The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 18

Indictment alleges Fulton bribe attempt A iorcrcss bwycr is accused of offering $350,000 to Fulton Chairman Mitch Skandalakis. Burl Ives, who died of cancer Friday at 85, was a folk singer before folk singers were cool. His soothing brand of balladry made him famous for tunes from children's favorites to "My Gal Sal." -r-' i i A I mi iTIIT urimr mtt 1inlni i Kenyon then told Skandalakis, who, in turn, instructed Kenyon to contact the U.S. attorney. Federal authorities then wired Kenyon's Sandy Springs apartment and arranged to try and get Frantz to repeat the offer to Kenyon and Skandalakis on two separate occasions March 20 and 23 on videotape.

Skandalakis said Frantz wanted him or his board appointee to propose investing $5.5 million in board funds with companies for which Frantz was acting as an agent Skandalakis said Frantz called the day after his videotaped meeting "to determine what progress had been made to get this on the calendar for the pension board." Frantz's wife, Cora "Cory" Frantz, lost a race for a seat on the Public Service Commission last year to fellow Republican David Baker. Skandalakis attended University of Georgia law school with Mark Frantz. tion of the story." Martin said he expects Frantz, who has not been arrested, to make his first appearance in court in the next week. During a news conference Friday, U.S. Attorney Kent Alexander commended Skandalakis for coming forward and urged other elected officials to "follow Mr.

Skandalakis' example." Frantz, who was charged with a single count of attempting to bribe a public official, faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, if convicted. Fulton's pension board oversees more than $400 million in funds. As commission chairman, Skandalakis can either serve on the 11 -member pension board, or appoint a designee. He has not sat on the pension board since becoming chairman in 1993 but appointed Alex Suarez to the panel. Frantz initially made the offer to Skandalakis aide Kenyon on March 14, Skandalakis said.

Skandalakis said Frantz laid out specific details of his plan and even discussed how Skandalakis could hide the payoff. "There's no doubt in my mind that I was being bribed to place this business," Skandalakis said. "He Frantz said that everybody's doing this. This is the way business is done. This guy thinks that everybody down here is a crook.

We're not crooks. And we don't take bribes." The March 23 meeting and at least one more meeting between Frantz and Skandalakis aide Josh Kenyon were captured on videotape by the FBI. Frantz, who declined to comment on the indictment, must overcome these tapes if he is to beat the federal bribery charge. His attorney, noted Atlanta defense lawyer Jack Martin, said, "My experience is that the videotapes tell only a small por By Carlos Campos and Bill Rankin STAFF WRITERS 1 When Mark Frantz met Mitch Skandalakis three weeks ago in a Sandy Springs apartment, Frantz apparently had no idea that federal agents were recording his every move. According to a federal indict-- ment handed down Friday, "Frantz allegedly offered his old law school classmate a $350,000 bribe if Skandalakis would use his influence to steer at least $5.5 i million of county pension board funds to investments selected by Frantz.

Frantz, 37, a Norcross lawyer and licensed insurance agent, said he would share his commission from the sales of the investments with Skandalakis, the Ful-ioh' County commission chair-, man said in an interview. Teen held Burl Ives, a voice of Americana, dies in back to back carjack tries store, approached motorist Mary Katherine Wingate, 47, of Hampton, early Friday and begged a ride. On a nearby street, Young said, Spikes demanded Wingate turn over her mini-van. After Wingate refused, the teen stabbed Wingate in the side with a kitchen knife, pushed her from her van and drove off, Young said. A passing motorist called for help and Wingate was taken to Henry General Hospital, where she was in critical but stable condition Friday.

The carjacker abandoned Wingate's car at a grocery on Ga. 138, where she ap proached Diana Gardner and asked for a ride, said Clayton police Lt. Doug Jewett. She directed Gardner, 24, to a mobile home park two miles away. When they arrived, he said, the teen demanded Gardner's car.

Gardner refused. The teenager "produced a can of Mace and sprayed her," then stabbed her in the chest, Jewitt said. Gardner wrestled the knife from her attacker, who then ran away, Jewitt said. Gardner was taken to Southern Regional Medical Center, where she was listed in fair condition Friday. By Bill Montgomery STAFF WRITER A McDonough teenager was jailed Fri- dayand accused of stabbing two drivers in pack-to-back carjacking attempts in Henry and Clayton counties, police said.

Sameka Spikes, 17, who gave police conflicting home addresses, was arrested on aggravated assault and armed robbery charges. She is scheduled to appear in Clay- ton County magistrate's court April 21. Henry County Police Maj. Kenny Smith said Spikes, who works at a pizza delivery Ord Woman found dead still unidentified 3.i A young black woman found buried in a shallow accompanied by family members when he turned himself in, said the shooting was accidental, Tucker said. SENTENCE TWO GET LIFE TERMS: Two men who kidnapped and robbed four women, and raped three of them, have been sentenced to life in prison.

