FORT PIERCE, FLA.
SNIPES GETS PROBATION DRUNK DRIVING CASE
Actor Wesley Snipes pleaded no contest yesterday to a reckless-driving charge imposed after he led police on a 120-mph chase on his motorcycle before he crashed.
St. Lucie County Judge Thomas J. Walsh Jr. ordered Snipes to perform 80 hours of community service. He also fined him $500 and placed him on six months' probation. Snipes also must pay court costs and the cost of repairing a police car damaged in the incident.
Snipes, 32, zipped past a state highway patrol trooper in April on the two- lane southbound side of the Florida Turnpike. The trooper followed Snipes for 30 miles.
The actor was thrown from his motorcycle when the front of the patrol car bumped him as he tried to exit the turnpike. He suffered minor injuries.
ORLANDO, FLA.
'ANARCHIST' SENTENCED FOR CLINTON THREATS
An Orlando man found guilty of threatening to kill President Clinton was sentenced to five years in prison yesterday after a rambling speech in which he disputed his May conviction.
Ronald Barbour, a former Army intelligence agent who suffers from manic depression, wanted U.S. District Judge Anne Conway to dismiss his public defender for political reasons.
"I'm basically an anarchist," Barbour said calmly. "I'm against all governments. For me to accept him being paid by the government . . . it's a symbolic thing."
Barbour, 45, formerly of Melbourne, Fla., reassured the judge that medication has cleared his mind and eliminated drastic mood swings that preceded his arrest.
HILLSIDE, N.J.
MAN CHARGED FOR KILLING A RAT
A man who trapped a rat in his garden, then hit it with a broom handle to keep it from escaping, has been charged with needlessly killing it.
Frank Balun, 69, said he used a squirrel trap last week to capture the rat, which was eating his tomato plants. Then he called the American Humane Society to remove the trapped rodent.
But while waiting for the rat to be taken away, Balun says, he saw it trying to escape, so he hit it with a broom handle. When the humane society agent arrived, the rat was dead.
Balun was issued two summonses Tuesday by the Associated Humane Societies and ordered to appear in Hillside Municipal Court on Aug. 24.
