Monday, Mar. 20, 2000

Milestones

By Melissa August, Val Castronovo, Matthew Cooper, Daniel Levy, Barbara Maddux, Julie Rawe, Alain Sanders, Flora Tartakovsky and Josh Tyrangiel

CONVICTED. CHARLES SCHWARZ, 34, THOMAS BRUDER, 33, and THOMAS WIESE, 36, three white police officers; of conspiring to conceal Schwarz's role in the 1997 attack on Haitian immigrant Abner Louima; in New York City. Schwarz was convicted last year of violating Louima's civil rights by restraining him while another officer sodomized him with a broomstick.

CHARGED. MARTY MCSORLEY, 36, Boston Bruins defenseman suspended for 23 games by the NHL for using his hockey stick to club an opponent in the head; with assault with a weapon; in Vancouver. The 17-year hockey veteran is the third most penalized player in NHL history.

CANONIZATION DECLARED. For MOTHER KATHARINE DREXEL, founder of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, who died in 1955; by Pope John Paul ll; in Rome. The ceremony is scheduled for Oct. 1. A Philadelphia banking heiress, she spent her life serving disadvantaged American blacks and Indians.

DIED. CHARLES GRAY, 71, actor who played James Bond's diabolical cat-stroking nemesis, Ernst Blofeld, in Diamonds Are Forever and the narrator in The Rocky Horror Picture Show; in London.

DIED. CHESTER LEE, 80, NASA mission director who oversaw the return of Apollo 13 after an oxygen tank exploded in mid-flight; in Washington. The Navy captain helped develop the Polaris missile as well as NASA's shuttle program.

DIED. FRANK ("PEE WEE") KING, 86, country musician who co-wrote Tennessee Waltz, which became the state song in 1965; in Louisville. The accordion player, who appeared in several Gene Autry movies with his band, the Golden West Cowboys, was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1974.

DIED. EDWARD LEVI, 88, esteemed law professor and Attorney General credited with restoring the Justice Department's reputation after Watergate; in Chicago. Levi founded the University of Chicago's Journal of Law and Economics.