El Paso Times from El Paso, Texas • 20

(fl El Paso Times UH Saturday. Jan. 15. 1994 TCX2S Military court case under way Witnesses describe Ninja-Iike robber Associated Press Making Vidor home ft I On-, it it rrl CO CO ism CO CO hrt CS a prj 3 rn CO -a cr 25 Witnesses at the court-martial of an Air Force rescue commando Friday described a bank robber garbed head to foot like a Ninja warrior, complete with samurai sword. But what they -x-m so 53 i -7 1 Associated Press Dornice Jackson walked through a convenience store Friday in Vidor, Texas.

Jackson moved to the all-white Vidor Village housing complex Thursday and was driven to the store by a U.S. marshal. It Srf lit remembered most were his eyes. That's not enough to identify James Douglas Pou, his attorney said. The Aug.

2, 1988, robbery of Coastal Bend National Bank in Corpus Christi is the most serious charge facing Pou, 34, who is accused of holding up the bank after faking his death and living a new life with a new family for five years. In all, Pou faces 19 years in prison if convicted of the robbery, escaping from a confinement facility in March Air Force Base, desertion, using a false name to get a passport, and lesser offenses. The bank robbery charge carries a 10-year maximum sentence. Johnny Figueroa, of Mathis, Texas, testified he was making a deposit at a teller window when the robber walked in wearing a poncho, stocking mask, a net over his face, a samurai sword across his back and a canister in one hand that looked like a grenade. Figueroa, a social worker, said he was used to looking at people's eyes to judge their Lr.

Wff(iniilwmlnwrtrii't'' 1 ti 8 ft. 5 mhntl Faced with medical bills from treatment for Marie Roy's multiple sclerosis and their 7-year-old son's heart defect, the Rays had sought the divorce last August after 10 years of marriage. Roy said the divorce granted Thursday should restore eligibility for Medicaid coverage for both his son and wife. He said state human services officials told him they have no rules prohibiting divorced couples from living together. Not enough prisons, county official says AUSTIN State officials Friday passed an emergency resolution to spend $168.7 million to build prisons within the next six months to house an additional 15,000 inmates.

But a county representative said that wasn't enough to relieve dangerous conditions caused by the backlog of nearly 30,000 convicted felons in county jails. The action by the Texas Board of Criminal Justice "is similar to mailing a garden hose to someone who has reported a house fire," said James Allison, general counsel of the County Judges and Commissioners Association of Texas. He said the backlog of state inmates in county jails has increased 60 percent in the last year and resulted in 28 jails exceeding 150 percent of thir capacity. Couple divorces to get Medicaid LIBERTY, Texas They say they're in love, but Butch and Marie Roy got a divorce anyway to qualify for Medicaid coverage. "I was making sure there wasn't a certain type of look in his eyes that would tell me we're in Figueroa said.

Bank employees also said they could give no physical description of the robber other than his eyes. None of them identified Pou as the robber. Paul Rivera, a Corpus Christi police detective sergeant, said the robber fled out a back door and disappeared in rough wood- ed country near the Nueces River. "They didn't put him in the bank," said Paul Nestor, Pou's Also: BROWNSVILLE, Texas American Express Co. subsidiary executive Antonio Giraldi and former employee Maria Lourdes Reate-gui pleaded innocent Friday to federal charges of laundering $30 million for a reputed Mexican drug organization.

ODESSA, Texas Authorities have dropped a murder charge against Faye Irene Bradley, a 91 -year-old woman accused of fatally striking her husband of 67 years with a walking cane. Times wire reports attorney. Pou has admitted staging his death in May 1987, making it appear that he would be swept down the Rio Grande River near Albuquerque after a bicycle lis cSSStt 55 Hew Mexico Family goes on trial Tuesday Members allegedly ran extensive drug ring Associated Press Several members of a southern New Mexico family go on trial Tuesday in Albuquerque on charges related to an alleged drug ring that branched out into real estate and race horses. Prosecutors say the defen dants owned dozens ot racehorses, real estate in Deming, Las Cruces, Phoenix and Salt Lake Seven defendants have entered guilty pleas. One, Jesus Martinez, joined a list of fugitives when he failed to show up for trial Monday.

Charges have been dismissed against one defendant; another will get a separate trial. On trial will be Gabriel Aguirre's brother, Eleno Aguirre; his son, Michael Aguirre; his daughter, Dolores Contreras; his sister, Paula Den-ogean; his brother-in-law, Ruben Renteria; his nephew, David Morales; his girlfriend, Sonia Galle-gos; and Saul Tarango, an alleged employee of the organization. The jury trial before U.S. District Judge John E. Conway will hear more than 300 government witnesses and will be introduced to 2,700 documents, including tax records, cashier's checks and other bits of a paper trail that led to the indictments.

dants face at least 10 years if convicted. Attorneys chose 12 jurors and four alternates this week to hear arguments in a trial that is expected to last two or three months. Opening arguments are set for Tuesday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom English, who is prosecuting, has said the government believes the organization generated $70 million and sold more than 100,000 pounds of marijuana.

The government alleges the conspiracy spans seven years, from 1985 until October 1992, when a federal grand jury handed down a 30- page indictment. Law enforcement agents in Deming and elsewhere picked up 19 of 22 alleged conspirators named in the original indictment and seized hundreds of pieces of property, including Royal Quick Dash, winner of the 1991 All American Futurity horse race. city, larm macninery ana a cattle company. Authorities allege the organi nz 'Q 3 -o TV Era zation, reportedly headed by Gabriel Rodriguez Aguirre, began with people backpacking 30-pound loads of marijuana across the U.S. border south of Columbus, N.M., in Army-issued duffel bags.

If convicted, Aguirre and his son, Michael, who have prior felony convictions, face mandatory minimum sentences of 20 years in prison. The other defen State court finds grandmother guilty of taking child for more than a year Associated Press CARLSBAD State district court jurors have found a Monument, N.M., woman guilty of cus-t i a 1 interference after I 'Z Bill Quickel said jurors began deliberating at 2:05 p.m. Thursday after hearing closing arguments, and announced they'd reached their verdict about 6 p.m. Farmer had disappeared with Jerad Lee Peters, who was 3 years old at the Dec. 11, 1990, authorities said.

The Lea County Sheriffs Department and the FBI tracked Farmer and the boy to Gulf Shores, where they had stayed with other relatives for about eight months. Authorities said the two disappeared again and were missing until Aug. 19, 1992, when a woman in Salt Lake City saw she disappeared Jerad on television and called police. The story had been broadcast on the television shows "Unsolved Mysteries" and "Maury Povich." Jerad and his mother, Ladon-na Chew, were reunited three days later, according to court records. Chew testified during the trial that her mother was angry she refused to let her take the child out of New Mexico.

Quickel said he told jurors in his opening statement the dis-'pute was "a matter of control." "The grandmother got mad because she didn't have control of her adult daughter," he said. a co" I Jii 1 with her grandson for more than a year. Judge Fred Watson set fien-tencing for Feb. 18 in Lovington for Patricia Farmer, 51, who faces a term up to 18 months in prison on the fourth-degree felony charge. Assistant District Attorney.