The Burlington Free Press from Burlington, Vermont • Page 1

-J Exhibit takes a long look at Burlington, ID Ben Jerry's cranks tunes, cools stockholders, IB World Cup: U.S. takes aim for Romania, 1C ttrfffl fitottjfree3ress Sunday, June 26, 1994 Vermont 's Newspaper $1.50, seven news sections tin sir By Christopher Connell The Associated Press WASHINGTON President Clinton on Saturday denounced "halfhearted" health reforms that would do nothing for millions of Americans. The acting House Ways and Means chairman accused Republicans of trying to scare senior citizens to death over Medicare limits needed to help pay for universal health care coverage. "Now that we've come this far, we mustn't turn back," Clinton said in his weekly radio address. "Momentum is building toward a solution." Democrats on Ways and Means, in a rare Saturday session, postponed a debate about cost containment because of internal divisions over how tightly to control medical spending.

"We are really still debating that on our side," said Rep. Sam Gibbons, D-Fla. The debate grew rancorous after Republicans ridiculed as a "fantasy" the Democratic proposal to help pay for coverage for all Americans by cutting the growth of Medicare, the health insurance plan for 36 million elderly or disabled Americans. "We are trying to legislate here with a magic wand," said Rep. Clay Shaw, R-Fla.

Gibbons said angrily to a camera, "I want to tell the seniors through C-SPAN right now: This is just an organized attempt to scare you to death. Don't believe them. They didn't vote for (Medicare) when it first came up." White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers volunteered that Clinton's criticism was not aimed at a compromise plan advanced Friday by members of the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Moynihan aides labored over the weekend to flesh out a proposal he will use as the starting point for the bill his panel begins drafting in public on Tuesday, a day later than originally planned. iHT ft lnrtWr ii imgm SHAVNA BRENNAN.

The Associated Reps. Dan Rostenkowski, and Sam Gibbons, talk health reform Saturday. Community struggles to recover from scandal a wrfccp .4 -a fc-is rra raw c-it CTrr fT C3 "There's so much hatred in this town. So much nastiness. Bitterness." Michael O'Neill, suspended police chief 1 -J' I i It, SO -Vv It I ii MM- 1J Stories by Tom Hacker, FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER Photographs by Glenn Russell, FOR THE FREE PRESS Suspended Northfleld Police Chief Mi 1) J-' chael O'Neill says he is innocent.

The schism that splits the "rustic wooden sign out A side the entrance to JJronson's Market, just MONTPELIER Custody case Court sticks to surprise 1993 ruling Justices question boys' accusations By Betsy Llley Free Press Staff Writer MONTPELIER The Vermont Supreme Court has upheld a judge's surprise ruling in a 1993 custody case that questioned children's accusations of sexual abuse by a parent. The justices agreed to give custody to the boys' mother, Rita Phelps, who first charged father Steven Mullin with child sexual abuse. However, the court ordered a new visitation hearing in a ruling that will not be released until Monday. "You don't force kids to have visitation with rapists," said Phelps, who has become a vocal critic of the state and the courts. "If the Supreme Court can't understand it, the Legislature is going to have to pass a children's bill of rights law." Family Court Judge Amy Davenport in January 1 993 gave Phelps of Woodstock custody of her two sons and denied visitation to their father of Salt Lake City, Utah.

The ugly custody battle between the parents began in 1988. Mullin has maintained that the boys were coached by their mother to tell tales of abuse to authorities. Both boys, now 9 and 13, had said their father molested them. The eldest boy recanted his story before the 1993 hearing. Mullin denies the charge and has not been charged or convicted of a crime.

Judges and the Social and Rehabilitation Services Department took Mullin's side and refused to give Phelps custody in numerous proceedings during that five-year period. Davenport, who had ruled in Mullin's favor since hearing the case in 1990, said she made her decision because of the father's lack of empathy for his children. Mullin, who is at a military base in Mississippi until September, and his lawyer, William Robinson of Burlington, could not be reached for comment. Neither Phelps nor her Montpelier lawyer Alan Rosenfeld had seen the court decision. They had court personnel read them a summary of the ruling.

