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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 13, 1983)
Tuesday, December 13,1983/The Battalion/Page 9 k hot dis- ;in- the ies. :in- the ;ood din ned, wny ceiv- Mex- er of :xico same from id na tal 30 me is at the tment mmit- mt of cases. rcotics :ent of Jnited co, but to halt of the oss the and in hen it is intrastate ;ance sen by Alii : specials Jim Boyle he would ■ecausert rs would entire rat by Belle rate cat t be tali i until Dec Witness given new identity, involved in hot check scam eed said, was white ;n 140-1$ hair noleontht nd woret jeans s barefoot er ■ed by h« njadaujjh )ofAustio: icr, eijl" six gr {Jt j r husband will beheld •on at ice Hei The bona 1 t Terra« ark. *****\ I for rs ips itfl$ United Press Intemadonal HOUSTON — A man given a new identity under the federal witness protection program pas sed $83 million in worthless checks in a bank scam “so fat I couldn’t believe it” and was fined only $ 1,000 in a plea bar gain, a newspaper reported Monday. In Washington, a Justice De partment spokesman confirmed the department had a man in its witness protection program that fit the description in the copyr ighted report in the Houston Chronicle, and knew he was under indictment. But the spokesman said neither the department nor the U.S. attorney’s office in Hous ton knew of the outcome of the e. The Chronicle said the con victed swindler was given a new identity, John M. Bennett, and moved to Houston in 1977 after testifying against two police officers in a California securities fraud case. An indictment charged he floated $82.9 million worth of Tenneco to sell company United Press International HOUSTON — Tenneco Inc. said Monday it plans to sell a portion of its petrochemical company to a Houston firm ear ly next year. Tenneco Oil Processing and Marketing officials said they signed a letter of intent Friday to sell Petro-Tex Chemical Corp., a wholly subsidiary of Tenneco, to Texas Olefins Co., headquar tered in Houston. “We were not looking to sell. But they made us an offer, and after looking at it we went back and began negotiating,” said Tenneco spokesman H. Tony DeHaas. “That was the reason.” Financial terms of the sale were not disclosed, but officials said the sale will be concluded during the first quarter of next year. Petro-Tex is a production facility where gasoline additives and other petrochemical pro ducts are manufactured. The company was formed in 1955 by Tenneco and FMC Corp. Ten neco acquired full ownership of the plant in 1977. It is located on 240 acres on the Houston Ship Channel. Major Petro-Tex products in clude butadiene — which is used in synthetic rubber and nylon — butene-1, isobutylene, diiso butylene, polymer gasoline and _ methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE). DeHaas said it was not known if any of the employees at the plant will be laid off. “That’s part of the negotia tions,” he said. Rate hike approved for TESCO United Press International AUSTIN — The Public Util ity Commission Monday granted Texas Electric Service Co. a $72 million annual rate in crease, far less than half what the company requested. But the commission order gave TESCO about $12 million more than was recommended by a PUC hearing examiner. Officials of the Fort Worth- based electric utility said the in crease was inadequate, but no decision has been made on a pos sible appeal. “Considering what our needs are, this is woefully inadequate in meeting the needs of our com pany,” said Eddie Watson, vice president for revenues of Texas Utilities, TESCO’s parent com pany. The company had cited high er construction costs, inflation and growth in customers in seeking a $195 million increase in rates. Under the PUC order, TES CO’s revenues would increase by about 7 percent a year. The company had sought a 16 per cent increase. PUC spokesman Rick Hain- line said the difference in the commission’s final figure and the examiners’ recommenda tion was due to a change in accounting procedures for con struction work in process and a slight increase in rate of return allowances. checks through Houston banks and a resultant $81.5 million in cash through a California money market fund during four months of 1978. Once discovered, his trial was handled in secret because of his protected witness status and en ded with him found guilty of misdemeanor conversion of $ 100 and fined $ 1,000. Prosecu tors involved refused comment. “We do have a fellow in that program that fits” the report, Justice Department spokesman John Russell said. “But we don’t know the outcome of what hap pened down in Houston. We sent material down there, a whole rap sheet on him. We knew he was under indictment.” Russell said the U.S. attorney in Houston “doesn’t know any thing about it. He told me the attorney who prosecuted the case no longer is with the Hous ton office, and there is no file there on the case.” Russell said the holding of a secret trial would be “very un usual because you have to have the attorney general’s permis sion for it, and this is given only under very, very rare circumst ances.” Documents obtained by the Chronicle showed a dignified looking Bennett used an FBI re ference to start the scam at a Houston area bank. He said he put the cash in the Capital Pre servation Fund in California be cause the fund takes advantage of the time it takes for checks to clear banks across the country. Capital Preservation Fund since has changed its rules. Once the scheme was going, Bennett said he moved from bank to bank using the previous banks as references. “I made no credit applica tions, no nothing, with any of these people,” he said. Bennett said at one point he could have pulled out of the scam and walked away free with $7.9 million cash from the fund, but he did not want to quit. “I’m afflicted by the same problem as all other human beings. I’m a bit greedy,” Ben nett said: The scheme finally broke when nine checks for $5.4 mil lion bounced. v 2 in custody after shooting United Press International ODESSA — A man and woman remain in custody on $100,000 bond for delivery of cocaine stemming from a Fri day shootout with authorities that left one man dead and two officials injured, a police spokesman said. Michael Grant Matheny, 33, was shot and killed by de tective Stephen Fredrick in a room at the La Quinta Inn on U.S. 80, police spokesman Rusty Baker said Monday. Jerald Leon Hardin, 31, and Jana Matheny, 22, both from Odessa, have been charged with delivering cocaine, Baker said. The elder Matheny shot detective Phil Harrold and Ector County narcotics officer Jim Dickson as they entered a room where Fredrick — work ing undercover — was buying 3.5 ounces of cocaine for $7,000, Baker said. Hardin had been waiting outside in a pick-up truck and fled the scene upon the shoot ings, but Baker said author ities stopped him a short time later. Baker says both Harrold and Dickson suffered gunshot wounds to the stomach, but both were treated and re leased from the hospital. Police worked with the Ector County sheriffs office and the state Department of Public Safety on the drug investiga tion, Baker said. We proudly present the gift of lasting pleasure. PROBLEM PREGNANCY Are you considering Abortion? Confidential Free Pregnancy Testing & Referrals Call (713) 524-0548 Houston, Texas The pleasure of wearing and owning gold never fades. 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