European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 22, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 a the stars and stripes wednesday january 22, 1992 pizza Parlours hit by gang of robbers. A a i Ujj .1 i fi1_ i. 1 . San Francisco a merchants have put up a $10,000 Reward and employees Are taking precautions As police try to Stop a gang of robbers that has hit 29 pizza Parlours in Northern California since August. A people Are afraid because the Guys Are armed a said Vallejo police detective Rick Nichelman who has been tracking the robberies. A group of Vallejo merchants is offering $10,000 to attract tipsters. The owner of one Vallejo pizza parlor plans to shut Down or sell because of the robberies Nichelman said. The robberies began aug. 23 and have hit several major chains including pizza hut dominoes and the san Francisco based round table in most cases a pair of ski masked people enter near closing time order everyone to the floor yell a a done to look at me a and vault the counter showing a a very aggressive manner a Nichelman said. Each Holdup has netted $200 to $1,000 in Cash said Nichelman who would not say How much the robbers have accumulated. Police do not know Why the robbers have focused on pizza except that the restaurants have proved Good targets. Parlours have been urged to keep Small amounts of Cash on hand and to use video monitors. Nichelman said he Hopes leads will result from the Jan. 3 arrest of one Man suspected of robbing a pizza restaurant in Fremont about 40 Miles South of Vallejo. The Man one of two who hit the restaurant in the same style As the other robberies has ties to Vallejo he said. Thirteen robberies have been in Solano county where Vallejo is located 15 in Contra Costa county and one in Alameda county. So far there have been no serious injuries but the robberies have become More menacing in recent weeks with some victims getting roughed up. Quot we re concerned a Nichelman said. A i think its just natural that they re probably going to gain a Little Confidence As they keep  Vallejo site of a Large Marine Park about Halfway Between san Francisco and Sacramento is a Blue Collar town of 115,000 and has been troubled by crime Nichelman said. Pizza restaurant managers say sales have not dropped As they try to walk a line Between warning patrons and scaring them. Quot it does no to bother me a customer Michael Lommel 23, said As he ate a pizza at a Contra Costa county parlor. A we feel Safe a said the restaurant owner Robert Vafa. A the police station is two blocks  judge in Attica Case takes untimely vacation Buffalo . Apr jurors in a liability lawsuit Over the deadly 1971 Attica prison riot have been left staring at a squawk speaker phone to get instructions from the judge a who went on vacation to the Caribbean. Attorneys and some court observers said monday that . District judge John Elfvin is running an unreliable a dial a judge hot line and that his Winter trip has turned the end of a painful 17-year-old lawsuit into a farce. Elfvin left for a 3-week vacation to Barbados last week saying he would be available by Telephone to answer questions from jurors who began deliberating a week earlier. He turned the Case Over to . Magis Elfvin trate Edmund Maxwell. On Friday attorneys and jurors gathered in the courtroom for their first conference Call with Elfvin 74, who is Sam retired. Quot it was almost surreal a said Joseph Heath an attorney for former Attica inmates who Are suing four former new York officials involved in the Attica uprising. Attorneys and jurors clustered around a speaker phone on the lawyers lectern. For nearly an hour they strained to hear Elfving a garbled replies to jurors questions. At one Point the phone went dead. When court officials tried calling Elfvin Back they apparently connected with a woman at a Caribbean restaurant. The courtroom erupted in laughter. Once the judge was Back on the line the magistrate recorded Al amp ims answers to the jury and played it Back to them later. The process took More than four hours. It could have been accomplished in minutes if Elfvin had been there observers said. A it was one of the coldest Days of the year in Buffalo and Here a a judge sitting in the Caribbean dealing with one of the most complicated lawsuits in . History a said Bruce Jackson a University of Buffalo prison expert who has attended most of the trial. A it insults the plaintiffs. It insults the  Martin Adelman criminal Justice chairman for the new York state bar association said he had never heard of a judge taking a vacation in the Middle of jury  we done to try cases on the Telephone a he said. A we done to mail it in. We done to Call it  Quot such outrageous judicial indifference risks the reputation of the entire Federal Bench a the new York times said in an editorial sunday. A it also risks Legal error that could prolong litigation that has taken two  Elfvin who handles a reduced caseload for the Western District of new York has been the judge in the lawsuit since inmates filed their claim in 1974. Former inmates Are seeking $2.8 billion in damages from the defendants who include the Attica Warden and new Yorkus prison commissioner at the time. The inmates say they were beaten and tortured during and after the police assault that ended the four Day uprising on sept. 13, 1971. Before it ended prisoners killed three inmates and a guard police