Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 15

star Wyoming Bl Thursday, Nov. 7, 1985 Star Tribune Casper Wo Insurance Department investigation continues Chief examiner disciplined, Sen. John Vinich reveals State legal fight finished Latest Hopkinson appeal dismissed Ufi: it' bonny Kicr 1 Workers move a Jeffrey City house through launder Western Nuclear selling Jeffrey City structures JEFFREY CITY Jeffrey City may soon become just another spot on the road if Western Nuclear is successful in selling company-owned structures there. Resident Manager Bill Powell said they already sold 18 three-bedroom houses. There are 42 houses, 12 townhouses, 42 "cracker box" residences, two Hnplcvc: and six three-bedroom By JOAN BARRON Star-Tribune staff writer CHEYENNE Suspicion that a Wyoming Insurance Department examiner received double per diem payments set off an investigation of the department.

Insurance Commissioner Robert Schrader said Wednesday. Schrader said the investigation by the attorney general's Division of Criminal Investigation showed the employee had not received per diem pay from both the insurance company he examined and the state. Nevertheless, Schrader said, the investigation has continued. "It seems to keep coming back and coming back and coming Schrader said Wednesday. "To date they haven't been able to find anything." He said the State Examiner's Office recently gave the department "a clean bill of health." During a Joint Appropriations Committee meeting Tuesday Sen.

John Vinich, D-Fremont, revealed that the department's chief examiner, Tom Power, had been disciplined for taking a friend along on an examination of an insurance company in New York in April. Vinich said the friend "posed" as a Wyoming examiner. Although the insurance company, not the state, paid for the trip, Vinich said the department must be held accountable. Schrader said Power was disciplined by being placed on leave without pay for 10 working days. The commissioner said his predecessor, John Langdon, now a district judge, disciplined Power in 1978 by three reductions in salary and a one month suspension.

Schrader said the reasons for Langdon's actions were not documented in the department files. The disciplinary action was mentioned in a 1982 Legislative Service Office audit of the insurance department. Schrader said Power's recent action was not illegal but was improper. He said Power's friend, John Jackman, had the educational University trustees to meet Friday, Saturday in Laramie CHEYENNE (AP) Dismissal of Mark Hopkinson's latest appeal to the slate Supreme Court exhausted the condemned murderer's legal avenues in the state judicial system, and an appeal will be launched in federal court before his scheduled Nov. 19 execution, Public Defender Leonard Munker said Wednesday.

Hopkinson has sat on Wyoming's death row since 1979, when he was convicted or ordering four murders. Four previous execution dates have come and gone as Munker battled Hopkinson's death sentence in state and federal courts. The Nov. 19 execution date was set after the U.S. Supreme Court refused for the fourth time to consider the 35-year-old Bridger Valley man's case.

"It'll be before the 19th," Munker said when asked when a petition might be filed in U.S. District Court in Cheyenne. "It'll be close to the 19th because it takes a lot of work." Hopkinson was convicted in 1979 of ordering the 1977 bombing deaths of Evanston attorney Vincent Vehar and two members of his family, and the 1979 torture slaying of Jeffrey Lynn Green. Green was an acquaintance of Hopkinson who was to testify before a Uinta County grand jury about the Vehar bombing two days after he died. The inmate, one of three on Wyoming's death row, received three life sentences in the state penitentiary for the Vehar deaths and the death sentence for Green's murder.

Hopkinson was scheduled to die June 18, but the state Supreme Court stayed the execution while considering a fifth appeal from the inmate. The state court rejected the appeal but continued the stay pending the outcome of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on the case. Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court refused on Oct.

7 to hear the case, the state Supreme Court set the new execution date. On Tuesday the state Supreme Court rejected Hopkinson's latest 'appeal and affirmed a lower court ruling that denied him access to Uinta County grand jury proceedings. Munker had argued that Hopkinson needed access to the transcripts to get information that could clear him or result in a reduced sentence. The public defender said Wednesday that he's confident he'll obtain a stay to block the execution. "I don't plan on seeing an execution," he said.

"The federal court, it's like the ninth inning. There is a ninth inning and we're entitled to play it." The petition to the federal court will present many of the same arguments that were denied in state courts, said Munker. "In federal court, we have to go through and present those that we think have merit," he said. "Some of the issues have been resolved, frankly. Some have been resolved against us, we realize that." Munker couldn't recall all of the issues that had been resolved, but did say the "proportionality argument" was one of them.

That argument, contained in Hopkinson's appeal to the state Supr-nw Court in 1983, contended that -lopkinson's death sentence was unusually harsh in comparison to the sentence given Mike Hickey for his part in the Vehar bombing. The state Supreme Court rejected argument. By PHILIP WHITE Star-Tribune staff writer LARAMIE A special committee of the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees will present its recommendations on UW's School of Human Medicine during a Trustees' meeting Friday and Saturday. The ad hoc committee, chaired by Brian Miracle of Lander, was appointed by board president Don Chapin of Casper to review all School of Human Medicine functions, including the administration of the Family Practice Residency Centers in Casper and Cheyenne. The 1985 Legislature attached a footnote to a budget bill asking UW to investigate alternative funding possibilities for the residency centers.

