The Miami News from Miami, Florida • 5

JACK ROBERTS "4 V' Daytime robbery Thursday, August 5, 1976 i 5A VAv invormanr to-testify VA'V'H -a-'V 'r(, 'a-; By HILDA INCLAN Miami Nw Latin Community Mritir Miguel Angel Peraza, 34', the elusive FBI informant whose tips led to the arrest of three men In the alleged attempted bombing of a Little Havana adult bookstore May 6, is due to testify in their trial today. Late last night Peraza was granted immunity from state charges against him for allegedly placing a stick of dynamite with- PERAZA out a fuse in his own car last Nov. 7. The charges, which were filed May 12 by the Dade Public Safety Department, were based on the testimony of a PSD sergeant who said Peraza had told him during informal questioning that he had put the dynamite in his own car. Peraza had denied the admission.

His trial on those charges, scheduled for later this month, will be suspended provided he testifies against the three defendants in the attempted bombing case Antonio Rafael de la Cova, Bias Jesus Corbo and Gary Latham. Latham yesterday pleaded guilty sYVA' Miami Spray play News Staff Thoto by BILL REIXKE Like tnany people, Dan Johnson has a rigid work pattern. For 25 years, tie has been showing up at his fillirjg station at 10045 S. Dixie Highway at precisely 6:30 a.m. This gif es him time to check and clean up the paperwork hVfore help and customers arrive a' half hour later.

Threq" weeks ago Johnson began noticing on his morning check that new tires were missing from the racks. Only the best stuff the radials were being taken. Johnson called the police and a report was dutifully made. There was no evidence of a break-in but Johnson didn't choose to believe it was an employe theft. Then he changed his work habit.

Instead of turning off the burglar alarm when he arrived, he left it on in the garage section. Voila! Three mornings later, the alarm went off and Johnson raced out of his office in hot pursuit of a stranger dropping tires as he ran. Police don't seem concerned Johnson chased the man into the parking lot of the Keyes Co. realty office next door. The thief jumped into a getaway car.

Johnson could have killed him but he chose to blast out the rear window of the vehicle with a blast from a 16 gauge shotgun. The man sped off, going south in the northbound lanes of Dixie Highway. Johnson was out almost $2,000 in tires and without insurance. And the show of strength didn't help much. Last Saturday two men entered the station during working hours and took a tire-balancing niachirre and a box of tools valued at $2,100.

So Johnson is out $4,100 in less than a month's time. He says police don't seem very much concerned with this type of crime. When they catch a suspect, says Johnson, the person is usually charged with a misdemeanor because they didn't break into a building. They just walk into a busy place and start ripping off expensive equipment: It didn't take much looking to find others with Johnson's problem. JuAt a few blocks north on the highway, Bruce Napier said someone drove into his station last Sunday at p.m.

during a busy period. When he left he had a brand new battery; charger worth $118 with him. "I should know what they cost," said Napier. "I've had five of them stolen." Like Johnson, Napier said he no longer had a big problem with night break-ins. But the loss of goods and equipment during working hours was fierce.

Napier estimated he was out $7,000 in one year's time. Only once has Napier come close to catching anyone. In that instance the thieves dropped some tires they were carrying and Napier, thinking twice, decided he wouldn't shoot. He motioned the thieves to get going. But Napier will show you that there's an ax handle behind each door entering the station.

He picks up one of these heavy pieces of wood and says, "The next time I catch one of these guys I'm going to break some arms and legs." Napier said the police did catch one man who took $200 from the cash drawer and ran. "But they knocked it down to petty larceny," says Napier. A few more blocks north, at a Sunoco station on Kendall Drive, manager Joel Kaye said people have walked out with the station's hydraulic jack, tires and even the cash register. They'll take anything, said Kaye. "We close the door of the garage if we aren't working on a car," he added.

"Wouldn't have a tool left if we didn't. And we don't loan tools." Petty crimes? It certainly didn't seem petty to me. I went to four more stations. All reported sizable losses during working hours. It's the new, safer way to steal, and as near as I can determine it hasn't been fed into the records system to reflect what's really happening.

Families worry i rid to placing a pipe bomb at the book store but quickly withdrew the plea when it became apparent that de la Cova, a longtime friend, was going to plead innocent. Under a plea- bargaining arrangement, Latham was to plead guilty to four of six counts against h.m. He also would have been required to testify against de la Cova and Corbo. Assistant State Auorney Hank Adorno said the state decided to call Peraza to the stand after de la Cova's lawyer, Mel Black, accused the informant of "creating and fomenting" the bookstore incident in an effort to ease the public clamor for arrests in the two-year wave of terror which had swept Miami. Black is using FBI entrapment as his client defense.

