Feds Convict 'Cliffe Senior On Gun Rap

A Radcliffe senior who is handy with a chopper was convicted of conspiring to violate the laws of the United States yesterday in what a Federal judge called "the most fantastic case of amateur gun-running I've ever seen."

The Judge, A. J. Connor of the U.S. District Court of New Hampshire, gave Sarah Polansky '64 of Gilman House the minimum 60-day suspended sentence. Miss Polansky, daughter of a Lancaster, Mass., veterinarian, is a chemistry major who will graduate in February.

Convicted with Miss Polansky were three young men, including Craig Brown, 23, a Concord, N.H. youth who turned down a scholarship to Harvard to attend Boston University. In addition to the conspiracy charge, the men were cited for a variety of offenses involving the Illegal possession and interstate transportation of guns.

Stanley Spraig, a gun dealer in Hooksett, N.H., was convicted of selling a machine gun and fined $500. None of the defendants had previous criminal records.

The case involved a rather innocent variety of gun-running. C. Murray Sawyer clerk of the court, described Miss Polansky and her friends as "gun-crazy kids" who bought machine guns and other weapons for their collections and to use for target practice. They unwittingly ran afoul of Federal law when they took some of the guns across the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border.

"They just happened to fall into this thing," Sawyer said yesterday. "It was a question of misjudgement. There is no indication they were connected with the underworld or selling the guns. It was just their hobby, that's all. They collected guns the way other people play golf or raise chickens."