
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 13, 1990                   TAG: 9003133347
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Short

WITNESS IN N.Y. RACIAL ATTACK CHARGED IN DEATH

A key prosecution witness in a racial attack that claimed the life of a black teen-ager was charged with second-degree murder Monday after refusing to cooperate with prosecutors.

John Vento, who disappeared for three months but later resurfaced, was charged after he said he would not testify against friends charged in the slaying last August in Brooklyn. Seven other young white men from Bensonhurst have been charged in the shooting of 16-year-old Yusuf Hawkins.

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes said Vento, 21, was arrested in his office and ordered held for arraignment.

Hynes said he still has a "trial ready" case without Vento. But a prosecutor who spoke on condition of anonymity called Vento's defection "a major blow."

- Associated Press

by CNB