In his opening statement Tuesday, Black said Peraza had furnished the explosives found in Latham's apartment and manufactured the bomb used in the bookstore. Black also said Peraza had been pressured into working for the FBI during the investigation of the attempted dynamiting of his own car. Peraza is expected to testify that he had been working for the FBI as an unpaid, voluntary informant in cases involving suspected Castro-Communist infiltration in Miami since 1973. The leading FBI agent in the attempted bookstore bombing, George Kiszynski, is also expected to clarify Peraza's role and the conditions of his official recruitment by the agency last November and to testify about his prior iiK volvement with it. Peraza was paid $3,500 in expenses by the FBI.

Miami Police Officer Arturo Castro, under cross-examination from Black yesterday, testified that a meeting was held May 12, before Peraza's arrest, to decide what to do with the warrant against him. It was attended by FBI agents, Miami policemen and Metro police officers who had taken the warrant out on Peraza. The possibility of having the warrant quashed in court was dis- cussed when the FBI told the other officials that Peraza was their in-, formant in the bookstore case. Castro said the' decision was reached, however, to go ahead and serve the warrant. Circuit Court Judge Ellen Mor-phonios ordered the state yesterday to reveal to the defense all agreements reached and negotiatons attempted between them and Peraza.

Peraza showed up outside the courtroom yesterday for a deposition. It was last night with questioning from Assistant State Attorney George Yoss and by defense attorneys Alfonso Sepe, Nathan Kurtz and Black. The three defense attorneys yesterday joined in a motion to sup-press all evidence police and FBI agents had seized in Latham's Boca Raton apartment the day of his arrest. Judge Morphonios ruled that the items were admissable as evidence, Nester Guadalupe and Derwin Roman are having a splashing good time in fountain at 3000 admiring glances from many passersby but the boys seem oblivious to its artistic merit. Biscayne Blvd.

The metal sculpture has drawn Whigham going to U. of Alabama resiqns chief man several members would prefer as head of the system: Dr. Leonard Britton, who had been associate superintendent for instruction. This gave the school system two deputy superintendents and a search continues for a third, to head the business department. Dr.

Johnny Jones is deputy superintendent for school operations and, until Britton's promotion, was second in command to Whigham and the logical choice as his successor. Whigham joined the school system in 1905 as deputy superintendent. He was named superintendent in January 1968, and almost immediately faced his first major crisis a statewide teacher strike. As he leaves, the teachers union and the school board are at impasse in current salary negotiations. Born in Eastman, Whigham earned his bachelor's degree at Emory University, his master's at the University of Georgia and doctorate at New York University.

He was a teacher and school principal in Georgia, an administrator in Wilmington, and superintendent of schools in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Four members of the board had sought ways to remove Whigham late last year. All four Sheppard, Linton Tyler, Ethel Beckham and Robert Renick are now running for re-election. Renick is a candidate for U.S. Congress, the schoo vember and go on vacation until the Dec.

8 date. His pension plan would be effective when he is 65. Whigham, who will be 55 Sept. 11, will become chairman of the Department of Educational Leadership at the Alabama college and also serve as a professor within the department. The school offered him a job nealy a year ago and kept the offer open until he had a chance to leave the Dade school system at an appropriate time, Whigham said.

4 He leaves a position for one that pays slightly more than $40,000, he said. More important than the actual salary, Whigham said, is a provision in his new contract that will allow him considerable time for study and outside consulting work. "It may sound crazy, but I really love this field," Whigham said. Whigham said his departure was not motivated by upcoming board elections in which four members face opposition. Board members will decide at their next meeting Sept.

8 how to select a replacement. They said yesterday that they would name a search committee to review candidates from around the country. Sheppard said that local administrators will be considered along with all other applicants for the job. Last month the board promoted to deputy superintendent the others are seeking re-election to the school board. A fifth board member, Phyllis Miller, is also running for re-election, but was one of the three who supported Whigham.

After being informed by School Board Attorney Frank Howard that they needed reasonable grounds for firing Whigham and using about $75,000 of taxpayers' money to buy up his contract the four backed away from their efforts to replace him. Charges challenge radio 96X license The license of WMJX-FM (96X) has been challenged due to charges of falsifying news, using misleading advertising and promotion and fraudulent billing. The Federal Communications Commission has ordered a hearing into the charges, explaining there is some. evidence to indicate Bartel Broadcasting is unfit to hold the station's license. The charges stem partly from an April, 1975 contest by morning personality Greg Austin, who is no longer with the station.

