Ex-Celtics in news

[Vinny Natale <vnatale@map.com>]

Judge orders Northeastern to release records in Lewis case

(AP) - Northeastern University has
been ordered to turn over a
drug-use report sought by a doctor sued for malpractice by the
widow of Reggie Lewis of the Boston Celtics. The report was
issued by a special Northeastern commission that investigated
drug use by university athletes. It is believed to include
results of drug tests given to Lewis in 1987, when he played for
the Northeastern basketball team. In Suffolk Superior Court
Thursday, Judge Thayer Fremont-Smith ordered the university to
give the report to lawyers for Dr. Gilbert H. Mudge Jr. The
lawyers hope to use the report in defending Mudge in the suit
brought by Lewis' widow, Donna Harris-Lewis. Mudge has said that
16 days before Lewis collapsed at a practice, he acknowledged
using cocaine in the past, but said he had stopped. Lewis was 27
when he died at that practice session July 27, 1993.

He had collapsed during a game earlier, and one team of doctors
who examined him said he had a life-threatening heart ailment.
Mudge led a second team of doctors to treat Lewis, and diagnosed
a less-harmful condition. Mudge maintains he could not have made
a proper diagnosis because he didn't know Lewis allegedly used
drugs. Harris-Lewis has denied her late husband used drugs. In
ordering Northeastern to turn over the report, Fremont-Smith said
any information in it on possible drug use by other players will
be impounded and not made public. Northeastern argued against
turning over the report, saying it would hinder future
investigations because the university could not guarantee
confidentiality.

*** For the full story, see
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2558425413-e3c

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Pub manager arrested after evicting Pacers fan

(AP) - The manager of a downtown
Indianapolis pub arrested for
battery on a patron said Friday he's a victim of Larry Bird's
high profile. Gordon Etchison of the Legal Beagle pub said he was
only trying to protect the privacy of the Indiana Pacers coach
when he evicted a female patron whom he believed was bothering
Bird. Etchison was arrested by police Thursday and charged with
one misdemeanor count of battery. He was released from jail after
posting $5,000 bond. "My understanding is he doesn't like to 
be
bothered a lot," Etchison said of Bird. "I don't know what
the
big deal is." If not for a "high-profile person like Larry
Bird,
they wouldn't even file charges against me," Etchison said. If
convicted, Etchison faces a maximum sentence of a year in jail
and a fine of $5,000.

Bird, whom prosecutors list as a witness in the case, was having
a beer with an assistant coach in the pub near Market Square
Arena when he was approached by Kay Williams on Feb. 4. Bird gave
the woman an autograph, and when she approached him later at the
bar, he politely talked with her, police said. Pacers president
Donnie Walsh had given Williams and her chronically ill daughter
two tickets to the NBA All-Star game last year in New York.
Williams said that while she talked with Bird, Etchison
approached her and asked her to leave Bird alone. Williams said
Bird told Etchison she was not bothering him, but the pub manager
grabbed her wrist and her arms and pushed her toward the door.
When contacted about the problem, Bird said he had been having a
conversation with Williams, "and the next thing I know,
somebody
asked her to leave, and he grabbed her arm or something."

*** For the full story, see
http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2558430051-7ae