Judge Convicts Mann On Charge of Assault

Eric M. Mann and three other Weathermen were found guilty yesterday on assault and battery charges stemming from a disruption last month at Boston English High School.

Judge Charles I. Taylor of the Roxbury Municipal Court sentenced Mann, Henry A. Olson. Philip C. Nies, and James Reeves to three months each in the Deer Island House of Correction. William P. Homans, Jr. '41, counsel for the four will appeal the decision in Suffolk County Superior Court.

The four Weathermen were released after posting $2000 bond each.

Earlier yesterday, Taylor found "no probable cause" for the Suffolk County Grand Jury to try the four for assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, a felony. They had been accused of attacking Boston English footballcoach Patrick J. King with a stick.

Taylor added, however, that if the Boston police would make less serious complaints against the Weathermen, he would hear the complaints. By the time court reconvened later yesterday afternoon. the police had issued five warrants for assault and battery-a misdemeanor-to Mann, three to Olson, one to Nies, and two to Reeves.

Three Boston English students then testified that they had been assaulted on October 1. Mann testified that the Weathermen had not intended to fight with anyone that day, and that he had only struck back after being hit himself. But Taylor found him and the other Weathermen guilty of assault and battery.

Mann, Olson, and Nies were arrested on the felony charge on October 24 and released without bond on October 29. Reeves was arrested on the same charge, without a warrant, yesterday morning inside the courtroom. Taylor refused to hear Homans' petition for a writ of habeas corpus on Reeves.

Each of the four Weathermen was sentenced to three months in the House of Correction for each assault and battery charge. But Taylor made the sentences concurrent.

Mann, Olson, and Nies will stand trial again next Wednesday in Cambridge's Third District Court on charges stemming from the violent invasion on September 25 of Harvard's Center for International Affairs.