Mann Gets Year Sentence For Role in CFIA Action

Weatherman leader Eric M. Mann was sentenced to a year in jail last Wednesday on three counts of assault and battery stemming from the disruption on September 25 of Harvard's Center for International Affairs (CFIA).

Judge M. Edward Viola of East Cambridge District Court also found two other Weathermen-Henry A. Olson and Jill H. Wattenburg-guilty of two counts of assault and battery each in connection with the disruption. Olson was fined $400 and Miss Wattenburg $200 for these offenses.

In addition, Viola fined Mann, Olson, Miss Wattenburg, Susan Hagedorn, and Philip C. Nies $50 apiece for disturbing the peace.

Several professors and secretaries from the CFIA testified that they were pushed or punched during the disruption, in which a band of over people including Mann invaded the Center, roughed up several members of its staff, and threw rocks through the windows.

Mann was found innocent of breaking glass, intentional injury to a school, and disturbance of a school.

But Viola sentenced him to one year in the Middle sex County House of Correction for each of three counts of assault and battery, with the terms to be served concurrently. Mann, who acted as his own counsel during the trial, was released on $1500 bond after appealing his conviction to the Middle sex County Superior Court.

Michael P. Wood, a spectator at the trial, was arrested outside the courtroom after a witness said he recognized him as the person who had shoved him repeatedly during the disruption. Wood pleaded innocent to charges of assault and battery and disturbance of a school, saying that he was out of the state on September 25. He will stand trial on the charges Wednesday morning in East Cambridge District Court.