George Bernard Wright and Tyrone T. Chambers were charged with kidnapping four women from various metro Atlanta areas in February and March of 1992. But they weren't charged until December 1993, when Chambers' fingerprints were matched to others taken from the car of the first victim. Chambers then confessed and implicated Wright as his accomplice. Fingerprints found in two of the vehicles and on another victim's ATM receipt matched the two defendants.

In addition, DNA evidence linked Chambers to two of the rapes, and Wright to one. After a three-day trial, Wright was convicted of rape, aggravated sodomy, aggravated assault, kidnapping and armed robbery and was sentenced to life plus 80 years Thursday. Chambers pleaded guilty to similar charges and was sentenced Friday to life in prison. CHARGES EX-POLICE CHIEF CHARGED WITH THEFT: Former Valdos-ta Police Chief Charlie Spray, who resigned this week after being suspended because of his department's handling of a double murder case, has been charged with stealing government surplus property. Spray, 47, was charged with nine felony counts of theft by taking and released on $50,000 bond.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation seized $140,000 worth of property, including vehicles and power generators, from Spray's home April 5, said GBI agent John Pike. Spray faces up to 90 years in prison if convicted on all nine theft counts. grave a week ago still has not been identified, Atlanta police said Friday. Medical authorities believe the woman, age 20 to 25, died a natural death, or possibly from a drug overdose. The woman's body was found April 6 by children playing behind an empty home at 380 Atwood Street S.W.

"She didn't have a mark on hec," said Investigator Richard Eskew of the Fulton Cdunty medical examiner's office. "It appears that wh6ever buried her there dragged her face-up, then His career SONGS "Blue Tail Fly" "Wayfarin' Stranger" "Big Rock Candy Mountain" "Goober Peas" "My Gal Sal" "Holly Jolly Christmas" "Little White Duck" "I Know an Old Lady (Who Swallowed a Fly)" "A Little Bitty Tear" "Foggy Foggy Dew" THEATER "The Boys From Syracuse," 1938 "This is the Army," 1942 "Sing Out, Sweet Land," 1944 "Show Boat," 1954 "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," 1955 MOVIES "East of Eden," 1955 "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," 1958 "Desire Under the Elms," 1958 "The Big Country," 1958 "Summer Magic," 1963 "Ensign Pulver," 1964 Source: Associated Press No one else looked like Ives. He was a football player gone to seed, but he also was a Midwestern farm kid who made himself look like a refugee, a victim of a purge, perhaps, at some Danish university. His goatee, a short white triangle, always seemed too perfectly shaped. But there was nothing more American than Burl Ives.

He wrote his autobiography in 1948, after poet Carl Sandburg had anointed him "America's mightiest ballad singer, The book editor of The Washington Post assigned the review of the Ives book to none other than Walt Disney. The autobiography was ti: tied "The Wayfaring Stranger Ives was a Mason, not' a Communist. He rejected the fringe, insisting that singing the obscure songs of a nation's youth was not incompatible with starring in an ABC sitcom called "O.K. Crackerby," which aired in 1965-66, or playing a sly attorney in "The Lawyers," part of the NBC antholo-. gy "The Bold Ones" in the early 1970s.

That was back when lawyers could be believably portrayed as irascible but good men of common wisdom and charm. It was the voice, of course, that made Ives right for that part. We would entrust our children to him. and still wnnlrl Hulking men Orson Welles, Marlon Brando often hide terrible secrets, puzzles we would rather not solve. Burl Ives seemed simpler.

His first memory, he said, was of frons singing. One day he ride around the farm, The flies so numerous they did swarm. One chanced to bite him on lL Al- 1-1. He plucked hearts with folk songs By Marc Fisher WASHINGTON POST The blue-tail fly finally got away. Burl Ives, who died Friday at age 85, was the voice of Frosty the Snowman and the narrator of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." He found America's melodies in his own ancestry, the farm folk, evangelical preachers and riverboat gamblers who made up the Ives clan in southern Illinois.

And he soaked up more of the country's sounds when he quit Eastern Illinois State Teachers College to earn his meals singing his way across the land. In the end, Ives suffered from mouth cancer and slipped into a coma Wednesday at his home. Dorothy, his wife of 25 years, and three children were with him. Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives his parents picked the second of those names to sound like "ici-. cle," though Burl never quite learned why was 6 foot 2 and big, 300 pounds big.

He didn't sound it, though. There was something soft and quivering about his voice. He generated the sound you always hope to hear out of a clarinet but never do. He sang with a tremble and a heart that could turn silly into sad. On "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" and "The Foggy, Foggy Dew," on Gregorian chants and on hobo songs, he was recognizable in a flash.

