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Thursday, April 20, 1989.

---

River protesters' appeal
grinds on

By TOM RUE


MONTICELLO - The appeal of four men convicted of disorderly conduct, in connection with a disturbance at an October 1987 meeting of the Conference of Upper Delaware Townships (COUP), may be coming to a head, according to Sullivan County Assistant District Attorney Elissa Yavne, who prosecuted the March 1988 non-jury trial held in Tusten Town Court.

Appelants Donald Rupp, Henry Rupp, Herb Wolff and Jeffrey Bellinger claim they did nothing wrong at the COUP meeting in question.

Following trial, the defendants asserted the elected justice who found them guilty engaged in secretex-parte conversations with National Park Service (NPS) officials prior to sentencing.

Tusten Town Justice Robert E. Luben denied the allegation, branding it a "fabricated lie." NPS officials also deny the claim.

The appeal, filed a year ago by Monticello attorney Mark Schulman, is based on ten claims of impropriety. Most of the legal claims are technical in nature, and do not relate to guilt or innocence.

Yavne recently filed a 58-page brief in Sullivan County Court, opposing the appeal.

Judge Robert C. Willjams granted a request by Yavne ordering Schulman to show cause, at an April 241h court hearing, why a memorandum of law he submitted should not be stricken from the record.

According to Yavne, in his memorandum, Schulman used excerpts from an unofficial tran~ript of trial prtw.~eedings, from which he previously objected to her quoting in court documents.

Yavne requested Williams either recognize the incomplete transcript as "ofiicial," or order Schulman to delete the quotations and resubmit his memorandum.

The transcript -- around 300 pages -- was prepared at the expense of the District Attorney's Office, at the request of the defendants. Approximatley a half-hour of trial testimony was not taped, due to technical difficulties.

Yavne said she was unable to estimate the total financial cost to Sullivan County of responding to the appeal, but described it as extremely high, considering the nature of the conviction. It is not known whether Schulman is charging the four for his work in defending them.

The outcome of the appeal could be important to the former COUP member who signed the arrest complaint. Reportedly, a lawsuit may be filed against Hancock reprentative George Frosch for false arrest. Yavne said if Luben's guilty verdict is upheld in court, winning a civil suit against Frosch in the matter would become a virtual impossibility.