Across The Nation

FATAL PIPE BOMBING LINKED TO DISPUTED DEAL ON INTERNET

FAIR HAVEN, Vt. - An Indiana man sent a pipe bomb that killed a 17-year-old Vermonter after an Internet deal went sour, authorities said yesterday.

Chris Dean, 35, of Pierceton, Ind., was arrested yesterday afternoon, one day after a bomb killed Chris Marquis, 17, of Fair Haven, and seriously injured his mother.

An affidavit released last night alleged that Dean felt Marquis defrauded him in an Internet-arranged trade of CB radio equipment.

The device, delivered to Marquis' house by United Parcel Service, exploded as Marquis opened the package in his bedroom. His mother was in the room at the time.

Authorities quickly turned their focus to the Internet, as they learned that Marquis had angered many people in a CB radio chat group.

It appeared that Marquis would offer to trade or sell equipment and would fail to deliver the goods.

IRS fines Robertson network for payments to '88 campaign

Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network has agreed to pay a "significant" penalty to the Internal Revenue Service and accept retroactive loss of tax-exempt status for 1986 and 1987.

The settlement amounts to an acknowledgement that money from CBN was used in violation of tax laws to promote Robertson's 1988 Republican presidential campaign.

N.Y. man acquitted of one murder, convicted of another

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. - A lottery millionaire who claimed he had to shoot his way out of a blood-feud ambush was acquitted yesterday of killing his former lover, who was pregnant, but convicted of murdering her father-in-law.

Joseph Rukaj was accused of killing Rigaletta (Vickie) Nikc and Mark Nikc in front of Mrs. Nikc's posh, chalet-style home in September 1996. Rukaj, 38, had pleaded self-defense, saying he was ambushed by his former girlfriend's family after he claimed to be the father of her 5-year-old daughter.

Mrs. Nikc, 31, apparently shot and wounded Rukaj in the chest before she was killed.

The jury acquitted him of murder in Mrs. Nikc's death and of attempted murder of Mrs. Nikc's husband, Antonio, who had run back into the house, apparently under fire from Rukaj.

The jury, though, apparently decided the self-defense claim did not apply to the killing of Mark Nikc, 58, and convicted Rukaj of his murder. Nikac was shot three times in the back and may have been unarmed.

Rukaj split a $35 million Lotto jackpot in 1990, winning a total of $17.5 million.

Jury convicts Illinois woman in murder of three in family

WHEATON, Ill. - In a case a prosecutor said would "give nightmares to Stephen King," a woman was convicted yesterday of killing two children and their pregnant mother, and cutting the woman's full-term baby from her womb.

The jury deliberated for about two hours before finding Jacqueline Annette Williams, 31, guilty on all counts. She could get the death penalty.

Williams was convicted in the November 1995 deaths of 28-year-old Debra Evans, her 10-year-old daughter, Samantha, and her 7-year-old son, Joshua.

The boy ripped from the womb survived and is now 2.