Great aunt says juror in Cape Cod murder case was racially biased

BARNSTABLE — The great aunt of a juror who helped convict a black trash hauler of murdering a white fashion writer says he’s racially biased.

The testimony by Delainda Julia Miranda came last Friday during a hearing into whether the Cape Cod jury who convicted Christopher McCowen of murdering Christa Worthington was tainted by bias.

Miranda said her great nephew, Eric “Billy” Gomes, a dark-skinned Cape Verdean, often made disparaging remarks about blacks. She said he denied being black, though she said he is.

Defense attorney Robert George requested the hearing after three jurors came to him after the November 2006 verdict and said other jurors made racially charged remarks.

Gomes did not comment when reached by The Boston Globe.

Prosecutors said the jury deliberations were fair.

American Indian school, black town among those on endangered list

OKLAHOMA CITY — A historically black town and an American Indian school are among Preservation Oklahoma’s most endangered historic places in the state.

The 15th-annual Most Endangered Historic Places list, released last Thursday, contains 12 sites, ranging from archaeological sites and cemeteries to Route 66 motels from Sayre to Miami.

Other sites on the list include the Art Deco Four-Plex in Oklahoma City, the Boley Historic District in Okfuskee County, the Chilocco Indian School in Kay County, the Santa Fe Depot in Tonkawa and Wheelock Academy near Millerton.

Lustron Homes, post-World War II manufactured steel houses with porcelain-enamel-coated panels, also are endangered, Preservation Oklahoma officials said.

The list is just a sample of thousands of landmarks across the state that have been neglected and are in need of attention, Preservation Oklahoma spokesman Mark Beutler said in a prepared statement.

The list does not ensure the protection of a site or guarantee funding, but the designation has been a positive tool for raising awareness and rallying resources to save endangered places, Beutler said.

“It is important for Oklahomans to understand that preserving historic architecture is not a mere exercise in appreciation or nostalgia for ‘old things,’” John Feaver, the preservation group’s president, said.

“It is, rather, a powerful development tool for promoting sustainable communities and economies and for controlling the rising costs and environmental disruptions or urban sprawl.”

Preservation Oklahoma is a statewide nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging the preservation of Oklahoma’s historic places.

The State Historic Preservation Office, a division of the Oklahoma Historical Society, administers the federal historic preservation programs in Oklahoma.

Former workers file federal complaint against Ga. restaurant for strip searches

WINDER, Ga. — Four former employees of a north Georgia Krystal restaurant who are black said they were unfairly strip-searched by white managers and that three employees were fired after they complained.

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the employees in U.S. District Court in Atlanta. Krystal is based in Chattanooga.

In its complaint, the EEOC alleges that the managers searched the employees when $100 went missing from a white employee’s cash register at the Krystal in Winder in June 2005. The lawsuit asks that the four employees be paid back wages plus interest.

“Our main goal is to change the behavior of employers,” Vincent Hill, the EEOC attorney handling the Krystal case, told the Athens Banner-Herald. “We don’t want any other employee subjected to this kind of treatment.”

Herbert Hunter, Daphne Hill and Shannon Jackson were fired after they complained that only the black employees were strip-searched. Quinthony Brown did not return to work after he was searched.

According to the EEOC, a white cashier left work on June 29, 2005, without asking a manager to count the money in her register. The register later came up $100 short. Two white managers immediately questioned three black employees and forced them to undress to prove they were not hiding the money.

The cashier was never questioned about the missing money, the EEOC said.

Hill and Jackson were fired after complaining that they were singled out for the search because they are black, and Hunter was fired because he told his managers their actions were discriminatory, according to the EEOC.

The employees originally complained to the EEOC two months after the initial incident, and the agency has been working to negotiate a settlement with New Capital Dimensions, the Milledgeville-based company that formerly owned the franchise.

Richard and Betty Bertoli of Milledgeville are listed as the corporation’s registered agents with the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. A woman who answered the telephone Saturday at Richard Bertoli’s home in Milledgeville said, “I don’t know anything about that,” when asked for a comment on the case and then hung up the telephone.