 23, remained a fugitive as of Thursday evening. Police had two possible addresses for her. One was on the 1300 block of Princess Avenue.

The other was on the 200 block of Chestnut Street. Camden broke its murder record this week when the 51st and 52nd killings of the year were Details: The girl initially was beaten in 1991 and suffered brain damage. recorded. The previous record of 50 was set in 1992. Statistically, 1.1 people have died each week this year.

Eight have been younger than 18. The death of a small girl made the record seem all the more tragic. "It certainly saddens even more so the mood of Camden citizens," Acting Camden County Prosecutor Joseph F. Audino said. The following is an account of Bernadette's death according to' Audi no's office and law enforce-, ment records: On Feb.

8, 1991, Walls beat the child about the head for unknown' reasons while living in an apartment at 279 Chestnut Street. The child, who was two Please see MURDER, Page 10A Astrology 7D Movies 3F Classified 7B Obituaries 6B Comics 60 People 7D Crossword 7D Stocks 9E DearAbby 7D Television 40 Editorials 12A Weather 2A Thursday's convictions, on five of 10 counts, expose Vergilio to up to 40 years in state prison. He served three years in prison before the retrial was ordered. He initially had been sentenced to a 60-year term. Defense attorney A.

Charles Peruto Jr. noted that was 20 years more than what he now faces because some prior convictions carried more substantial time since they involved an assault on a teen-ager. Two of the victims testified against him in the trial. Assistant Camden County Prosecutor John T. Wynne relied on a transcript of testimony from the 1991 trial for one series of charges.

The jury acquitted Vergilio of any offenses against the youngest of the three Please see GUILTY, Page 10A Got a news tip? Call the Courier-Post tip line from your touch-tone phone at 662-3636; enter code 8477 (TIPS) and leave a message. ne prosecution is challenging a judge's decision to declare mistrial in boxing promoter Don King's trial. Page 3A "01301 0 TFT 11 3 4mm.