G.I. Organizer Arrested On Calif. Contempt Charge

(This is the second in a series of articles describing trials with political implications across the country.)

TUCSON, ARIZ., Jan. 28-A young woman from Venice, Calif., was charged with contempt today when she refused, at a Federal Grand Jury investigation hearing, to answer broad questions about her activities over the past two years.

The woman, Teri Volpin, was involved in G.I. organizing activities in Venice.

Volpin was released from the Pima County Jail yesterday after finishing a two-month sentence for contempt before the Grand Jury in November. She received a subpoena ordering her to appear today before the Grand Jury as she was leaving the jail.

Four Others

Four others, also from Venice, who refused to testify before the Grand Jury earlier are still in jail serving their first contempt sentence. They and Volpin were out on bail from Dec. 24 to Jan. 18, pending appeal. Their appeal was rejected.

Voipin was asked substantially the same questions today which she refused to answer in November. She was asked to discuss all trips she took inside and outside California last year, all demonstrations in which she participated, all conversations in which explosives had been discussed, every individual to whom she had lent her car, and every contact she had had with a number of individuals.

Other Questions

She was also asked if she had made any trips outside California for the purpose of planning a riot or demonstration. Several questions concerned the demonstrations which occurred at the University of California at Los Angeles following the sentencing of the Chicago 7. The Grand Jury is officially investigating an alleged Weathermen plot to purchase explosives in Tucson and transport them to California. But none of the questions Volpin was asked had any direct relation to such a plot.

Volpin cannot refuse to answer on the grounds of the privilege against self-incrimination since she has beengranted immunity of prosecution for anything she says. "It's becoming apparent that the government is using immunity as a punitive weapon against the Movement," Peter Young, Volpin's attorney, said today.

She refused to testify today on the grounds that the questions violated her rights to privacy, free association, and adequate counsel, that they were vague and immaterial to any investigation she understood the Grand Jury to be making.

After she had been questioned for several hours, she was ordered to appear immediately at a hearing where she was ordered to testify by a Federal judge. She then returned for questioning and again refused to testify.

Another hearing, concerning her refusal to heed the court's order, was convened, but the judge rescheduled the hearing for tomorrow, since the transcript of today's Grand Jury proceedings had not yet been prepared. She will almost certainly be convicted of contempt tomorrow and returned to the Pima County Jail.

Susan Shea, a special assistant to the Attorney General, conducted the questioning today. But Guy Goodwin, head of the Justice Department's Internal Security Division, has been handling the investigation. Goodwin is now in Harrisburg, Pa., working on the Grand Jury investigation there.

Two weeks ago, that Grand Jury indicted Philip Berrigan and six others for conspiracy to kidnap presidential assistant Henry A. Kissinger '50 and blow up heating systems in Federal buildings. One of the alleged co-con-aspirators who wasn't indicted-Sister Jogues Egan-was just convicted of contempt for refusing to testify before that Grand Jury.