Reports by Austin from the Devil's Triangle were used on the news. The FCC is questioning the propriety of that, according to station manager Carl Como. Dade By ELLIS BERGER Miami Nawi Reporter He held the job through crises over desegregation, student disruptions, a teacher strike and grand jury investigations into crime and lw- -wqj Vi0encei But as he steps down as i superintendent of the Dade school system, V- the nation's sixth largest, i Dr. Edward Whigham says it took a special offer from the University of Aiaoama 10 WHIGHAM lure him away. "I told a friend the other day that it's almost as hard to get out of the school system as it is to get in," Whigham said yesterday after reading his resignation statement at the regular meeting of the school board.

Only School Board Chairman Ben Sheppard said he knew about Whigham's intention to retire. And he only learned about it shortly before noon yesterday, Sheppard said. His resignation is effective Dec. 8, six months before his four-year contract with the school board is due to expire. He will remain on the job until the beginning of No ragua in three 40-foot boats Maco, Miguelito and Canario with enough supplies and water for the week-long trip.

In two communiques received by the State Department through the Swiss Embassy on July 24 and 28, the Cuban' government said the men were seized at Punta Cayo Ra-pado, a small key two miles off Dimas, a town in Cuba's westernmost province of Pinar del Rio. They are officially being held in Pinar del Rio for violating Cuban territorial waters. The country recognizes a three-mile limit and a 12-mile customs zone. Their condition is reported as satisfactory, but no further information has been released. The State Department has asked the Swiss for more details of the men's detention.

"All this is complicated by the fact that they are all Cuban-born and the government of Cuba might decide they fall under Cuban national said the State Department official: Boulevard lounge damaged by bombs Cubans still hold nine lobstermen By WILLIAM TUCKER Miami Nawt Reporter "I had just walked out to pick up something at Sears when this guy walked past me and threw a bottle into the lounge, and then he threw another and another." Barmaid Candy Battaglia described the events yesterday at the long-popular Johnny Raffa's Lobo Lounge at 1330 Biscayne Boulevard which was extensively damaged by fiery Molotov cocktails. As firemen and police rushed to the scene, a witness pointed out a man leaning against a palm tree near the blaze watching the excitement and identified him as the firebomber. Miami Officer Mike McDermott arrested him. The suspect was identified later as Idus Taylor, 42, of 1852 NW 48th who had sought a job as a dishwasher at the lounge earlier in the day but was turned down by Hillary Annunziato, wife of the lounge owner. Fire battalion chief Cecil Albury said it was "very fortunate" no one was injured in the bombing which burned up a popular but empty booth beside the shaded front window.

Other empty booths were damaged and the square bar received smoke damage. It was estimated the bar-lounge would be closed for several weeks until repairs dould be made. Barmaid Battaglia said only two or three customers were at the bar after lunch when she left for a quick trip to Sears. A cook and dishwasher were in the kitchen area at the rear. Mrs.

Annunziato was in the office upstairs. All escaped through the rear into an alley when the bottles came crashing through the front. Fire officials said they didn't want to think about what might have happened had the bottles been thrown during the lunch hour, when the lounge is usually crowded. The owner of the Lobo Lounge, Vincent Annunziato, was en route home from a fishing trip at Bimini. He is the third operator of the lounge since Johnny Raffa retired about two years ago.

Raffa had moved the lounge across Biscayne from a bigger location on the west usideA.AV.VAA -r'h By HELGA SILVA Miami Newi Reportar The. release of nine Miami-based lobster fishermen detained in Cuba since their ships were seized by authorities there' early last month may take awhile, if the experience of a few other American vessels that wandered into Cuban waters this year is any indication. According to a State Department official, five boats bearing American flags and registration have been seized by Cuban authorities who claimed they intruded into Cuban territorial limits. The vessels and their crews were all eventually released, but one captain was held two months, the spokesman said. The possibility of such a long wait greatly concerns the families of the nine fishermen seized July 19.

Six of the crew members are Cuban-born American citizens, the other three are American residents who were also born in Cuba. Their, families last saw the men when they left Miami July 8 on a lobster fishing expedition to Nica Miami News Staff Photo by BOB MACK Idus Taylor, suspect in firebcrnbing.