Clarion-Ledger from Jackson, Mississippi • Page 15

JACKSON-AREA DEATHS 2 BUSINESS 4 THE CLARION-LEDGER I JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 1992 o) U.S. grand jury accuses developer Tharon Lee of medical fraud The businessman had a north Mississippi medical network. By Butch John Clarlon-Ladger Staff Writer "Quite frankly, I was surprised by the indictments," Lee said from his home in Memphis. "My attorney said, out of all fairness I shouldn't discuss the issues with the media." If convicted of all charges, Lee faces up to 90 years in prison and fines of $2.6 million. Lee, free on $100,000 bond after a Tuesday appearance before U.S.

Magistrate Norman Gillespie in Oxford, will be arraigned March 20. The indictments resulted from a three-year investigation by the FBI and state Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Hailman, who coordinated the probe, didn't rule out the possibility of further indictments. The charges concern Lee's involvement in North Panola Regional Hospital at Sardis from November 1985 through November 1989.

Included in his corporate holdings through American Medical Resources Inc. were the Tunica County Hospital, several clinics and home-health-care facilities and auto shops in Sardis and Batesville. Lee took over the Sardis hospital in 1986, saying he represented Methodist Health Systems of Memphis, the indictment stated. Methodist employed Lee as senior vice president for development when he approached the financially strapped hospital in November 1985. Methodist had no interest in the hospital, it was shown later.

However, Lee presented a proposal he said Methodist had approved to lease and manage the hospital. Methodist advised Sardis officials in June 1986 it had nothing to do with Lee, the indictment states. Lee remained at the head of the hospital, the indictment said, and in July 1986 began paying illegal kickbacks to physicians who admitted patients into the hospital through its emergency room. By 1989, more than $20,000 of such payments had gone out. Another $15,000 in additional fees were given to physicians for "consulting fees" and "loans." The indictment charges that from October 1987 through August 1989, Lee had appropriated North Panola funds for personal use.

Included were purchase of Tennessee land, appliances for a Panola County farm, children's college tuition and, after learning of the investigation, attorney fees to fight it i Tharon T. Lee, whose north Mississippi medical network included two automobile repair shops, has been indicted on 14 counts I of medical fraud, authorities said Tuesday. A federal grand jury in Oxford indicted Lee, 59, March 4 on charges including diverting hospital funds for personal use and paying physicians for hospital admissions. SSSJM -ISD5P SSSSas I I I I I I I i 5 ik i Mi I SlDTrQptU Vimville lucky; buildings empty By Ruth Ingram Clarion-Lsdgtr Assistant Metro Editor It was past midnight Tuesday before coaches finished gathering paper cups and candy wrappers, remnants of Monday's baseball tournament at Southeast Junior High. Scarcely an hour later, a tornado twisted the field house into scrap metal and loaded the bases with bro ken glass.

"If that thing had "If that thing had hit a couple of hours earlier, it would have been total devastation." Dwane Taylor hit a couple of hours earlier, it would have been total devastation," said Dwane Taylor, football and assistant baseball coach and athletic director in the Vimville Greg Jenson The Clarion-Ledger Volunteer Gib Graves carries curtains from the auditorium stage of Southeast teaches home economics at the school. Insurance adjustors worked Tuesday Lauderdale Junior High School after a pre-dawn tornado caused extensive with first-year Lauderdale County schools Superintendent David Everett to de-damage to the school and surrounding areas Tuesday. Graves' wife, Allyn, termine whether the school's four buildings can be salvaged. Twister snatches baby from Delta mobile home community school. "An hour and a half earlier, we were there trying to get ready for (Tuesday's) game.

The field house I had dressed in it's gone." Insurance adjustors worked Tuesday with first-year Lauderdale County schools Superintendent David Everett to determine whether the school's four buildings can be salvaged or must be replaced. "The gym was demolished. The old building with a gabled roof was completely blown away," Everett said. "Two block buildings have roofs blown away. Two trailers were destroyed, and the field house is gone.

Just a concrete slab is left." Even before the winds died down, faculty and friends were tidying the mess and salvaging what they could. Taylor's first task: searching through debris of a trailer that was the campus home of social studies teacher Mike Ethridge. The trailer was destroyed, but Ethridge escaped with minor injuries. "It's scary going to look for your friends," Taylor said. "I was scared to look through Mike's trailer, but I was scared not to." Gail Miller's husband, Joe, also a coach at the school, was on cleanup patrol before and after the storm hit.

"He left his jacket in the dugout Monday night," Gail Miller said Tuesday. "When we got to the school today, we saw it in a tree. It was blue it really stood out. That's the light side of it." Lauderdale County School Board members were to meet this morning in emergency session to decide where to hold junior high classes next week, Everett said. Southeast High and Southeast Elementary, across Mississippi 19 from the junior high, suffered roof damages that should be patched in time for classes Monday.

Her crying led rescuers to her, says her father, Anthony Glass. By Steve Walton Clarion-Ledger Delta Bureau SCALE IN MILES J0 12 Sunflower County i i Washington County 5" II 1 f'zX-Jk'Z I Sharkey 1 CoLinty i Yl Murphy The baby, Telisa Cantrell, was found among the debris when a twister destroyed the mobile home about 9:55 p.m. She was among eight children and three adults visiting Glass. All escaped serious injury when the twister destroyed the mobile home about 9:55 p.m. The storm also destroyed three houses and severely damaged four more in this tiny town.