Miracle Wednesday declined to summarize the committee's findings prior to the meeting. The School of Human Medicine report will be discussed at the Trustees' academic issues committee meeting at 8:30 a.m. Friday. Seven other trustees' committees will meet Friday at Old Main, with the regular board meeting scheduled Saturday morning at 9 a.m. All of the meetings are open to the public.

In-depth discussion of the' agenda items usually occurs only at the committee meetings. The board's budget committee meets at 9 a.m. Friday to discuss a supplemental budget request which UW will take to the 1986 Legislature. UW spokesman Vern Armed man surrenders to police Herschler confident oil prices will hold CHEYENNE A survey shows state revenue projections based on $25.50 per barrel oil are on target for the next two years, Gov. Ed Herschler said Wednesday.

Sen. Tom Stroock, R-Natrona, co-chairman of the Joint Appropriations Committee, had requested the check because he was concerned the projected price is too high Stroock, a Casper oil and gas producer, said most Wyoming oil is selling at $24 per barrel or less today. He pointed out that a $1 drop in the per barrel price of oil translates to a reduction of $2.5 or $2.6 million in state general fund revenues. But Stroock also said he could not fault the revenue projections because the state people who make the predictions have been so accurate in the past. Herschler said he contacted officials of Chevron, Exxon and Amoco.

The Amoco officials, he said, predicted oil prices would drop to per barrel in one or two years. But, the governor said, the other officials predicted the $25.50 price should hold until 1987. Gillette man loses try for gold, silver payday CHEYENNE In what one justice referred to as "perhaps the most frivolous appeal ever filed here," the Wyoming Supreme Court ruled against a man's attempt to be paid Worker's Compensation in gold and silver. The appeal was filed by Rodney Skurdal of Gillette. According to court records, Skurdal wanted the Wyoming Worker Compensation program to pay him with silver and gold, rather than by check.

"If he must be paid in other than gold and silver, Skurdal claims, the state owes him 32 paper dollars for each dollar designated on the face of the check. Skurdal bases his ratio upon the price'(in terms of paper dollars) of a silver Olympic coin series," recently-retired Justice Robert Rose wrote in his decision. Skurdal also asked the court to declare the printing of paper money by the federal government unconstitutional. But the court instead affirmed the district court's ruling and ordered Skurdal to pay the state $100 to compensate it for attorney's fees incurred in the "frivolous" case. Rock Springs voters back water system deal ROCK SPRINGS (AP) A plan for Rock Springs to purchase the privately-owned water system and part of a treatment plant that serve the city has been approved by the city's voters.

In a special election Tuesday, voters approved the purchase of the distribution system and water treatment plant by more than 300 votes 1,348 to 988. Both facilities are ow operated by the Pacific Power and Light Co. The vote was a non-binding advisory ballot and the proposal must receive formal approval from the Rock Springs City Council. FBI studying evidence in student's slaying ROCK SPRINGS Some pieces of evidence in' the investigation of the slaying of a high school sophomore have been sent to FBI labs for further analysis, a police detective says. Rock Springs police Sgt.

Mike Lowell wouldn't identify the nature of the evidence, saying only that the items were sent to the federal labs because specialized work was involved that couldn't be completed in state facilities. Police have yet to make an arrest in the Feb. 8 death of Tammy Shoopman, 16, whose body was found in a snowdrift behind Rock Springs High School. houses still available for sale, he added. Powell said the reason for the sale is to obtain cash by selling some company assets in order to meet present expenses.

Due to the low price of uranium, the mines at Jeffrey City have been shut down and the town's population has dwindled steadily since 1981. Shelton said major increases in UW's insurance premiums are the major items in the supplemental request. The budget committee will also discuss procedures for obtaining an annual audit of UW's intercollegiate athletics program. The outside audit requirement was one of several reforms adopted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association last summer. UW President Don Veal said Wednesday that UW's athletics department has been audited regularly in the past as part of the State Examiner's audit of the entire university.

Security clearances, cooperative programs with the Campbell County School District and Laramie County Community College, UW insurance coverage and the malt beverage permit for the student union are also on the trustees' agenda. The only item on the athletic committee's agenda is an update on the search for a new Cowboy Joe Club director, Shelton said. The full board will be asked to confirm an executive committee conference call decision Oct. 11. The committee selected Roger Schluntz as the architectural advisor for a national design competition for UW's $13 million American Heritage Center and the $5.9 million Art Museum.

Schluntz is director of the architecture school at Arizona State University. From staff and wire reports CHEYENNE Wyoming residents have been invited by Gov. Ed Herschler to get involved with a two-day campaign for peace by turning on lights from dusk to dawn during the summit meeting of President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. Herschler has proclaimed Nov. 19 and 20 "Turning On Lights For Peace Days" in Wyoming and has asked residents to keep some form of light burning through both nights to express their desire for peace.