He had a voice that, like Burgess Meredith or E.G. Marshall or Donald Sutherland or James Earl Jones, springs out at you from a commercial or a cartoon soundtrack and sticks. He tried to come up with a term for his voice, but never could. Not a tenor, not a baritone, not even a whiskey baritone, he said, because he didn't drink. The same gentle giant who is "Bawleyes" to 3-year-olds demanding to hear the Jimmy Crack Corn tape for the 437th time was also Big Daddy, the prickly patriarch in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof who silenced his wife with a sizzling "Ida, stop that yammering." He got a kick out of that, relishing the idea that the man adored by children could play a misanthrope on stage and screen.

In 1959, he won an Oscar for best supporting actor for his role in "The Big Country," a western about a feud over water rights. "He introduced a whole batch of fine old songs to people who didn't know them, and he sang them in a very straightforward, natural way," folk singer Pete Seeger said Friday. "Back in the '30s, folk songs were something only a few scholars knew about. Burl was one of the first outstanding folk singers who helped get a national audience." In the late 1940s, Seeger appeared on Ives' radio show. Then they didn't speak for more than 40 years because of political differences that Seeger doesn't care to talk about anymore.

Three years ago, when they were reunited onstage at New York's 92nd Street YMCA, they hugged and forgave each other. a shallow, shallow grave," he said. "We think she was a West Ehder, that she lived right there in the area." The victim was 5-foot-8, 140 pounds, and was wearing white Bugle Boy jeans, a white top and black Adidas tennis shoes. Anyone with information should call 730- 4400. crime a MAN CHARGED WITH MURDER: A 28-year-old man who said he accidentally shot a 14-year-old boy to death has been charged with murder, Atlanta police said Friday.

Antonio Harrison was killed by a shot to the chest, homicide Sgt. Calvin Tucker said. Anthony Tiller, 28, turned himself in Friday after the boy died. The shooting 'happened inside an apartment on Simpson Road N.W. Tiller, who was on proposed terminal Public may By David Goldberg STAFF WRITER "Although funding for it still looks doubtful, citizens get the opportunity Monday to sound off about a proposed train-bus for downtown Atlanta.

Georgia Department of Transportation (DOT) will hold a public hearing on the multimo- daf 'Station in room 305 of the Georgia World Congress Center from 4 to 7 p.m. DOT officials J' f'i 1 II Jt Police sketch of woman have its say will be taking comments on the federally required environmental assessment. The assessment focuses primarily on the noise and vibration impacts of re-introducing regular trains to the so-called Decatur Belt, a five mile north-south route that has seen only light use since the late 1980s. The trains primarily would affect residents of the Ansley Park area, some of whom have homes along the tracks, said Jim "They've had men and women aviators flying combat patrols over Bosnia and southern Iraq," he said. The aircraft carrier arrived about 3:30 p.m.

at the Norfolk Naval Base to a crowd of about 5,000 people. On board were 415 women among the crew and air wing of about 5,000. "It was nervous and tense until we got used to each other," Airman Gabriele Monaco, 19, of Middletown, N.J., said when she returned. "It was wonderful." All eyes were on the Eisenhower when it went to sea in Chambers, the DOT's project manager. DOT plans call for the Am-trak Crescent, currently the only passenger train serving Atlanta, to use the Decatur Belt to reach the new downtown station.

The train would take roughly a minute to pass, once in the morning and once in the evening. The $125 million multimodal terminal would replace Amtrak's From staff and wire reports Brookwood station and provide a base for a proposed network of commuter rail lines in the coming decade. Intercity bus lines, rental car agencies and suburban express buses also are expected to use the station, located at the former site of Atlanta's Union Station in the Five Points area. The environmental assessment is part of the $7.7 million design of the station. aboard a ship until the 20th week.

Some critics dubbed the ship a "Love Boat," a moniker that makes the Navy chafe despite a man who videotaped himself having sex with a woman on the ship. Both crew members were sent ashore, as was a warrant officer who watched the tape but didn't report it. Six couples went to the captain and declared they had fallen in love, while two women complained they were sexually harassed, said the April 17 issue of Time magazine. 1st women combat sailors back from sea By Amanda Kelt i ASSOCIATED PRESS Norfolk, The USS Ei senhower returned home Friday after six months at sea during which women flew, refueled planes and worked in the radio fodm of a warship for the first 'tifrifc on an extended combat tour. "They've made every commitment they've had to make, in the Mediterranean, in the Adriatic; in exercises with NATO allies' said an Atlantic Fleet spokesman, Cmdr.

Kevin Wensing. tober. Naysayers warned that the women wouldn't perform as well as men and fraternization would be a problem. There were 15 pregnancies, but 12 of the women boarded the ship that way last fall. The three others got pregnant while on shore leave off the ship in Europe two by their husbands and one who wasn't married.

All the pregnant women were reassigned back to Norfolk during the tour, a nonpunitive measure the captain decided on for health reasons. Under Navy policy, pregnant woman can remain I me mign; The devil take the blue-tail flyi.