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N.Y. Giants visit Washington Redskins
Opinion, Page 6A
State, Page 8A
Sports, Page 1B TUESDAY, December 22, 2009
Volume XCV, No. 299
(252) 436-2700
www.hendersondispatch.com
Arrest on drugs charges
Federal court for area teen
By AL WHELESS Daily Dispatch Writer
Contact the writer at awheless@hendersondispatch.com.
Index Our Hometown . . . . . 2A Business & Farm. . . . 5A Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . 6A Light Side . . . . . . . . . 7A Sports. . . . . . . . . . 1-3B Comics . . . . . . . . . . . 4B Classifieds. . . . . . . 5-7B
Weather Today Partly cloudy
High: 48 Low: 25
Wednesday Partly cloudy
High: 47 Low: 28
Details, 3A
Deaths Bahama William B. Walker, 71 Creedmoor Donald E. McDowell, 50 Durham Johnnie M. Arrington, 58 Rodney R. Daniel, 30 Henderson Estella, P. Allgood, 87 Charles M. Barnett, 55 Virginia B. Bradsher, 92 Ruben Gilliam Jr., 73 Orlanda Small, 45 Kittrell William F. Fulcher, 52 New York Annie R. Jones, 68 Oxfdord Stephen W. Greene, 92
Obituaries, 3A, 4A
50 cents
Ashton Lundeby, his mother Annette
Kittrell man, 28, going to court on Dec. 28 A 28-year-old Kittrell man has been arrested on numerous drug charges by members of the Vice/Narcotics Unit with the Vance County Sheriff’s Office. Victor Levi Kearney of 1041 Bobbitt Road was charged with: • Felony possession with intent to manufacture, sell and deliver cocaine. • Felony possession with intent to manufacture, sell and deliver marijuana. • Selling and delivering cocaine. • Manufacturing marijuana. • Manufacturing cocaine. • Felony possession of cocaine. • Conspiring to traffic opiates. Bond was set at $30,000. A preliminary hearing was scheduled to be held Dec. 28 in Vance County District Court.
Site of new elementary school
March trial set in Internet bomb threats case
The Vance County Board of Education has filed a condemnation suit to obtain the highlighted area near the new elementary school off Garrett Road. The board said that the acre is needed for easier access to school property.
School board sues to gain acre at elementary school Strip said needed for ease of access to new site By AL WHELESS Daily Dispatch Writer
The Vance County Board of Education filed a condemnation lawsuit Thursday to obtain a one-acre strip of land to widen Garrett Road near the new elementary school being built. Southern Vance High School lies across the road from the strip. Reasons given in the plaintiffs’ complaint for taking the legal action included: “having access, ingress, egress and regress to the properties” owned by the board and/or operated as public schools in Vance. The document — which was submitted to the Clerk’s Office at Vance County Superior Court by Jerry Stainback, the board’s attorney — gave the listed owners the choice of an out-of-court settlement of $4,500 or $1,500 through condemnation. Named as defendants were: • Wesley D. Bowen and his wife, Cynthia Bowen, of 255 Roberts Ave. in Henderson. • Byron Calvin Brown Jr., executor of the Estate of Davis Hoyle Bowen, Byron Calvin Brown Jr. and Leatha A. Brown. The address given for all three was 6789 Vicksboro Rd. in Henderson.
• Citimortgage Corporation. • Select Portfolio Servicing, Inc. Wesley D. Bowen could not be reached by phone for comment on the lawsuit. Margaret Ellis, chairwoman of the Board of Education, declined Monday night to immediately comment when a reporter asked how much money the property owner wanted for the strip of land. The chairwoman said she would first have to talk with Jerry Stainback. The School Board’s attorney was not at his office Monday afternoon, said an employee at the law firm where Stainback is a partner. According to the complaint, the late Davis H. Bowen conveyed a lien on the property to Robert Ramseur, a trustee for Citimortgage Corporation, on Feb. 22, 1999, in exchange for a $52,800 loan. The complaint alleges that the debt is now being served by Select Portfolio Servicing, Inc. On Sept. 14, the Board of Education adopted a resolution authorizing condemnation to acquire the one-acre strip along Garrett Road. Contact the writer at awheless@hendersondispatch.com.
