Camden official quits Business administrator John T. Shannon cites "differences." S3. New problems for pipeline owner Citations issued for two other lines in Edison that are exposed above ground. S4. Tuesday, March 29, 1994 I IT Section Police charge Pennsauken pair with video piracy Recapturing a quiet moment in the most unquiet of times I' i.
i. Howard Ruhl of I Woodstown (right) gets A I the word on the 1860s. P'-, "i I nXa falsi I ji 7 i ArVMvJ I ISM 7 a IP1' 1 rVJ 3 1 i I Is if The couple is accused of making illegal copies of first-run films and selling them for $10 or $15 each. By Christine Lutton INQUIRER CORRESPONDENT PENNSAUKEN Philadelphia, Schindler's List and The Piano, were some of the big winners on Oscar night. What are film fans to do if they've decided they must have copies now? Head to your local flea market.
That's where local police believe Dorsey Hamilton, 42, and Booker Hamilton, 45, both of the 3700 block of Sharon Terrace in Pennsauken, sold top-quality, videotaped copies of many first-run films that aren't available in video stores, and in many cases, have just opened at local theaters. The husband and wife were arrested Saturday at home and charged with video piracy, conspiracy, and possession of marijuana and cocaine. They were being held in Camden County Jail on $19,000 bail each and are scheduled for an April 5 hearing in Camden County Superior Court. The couple had turned one room of their split-level home into a lab equipped with 14 VCRs, three television sets, and a photocopying machine to make paper covers for the videocassettes, police said. More than 750 tapes some labeled in neat, cursive writing were also confiscated.
Most of the tapes were of current films such as Schindler's List, The Re) and Naked Gun 33V3. A movie industry spokesperson said the retail value of the tapes is more than $50,000. Police arrested Dorsey Hamilton Saturday morning as she was loading 70 tapes into a 1989 Dodge parked outside the house. Her husband was arrested that afternoon after he returned from work. Police said they do not know how long the couple had been copying tapes or where exactly they were being sold.
They believe the tapes were being sold for $10 or $15 each. Police were tipped off about the couple by the Motion Picture Association of America, which had a private investigator looking into the case since it received a call on its anti-piracy hotline about a month ago. What puzzles authorities and film industry representatives is how the couple made such high-quality copies of first-run movies that are Andy Siganuck of Williamstown, and the 12th N.J. Regiment, supervises a volunteer's bayonet charge at a sack of potatoes. Videotapes seized from the Hamilton residence in the police evidence room.
not yet available to the public. Some of the movies such as Naked Gun 33V3, The Ref, and Greedy have only been showing in local theaters for a few weeks. Several tapes are being sent to MPAA labs in Burbank, where they will be analyzed to determine where the original print came from, said Tom Schell, a spokesman for the MPAA. In many cases, when pirated copies of films are discovered, the original print came from a video store. Because many of the tapes police found at the Hamilton's home are movies not yet available in video stores, authorities say they must have been pirated from another source.
Copies may have been stolen from members of the Motion Picture Academy and film reviewers who are sometimes given advance copies for review. The films could also have been copied with the help of someone in a local movie theater or stolen directly from a studio, Schell said. The Motion Picture Association can also file civil lawsuits against persons who pirate movies, but they have not yet decided whether to file against the Hamiltons, Schell said. Police said the case is still under investigation. wm mm mm You can call them weekend soldiers and not be wrong, but those strangely outfitted people on the streets of Haddonfield on Saturday were neither reserves nor reserved.
They were part of a Civil War re-enactment titled "Encampment on Ellis Street" and sponsored by the Haddonfield Historical Society and the Business and Professional Association. Si WfclMiilffJ Photographs by Cliff Mautner Roy Dawson is named Camden school chief He's now an assistant superintendent. He's expected to keep the programs of Arnold Webster, now mayor. Abe Lincoln (Haddonfield High junior Ben Axler) greets the 20th century (a Pepsi truck) Inside South Jersey Farrakhan denies focus on hate, says he addresses painful truths The Nation of Islam leader spoke at Kean College. Several hundred demonstrated outside.
The selection of Dawson last night brought cheers from a throng of about 75 well-wishers, including his wife, Sylvia, and five children. The meeting was at the Forrest Hill Elementary School. The district has 20,000 students and a budget of about $170 million. "I'm excited. It's a challenge.
But I like challenges. I thrive on it," Dawson said yesterday before the appointment was made official. Dawson said he had developed a slogan and a five-year plan for his administration. "My theme," he said, "is going to be Together Everyone Achieves More, or TEAM." He said his five-year plan includes raising the district's sagging scores on the High School Proficiency Test and its scores on the eighth grade Early Warning test. "Those mandates from the state we must pass, and we must be competitive," he said.
He said he wanted to make sure the 20,000 students in the district were ready for the workforce. To achieve his long-range plans, he will appoint a task force of parents See DAWSON on S7 By Dwight Ott INQUIRER STAFF WRITER CAMDEN Roy J. Dawson, who began his career as a science teacher 29 years ago in Camden schools, was named superintendent of the city public school system at a meeting last night of the Camden Board of Education. Dawson, 55, an assistant superintendent in the district, was selected in a vote of 8-0. He will begin his job July 1.
His salary remains to be negotiated. "It will be a pleasure to work with a Board of Education that puts children first," Dawson said after the vote. "I take the education of our children seriously, very seriously." Board President Elaine Bey said the board was "very confident we made the right decision," and she called on residents "to work with Roy Dawson and this board to do the job that must be done." He will be replacing Arnold W. Webster, who stepped down Feb. 28 after becoming Camden City mayor Jan.
1. The district is now being run by acting Superintendent Preston Gunning. mad, gave a widely condemned speech vilifying Jews, Roman Catholics, hom*osexuals, whites and some blacks. "When members of the Jewish community relive the horror of their experience in Europe under Nazi Germany, 40 years after the fact, is that hateful speech?" Farrakhan asked. "Because women in the theater behind me, around me, were crying profusely.
"Certainly the Holocaust was a horror for those who suffered it, but each people in their turn have had to pay a price and they've come through suffering. No people have been excluded from the horror of persecution, injustice, evil," he said. "If we look back to draw lessons from history that history will not be re peated, we are considered wise people not teachers of hate." While Farrakhan spoke, a coalition of black and Jewish clergy, community leaders, educators and public officials held a vigil outside the state college to protest Farrakhan's appearance. The two-hour rally some 200 yards from the theater in which Farrakhan spoke attracted several hundred demonstrators, most of them white. More than two dozen speakers were present, including U.S.
Senator Frank Lautenberg N.J.) and Guardian Angel founder Curtis Sliwa. Controversy over Muhammad's Nov. 29 speech to about 150 people, a third of them students, gained little See FARRAKHAN on S7 By Nancy Plcvin ASSOCIATED PRESS UNION Nation of Islam leader oiiis Farrakhan said in a speech last night that his words, rather than being "hateful speech," were the painful truths of history. "I went to see ISteven Spielberg's Holocaust film Schindler's List," Farrakhan told a full house at Kean College of New Jersey's 950-seat Wil-kins Theatre, nearly four months to the day after his then-national spokesman, Khallid Atiul Muham Secretary of Labor Robert Reich speaks about the Clinton administration's health care plan. S2.
Local Meetings S8 The Scene 52 South Jersey Deaths S7 South Jersey News In Brief. S2 South Jersey Sports S5.