"I don't know how we got out with such minor injuries," Glass said as he surveyed demolished farm sheds and toppled trucks and tractors. High winds in Bolivar, Sunflower and Humphreys counties knocked out power lines in some areas. Officials reported a mobile home over turned in Boyle and near Gooden Lake in Belzoni. Trees were uprooted and limbs downed in Sunflower and Bolivar counties, sheriffs spokesmen said. Although the twister destroyed Glass' mobile home, it left untouched the porch and several items on it, including a bottle of cough syrup, a carburetor and a box of Mason jars.

Sharkey County Sheriff Joe Ford said the tornado first struck Delta City, where it destroyed a mobile home, farm shops and a grain bin, but caused no injuries. "It was absolutely the same tornado," Ford said. Murphy residents were shocked at the damage. See STORM, 2B MURPHY Anthony Glass searched 30 minutes in the pounding rain Monday night before finding an 8-month-old girl who was ripped from his mobile home by a roaring tornado. "She was crying.

That's the only way I knew where she was," said Glass, 25, a Washington County farmhand. "A mattress mashed her against the ceiling. There wasn't a scratch on her." Tornado was like '10 freight trains trying to get in our bedroom window' The storm that hit Zero Tuesday morning killed three people, injured 58. By J. Lee Howard Clarion-Ledger Staff Writer house for damage.

"We stopped in that hall and thanked the Lord we were safe," Meadows said. "I told my wife we can always build more buildings and plant more trees." Dudley Smith stood shivering in the rubble that once had been his mobile home on Zero Road. Smith, 24, an offshore pipeline worker, said he had been watching TV with his wife, but dozed off just before the tornado hit. He said his wife, who had been too scared to sleep, woke him when the TV went blank. A tornado that struck at 1:10 a.m.

Tuesday ripped through the tiny Zero community just south of Meridian, killing three and injuring 58 others. The twister snapped the steeple where Meadows has been pastor for 26 years. The spire rested Tuesday on the roof of the building moored to its base with wires. Meadows said he rushed to the bedroom window when he heard the howling outside. "I rolled the curtains back," Meadows said.

"It was like a dense fog outside. You couldn't see anything." Meadows said his wife ordered him to Smith said he got his family in his car and headed for his father's home a few blocks away. "When we got there the wind was up real bad," Smith said. "Then it hit." Smith, his wife Mitsy, 31, and his stepson, Robby Garrett, 15, were in the car when the tornado touched down. It lifted the 1988 Oldsmobile Royale six feet off the ground, Smith said.

"It was like a sonic boom," Garrett said. "Like BOOM! A noise like that. I jumped for the floorboard. It picked up the car, then slammed it back down." "We stopped in that hall and thanked the Lord we were safe. I told my wife we can always build more buildings and plant more trees." Jim Meadows, storm victim get away from the window and lie down on the floor.

When the worst was past, Meadows said, he and his family checked the MERIDIAN Things that go bump in the night didn't wake up Jim Meadows early Tuesday. "The noise that woke me up was like 10 freight trains trying to get in our bedroom window all at the same time," said Meadows, 60, pastor of the Long Creek Baptist Church. YESTERDAY'S HEADLINES MISSISSIPPI VOICES THIS CORNER Furl nrnv Brewer. 74. MissiSSiDDi governor from tiSf 1912 to 1916, died.

A native of Uarron county, 1 Brewer attended law school at Ole Miss and prac- wfT 1 ticed law in Water Valley for many years. The U.S. Surgeon General and the American Medical Association want Camel cigarettes to stop using a cartoon camel to advertise their product. They say the character Is too appealing to children and could Influence them to smoke. Do you think the doctors have a valid complaint? TUNICA "No.

It's been done like this for many years and it has not affected children. I think they should keep it like that." Shell! Fields, 16, student. MERIDIAN "I would think so. I haven't seen that much advertisement locally. It seems more national." Llnf ord Conard, 60, retail furniture business owner.

FLORENCE "Yes, I do. I believe it would be improper to breach the interests of the child to cause the child to do something that would do harm to that child." David Clark, 47, lawyer. MSU to hold veterinarian forum STARKVILLE Students at Mississippi State University's College of Veterinary Medicine are preparing to play host to about 1,100 students later this week. The school is the site of the 1992 Student American Veterinarian Medical Association Symposium, which runs Thursday through Saturday. The nation's 27 veterinary colleges vie for the chance to hold the symposium.

"There were a lot of skeptics who thought Starkville was too small or that there wouldn't be enough to keep the students entertained," said chairman Howard Gobble, a fourth-year student. "But we not only proposed a program to show off MSU's veterinary facility and pro-gt 'sive educational methods, we've also got some excellent tour and entertainment options lined up." State civil rights leaders, meeting in Jackson, formed a political action committee to work to consolidate the black vote. SyM if jr Florence The National Clean Air Coalition charged that some Mississippi chemical manufacturing plants are releasing significant amounts of cancer-causing or poisonous chemicals into the air. Compiled by staff librarian Susan Garcia.