Tuesday, August 31, 1999
Defense attempts to raise doubts about MU fliers
BY RANDY McNUTT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
OXFORD — Police should investigate whether a Miami University affirmative action official, not black former students Brad Allen and Nathaniel Snow, placed racist fliers in the Center for Black Culture and Learning last fall, the students' defense attorneys claimed Monday.
Cincinnati attorneys Kenneth Lawson and Jay Clark told jurors in Butler County Area I Court that university police should have questioned Sydney Carthell, who managed the center, at length after 55 racist and anti-gay fliers were hung in the center Oct. 30.
“Some fliers had no prints on them,” Mr. Clark told university Sgt. Steve Truitt, who gathered the evidence that night. “How'd they get in there, the flier fairy?”
Prosecutors claim that Mr. Allen, 21, and Mr. Snow, 22, both former Miami students, placed the fliers in the center.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Carthell said Monday that he has been told not to comment.
Mr. Lawson said in court that the university had been discussing possibly closing the black center and building a new cultural building, which could have cost Mr. Carthell his job. The fliers called attention to the center, Mr. Lawson said.
Discovery of the fliers and racist messages on four computer screens in the center sparked a Nov. 10 protest by 100 students, including Mr. Allen. Students stopped traffic at Spring Street and U.S. 27.
Mr. Clark criticized the university police's investigation and called Mr. Carthell's account of events “filled with inconsistencies.”
But Sgt. Truitt said Mr. Carthell was not and is not a sus pect; his alibi checked out that night. Further, his fingerprints were not found on any of the fliers, testified Johnetta Hartten, a latent print specialist with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation in London.
Assistant prosecutor Jeff Guiliano said last week that Mr. Allen and Mr. Snow perpetuated a “hate-crime hoax,” and should be convicted of criminal mischief and criminal trespassing.
Their fingerprints matched 42 out of 44 on the fliers, authorities said.
The trial will resume at 9 a.m. today.
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