ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 10, 1995 TAG: 9512110108
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
Baptists cut funding to missions
RICHMOND - Money problems forced the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board to give its missionaries in Bosnia-Herzegovina only $120,000, about half of what they requested.
The money was sent last week, along with the full $135,000 requested for Croatia.
Bosnia is not the only area where missionaries did not get their full request. Missionaries sought $1 million in the Philippines, $123,000 in Brazil and $192,000 in Haiti. They received about half.
The Richmond-based board's human needs' coffers for foreign missions have declined for several years. Giving is down about 15 percent from last year, according to the Baptist Press.
``The request for Bosnia was about $230,000, which covered some items that were not life-threatening,'' said John Cheyne, a consultant with the board's human needs office. ``We are taking care of the life-threatening things first.''
- Associated Press
Fake drug same as real in law's eyes
KING GEORGE - The parents of a 13-year-old suspended from school for the year for possession of a powder that looked like cocaine have filed suit against the King George School Board to overturn the suspension.
David and Sandra Correia said their son's punishment is too severe. The boy has been attending an alternative school program since Nov. 1.
Superintendent Ralph Johnson declined to comment on the lawsuit. He said the Correias' son and nine other King George Middle School students were caught with a mixture of crushed Tylenol and flour.
In Virginia, it is a felony to sell, give or distribute an imitation of a controlled substance.
- Associated Press
Ex-councilman jailed for heroin dealing
RICHMOND - Former City Councilman Chuck Richardson has been given a 10-year jail term, with nine years suspended, for distributing heroin.
Henrico County Circuit Judge L.A. Harris Jr. on Friday also fined Richardson $1,000 and ordered him to begin his sentence immediately.
Harris listened to nearly four hours of testimony from 16 of Richardson's friends and colleagues, including Mayor Leonidas Young, all asking for leniency.
Richardson, 47, pleaded guilty Sept. 28 to heroin distribution, based on the videotaped sale of $50 worth of heroin to a former roommate from a drug treatment program he attended last summer in Cartersville.
Richardson's lawyers said they will seek to have Richardson transferred to the county's home incarceration program or returned to the Richmond drug treatment program where he had lived since his conviction.
``While I am willing to face the consequences of my addiction, I am not a drug dealer,'' Richardson told Harris.
He was led from the courtroom to the Henrico County Jail to begin his sentence.
Richardson has previously admitted to a heroin addiction that he said began in the late 1960s when he was a Marine in Vietnam.
- Associated Press
Street light sparks man's ire, gunfire
HARRISONBURG - Three people escaped injury when a man in a neighboring apartment opened fire on a street light shining into his bedroom window, sending at least two rounds through their apartment wall.
Harrisonburg police arrested Theodore Teague and charged him with public drunkenness and firing into an occupied dwelling.
Police said Teague, 67, was upset about the light shining in his window, grabbed a .22-caliber rifle and fired at the street light.
Pauline Berko, Mary Rowland and Robert Ramsay, all of Atlanta, were watching television when the first round came through the apartment. They called police, and about 10 minutes later, another round came through the wall of a back bedroom.
The three were in town to audit the books of Rocco Turkey Inc.
Police said Teague was unaware where his shots were going. He was booked Friday into the Rockingham County Jail and later released on $2,500 bond, a jail spokesman said.
- Associated Press
Exposure charge leads to dismissal
VIRGINIA BEACH - The captain of the Norfolk-based guided missile frigate USS Clark was relieved of duty Friday after a civilian judge earlier deferred an indecent exposure charge for one year.
The Navy said Cmdr. Bruce J. Cuppett, 45, who has commanded the Clark since September 1994, has been temporarily reassigned to shore duty pending a final decision by the chief of naval personnel.
Cuppett was charged Oct. 11 with exposing himself to a neighbor Sept. 25 at his Virginia Beach home.
A judge on Wednesday issued no finding in the case, deferring the matter for a year. If during that time Cuppett has no more brushes with the law, the charge will be dismissed.
- Associated Press
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