Finch family joins school name derby By AL WHELESS Daily Dispatch Writer
The Finch Family — which sold the Vance County Board of Education the Garrett Road site for the new elementary school — has entered the naming fray. In case the board decides to choose a name at its Jan. 11 meeting, the family plans to be represented by Jonathan S. Care, its attorney. Care also happens to be the attorney for the Vance County Commissioners, who voted to come up with the money needed for the new elementary school to be built. “Everybody else is being heard on this,” Chuck Finch, the family’s spokesperson, said Monday in a telephone interview. “We’d like our voice to be heard, too.” Finch called the Dispatch from his office in Live Oak, Fla., Please see FAMILY, page 3A
Currin to seek re-election in 2010 By WILLIAM F. WEST Daily Dispatch Writer
District Attorney Sam Currin said he will be seeking re-election to another four-year term in office. “Well, I think I’ve done a good job and I’d like to continue to do the job that I have,” Currin, 63, a Democrat, told the newspaper about being the chief Currin prosecutor for the district comprised of Vance, Granville, Warren and Franklin counties. “I enjoy doing it. I’m physically fit and mentally alert enough to be able to continue,” Currin said. Currin in November 2001 was elevated from an assistant district attorney position by then-Gov. Mike Easley. Currin replaced David Waters, who retired after
having been the district attorney since 1979 and who is presently in private practice in Oxford. Currin has a combined three decades of prosecutorial experience. Currin, of Oxford and a Granville County native, earned his undergraduate degree and his law degree from Wake Forest University. He was in private practice for half a decade and worked as special counsel for patients at what was John Umstead Hospital at Butner. Currin is an avid reader, with a particular interest in novels with legal plots. And Currin has long been interested in politics, having served on the Oxford City Commission from 1983-99. The primary election is set for May 4, with the general election to be Nov. 2. Contact the writer at bwest@hendersondispatch.com.
Election 2010 dates to remember • Noon Feb. 8 — Opening for filing by candidates in the May 4 primary • Noon Feb. 26 — Deadline for filing by candidates in the May 4 primary • One-Stop Early Voting before the May 4 primary — April 15-May 1 • One-Stop Early Voting before the June 22 second primary, if necessary — June 3-June 19 • One-Stop Early Voting before the Nov. 2 general election — Oct. 14-Oct. 30 Note: Those seeking to run as unaffiliated candidates must file a petition at or before noon on the last Friday in June preceding the general election.
By WILLIAM F. WEST Daily Dispatch Writer
A two-week trial is set to begin March 2 in federal court in Indiana for Ashton Lundeby, the Granville County teen accused of making bomb threats via the Internet. Chief Judge Robert Miller Jr., of the Northern District of Indiana, cited the complexity of the case and Lundeby’s need to obtain and review information and to subpoena witnesses. And Miller said issuing a continuance outweighed the public’s best interest and Lundeby’s constitutional right to a speedy trial. Lundeby’s mother, Annette, contacted Monday by the newspaper, blasted the government, saying that, “They’ve been trying to get him to plead since midsummer” and that, “He’s not guilty.” “And my son said that he would stay in there 30 years before he will plead guilty to something that he didn’t do,” she said, a reference to his having remained in detention in a facility in Indiana. She claimed the government has been intimidating and tampering with witnesses so they cannot have contact with her or with her son. “This is what they do,” she argued. “This is the nature of the beast.” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Hays, who is prosecuting, declined comment Monday when contacted by the newspaper. Miller, at a Dec. 3 hearing, set the date for the trial, which Hays said will be in South Bend, Ind. Lundeby, 16, was arrested in March by FBI agents at his home west of Oxford and was brought before a federal magistrate judge in Raleigh. The magistrate judge ordered Lundeby transferred to the Northern District of Indiana. Lundeby was indicted July 8. The grand jury charged that Lundeby, using the pseudonym “Tyrone,” and unnamed conspirators directed bomb threats to universities in the Hoosier State, to universities throughout the country, including UNC-Chapel Hill, and to two FBI offices, one in Louisiana, the other in Colorado. The grand jury additionally charged that, as part of the conspiracy, conspirators offered, for a nominal fee, to make bomb threat calls, often to high schools, to cause closures. Lundeby’s then-attorney, Robert Truitt, later argued his then-client needed to undergo dental work and to be released to complete classes for the spring semester and to be able to work ahead to receive credit for fall semester classes. Hays maintained he had been advised the U.S. Marshal’s Office was making sure Lundeby’s dental needs were attended to. Please see LUNDEBY, page 3A