"I invite all citizens to light Puis said. She was attacked by a man as she walked to her door after parking her car in front. The victim told police the attacker tried to pull a burlap bag over her head and drag her into the backyard. No weapon was observed, Puis said. Police have not established whether the two incidents are connected.

Puis said. "We're proceeding on the assumption that Jhey are related," he said. Although the main UW campus is a couple of miles from where these incidents occurred, UW police are taking extra precautions. "We are running an extra patrol car at night and have JACKSON (AP) A 53-year-old man was in the Teton County Jail Wednesday after he allegedly held a woman hostage in a Jackson attorney's office and fired gunshots into the walls and ceiling, Police Chief Dick Hays said. Hays said Jerry Tuggle, who is caretaker at the Battle Mountain Lodge in Sublette County, was arrested about 9:30 p.m.

Tuesday, after he voluntarily walked out of JOHN VINICH Department accountable background that would qualify him for trainee status as a contract examiner. The insurance company, he said, paid only Jackman's travel and per diem and Jackman actually did the examination work under Power's direction. "It wasn't like somebody cadged a free ride," Schrader said. C. A.

(Kip) Crofts, DCI chief special agent, said much of the investigation centers on travel by Insurance Department examiners. Crofts noted that the Insurance Department operates under a separate statute dealing with per diem expenses for travelling employees. Employees of other state agencies receive actual expenses when travelling out-of-state. But the insurance companies pay the expenses of Insurance Department examiners. Crofts said it would be "cleaner" if the insurance examiners charged the same per diem as other state employees and the department would then bill the insurance company after the fact.

State Auditor Jim Griffith said the Insurance Department violates "every rule that the rest of the state observes because the state is not paying for it." Since the insurance companies are footing the bill, the insurance examiners travel first class, Griffith said. the office and surrendered to police and sheriff's deputies, ending a five-hour standoff. Hays said Tuggle was armed with a handgun and an assault rifle. No one was hurt in the incident. According to Hays, Tuggle went into the office to talk to a former girl friend, Janet Wells, about 4:30 p.m..

She was released after an hour, the chief said. ment and accumulation of "weapons with the ability to devastate and possibly end human life on Earth (and) the increased speed and accuracy of weapons on both sides greatly increase the danger that nuclear war will occur." So the leaders of the two countries "share responsibility for the avoidance of nucleaer war, the peaceful resolution of global conflict and the instigation of joint cooperation projects," the proclamation said. Herschler said Wednesday the lights for peace project is a nationwide movement originated by a congressman from Wisconsin. awareness haven't been over to see us." According to a staff official at White Hall, the escort service was started by UW student Sen. Richard Reades.

"We have a list of 13 names of men who have volunteered to escort a girl to or from the dorms and the library or fine arts, for example, if she needs to go after dark," the White Hall official said. The service is getting two or three calls a night and is seeking more responsible men to volunteer. Miller said two foot-patrol officers walk a beat all night in the dormitory complex. Herschler invites residents to turn on lights for peace porchlights, candles or other lights from dusk to dawn on these days the proclamation said, in order to openly express their deepest hope that these two world leaders will heed the desire of the people around the world to work, raise children, build communities and pursue a quality of life free from the threat of war." Herschler said in his proclamation that several national and international religous groups have proposed the display of lights to exhibit their hopes for a productive summit meeting. He also said that the United States and the Soviet Union lead all other nations in the deveop- raise local assigned another man to the dorm area," campus police chief Miller said.

The campus police have always offered escort service to people leaving UW buildings after dark, he said. "We will send a patrolman over to take someone to their car or to the dorms, wherever they belong." Miller said his department has not been contacted regarding a new escort service which has been started by some students at White Hall. "I really don't approve of that type of program unless it's synchronized with the police department here," he said. "They r- ED HERSCHLER Proclamation for peace a result of the incidents. A 22-year-old University of Wyoming student was murdered Oct.

20 and an 18-year-old woman managed to escape from an attacker in front of her West Laramie residence just after midnight Sunday. The incidents occurred just three blocks apart. The body of Shelli Wiley was found by firemen in the living room of her burning apartment at 5:24 a.m. Oct. 20.

She had been struck with a blunt object and stabbed. Police said it is the first homicide in Laramie in nearly six years. The woman who escaped an attacker Sunday is not a UW student, 5 Laramie police say recent attacks By PHILIP WHITE Star- Tribune staff writer LARAMIE Two recent unsolved attacks on young women in West Laramie have provoked more calls to police for escort assistance, a Laramie police spokesman said Wednesday. "There is a new awareness," Lt. Gary Puis said.

"We have people calling and asking for escorts when they get off work after dark and we're trying to accommodate those people. We're also increasing patrols out in West Laramie." University of Wyoming police chief Don Miller said he has increased patrols on campus also as.