But they were not surprised that the -court wanted to reconsider visitation, because the eldest boy had changed his rural community of 5,800 since the arrests has become a public obsession. "I don't think what has happened has changed Northfield as much as it has exposed what's been here all along," suspended police chief Michael O'Neill said last week as he sipped coffee in a Northfield Falls cafe, looking drawn and weary even after a four-day fishing camp break. "There's so much hatred in this town. So much nastiness. Bitterness.

Now, what people are doing is just digging in their heels." Police face charges O'Neill, 46, and another officer, Tim Trono, face felony obstruction of justice charges in connection with an alleged cover-up of more minor offenses. Trono was jailed Monday after a judge ruled he tampered with evi- dence and threatened witnesses. Officer Brian Elwell faces misdemeanor unlawful mischief charges. The fourth officer, Kenneth Falcone, has pleaded See NORTHFIELD, 4A off the west edge of the North-field Common, invites inquiries. "Information Center: Fact and Fiction," it reads.

Stop in for either, and the proprietor will politely decline to talk about the topic on the lips of most residents. "We're a small business," she said, "and the people in this town are our customers. I have to get along with them. No, I don't have any answers." In the three months since four Northfield Police Department members including the chief were taken away in handcuffs, trust and civility have been draining from the town. People say their phones have been tapped.

Tires have been flattened. Residents warily scrutinize private investigators as they wander about gathering ammunition for lawsuits that are beginning to thump down. Among some Northfielders, a quick frisk for recording devices is almost as much a part of social protocol as a handshake. 4 Jamie Pillsbury (left), Northfield's youngest police officer, shares staff duties with Don McCormick, a seven-year Northfield veteran. Northfield's youngest officer carries on a search warrant, poring through police department files.

His boss, Chief Michael O'Neill, and three of his co-workers had been arrested. "I was dumbfounded," he said. "Just stunned. I couldn't believe it, and it took me a long time to begin believing it." Now 19 and still the youngest member of The call for help came in August from a woman whose suicidal teen-age son had barricaded himself inside an upstairs bedroom with a loaded rifle. Jamie Pillsbury, then 18 and just a few days into his first job as a Northfield police officer, responded.

"I was scared. The adrenalin was running, and I felt pretty much alone," he said. "That was a tough one to handle." He did his job well, disarming the boy, and returned to the low brick blockhouse on a downtown side street that serves as Northfield's police headquarters. The day was one of the two most memorable in Pillsbury's nine-month career, he said. The other was March 1 1, when he reported for duty to find Vermont State Police, armed with See POLICE, 4A Volume 167, No.

177 Tapes confuse messy Simpson trial Weather Cloud mixed with sun, chance of showers. High In the mld-70s. Tonight, lows 55-60. Regional forecast, 10A If By Sonla Nazarlo Los Angeles Times LOS ANGELES With less than a week to prepare for O.J. Simpson's preliminary hearing, prosecutors hunkered down Saturday to sift through evidence and set their strategies for the unanticipated "mini-trial" in which a judge will rule whether there is probable cause to believe the star murdered his ex-wife and her friend.

District Attorney Gilbert Garcetti, dressed in jeans, arrived at the Criminal Courthouse Saturday morning to help prepare for the hearing, scheduled for Thursday. Although prosecutors under the spoke of being upset that the panel had not been allowed to decide whether to indict the retired football superstar. The juror said the public seems to be treating the victims in a surreal manner, as if they were characters in a movie. "The victim is not O.J.," said the juror, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "O.J.

is not dead. This is the problem with the emphasis of the newspapers." Preliminary hearings can run anywhere from a single afternoon to many months. Some legal experts predict the Simpson hearing may last only a week. Index Jack Kemp talks about O.J., 7A I Simpson always avoided trouble, 8A speedy trial initiative could conceivably offer a single witness, Garcetti suggested Saturday they will go well beyond that, putting on a "skeleton" version of the full case. The matter was forced to a preliminary hearing after a judge Friday yanked the case from the county's grand jury, saying he was fearful some of its members had been tainted by the unrelenting news coverage.

One grand juror, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times Saturday, Movies 3D Opinion 4E Outdoors8C R. Estate11F Sports 1C Vermont 1B World 2A Auto 14F D. Barry 2D ClassifiecL1F Couples 5D Crsswrd 9F Forum 5E Money. 1E OLINN miSSILL, for the Free Press CHEW CHEW: Gillian Koch, 6, of Charlotte devours cotton candy during Saturday's Green Mountain Chew Chew, which continues today..