gunfire killed 29 inmates and 10 hostages. Elfvin said his trip was an annual vacation that his family had been talking for years. He had told attorneys when the trial opened last october he would be taking the vacation even if the trial was not finished. A there Are two entities in this world that generally speaking can Call their own shots a said defense attorney Joshua Effron. A one is the Pope and the other is a sitting . District  at first Elfvin said he planned to Seal any verdicts reached in his absence until he returned feb. 10. Because of attorneys complaints Elfvin agreed to have the verdicts announced immediately. A everything throughout the trial has been met with complaints arguments and objections from both sides a Elfvin said last week. A a it a been that kind of Case very emotional. Some of these people have lived with this for 20 years and they be been at each others  Elfvin could not be reached for comment monday. Maxwell the magistrate refused to comment about replacing Elfvin and said he did not have Elfving a phone number in Barbados. In his absence Elfvin is requiring jurors to listen to the entire testimony of a witness even if the jury asks Only to hear portions of it again attorneys said. That will further delay a trial that already has Cost new York $1.3 million to defend attorneys for the inmates said.2 producers claiming rights to Kab files los Angeles a two of Hollywood a richest producers Are both claiming exclusive television rights to several top secret Kab files ranging from the 1962 cuban missile crisis to the Case of convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed in 1953 after being convicted of giving nuclear bomb secrets to the soviet Union. Robert Halmi sr., who paid $9 million for the rights to the gone with the wind sequel Scarlett announced late last year that he had signed an exclusive Deal with the Kab to make a lbs series from Archive materials. On sunday Davis entertainment television financed by former 20th Century Fox owner Marvin Davis said it had signed an exclusive Deal with a Kab successor Agency to produce television and feature films from Kab files. The confusion apparently is caused by the pkg by a dismantling As of Jan. 1, along Wilh the soviet Union. The Kab has been succeeded by two separate entities one for Domestic intelligence and the other for International surveillance. Davis group contends that Halmin a contract is with an Agency that no longer exists. Animal rights activists target pm Baltimore apr six animal rights activists were arrested at an Auto show after three chained themselves to a general motors car and three others smashed another pm car to protest safety tests using animals. Quot Lay off the animals not workers a about two dozen protesters chanted outside the Baltimore Auto show on sunday As others dressed in animal suits smashed a car donated by one of the demonstrators. The protesters were members of people for the ethical treatment of animals a Maryland based organization that has staged similar demonstrations in Detroit and at the Rose bowl Parade in Pasadena Calif. Two of sundays car smashers were dressed As White rabbits. The third wore a mouse costume. They were charged with littering and refusing police orders to Stop. The other three handcuffed themselves to the steering wheel of a station Wagon. They were charged with disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct. Pm is the Only automobile manufacturer that still conducts safety tests using animals said Steve Simmons a spokesman for the animal rights group. The Auto Industry has increasingly relied on dummies for crash tests. The group claims pm has used at least 20,000 animals a including rabbits dogs ferrets pigs and mice a in experiments at its Michigan Laboratory in the last decade. The animals Are used in crash and toxicology tests the group says. Pm spokesman John Anderson said that the tests Are necessary to save human lives but that the company intends to phase out animal testing. Most patrons at the Auto show ignored the protest. A few responded with obscenities. Vandals damage signs on Cicippio Lawn Norristown a. Up vandals driving a vehicle Over the Lawn of Thomas Cicippio ripped Down two of the signs that had marked each passing Day of the americans held hostage in Lebanon. Cicippio whose brother Joseph was one of the last hostages released said monday that he had re erected the signs for Thomas Sutherland and Edward Tracy which were found on his Snow covered Lawn As he left for Church Sun Day morning. A i was a Little disturbed by it a Cicippio said. A i can to see any reason Why anyone would want to do anything like  he said he was trying to decide this week what to do with the signs. Several museums had expressed interest in receiving them he said. Cicippio had hoped to have the hostages and their families come together at his Home and formally remove the signs but that is appearing less Likely. A a they re All doing a lot of travelling at this time so we May not go that route a he said. A we really Haven to decided. A a we re just trying to take them Down As quickly As possible  his brother who was controller of the american University in Beirut when he was kidnapped sept. 12, 1986, has also been travelling since his release in december Cicippio said and had been told by the University to take As much time As he needed before returning to work