A 'Harassing Phone Calls' Case Goes Before CRR This Afternoon

The CRR will hear charges this afternoon against a Radcliffe senior - who has asked that her name be withheld - for harassing telephone calls traced to her phone.

The phone calls, made to David A. Guberman '71, came in the early morning of Wednesday, May 12.

During the first week of May, Guberman testified in four cases related to the disruption of the "Counter Teach-In." In an interview yesterday, he said that on the night of May 4 he began receiving calls during which the other party remained silent when he said "hello."

On May 11, he went to the phone company's office and authorized the company to tap his phone and to take any necessary court action.

Eight Calls

Early the following morning - from 12:53 to 2:17 a. m. - the phone company's tap picked up eight phone calls, none lasting longer than 20 seconds, and traced them to the defendant, who lives in a two-room single. The phone company consulted with the Harvard police on May 11 and then filed charges against the defendant in criminal court, which set June 8 as the hearing date.

But yesterday the defendant and Guberman made a deal in which Guberman promised to ask the court this morning to drop charges, in exchange for the defendant's admitting formally that the calls were actually made from her phone.

This technical move mean's that Guberman will not have to rely on hear-say to show where the calls originated and also that he will not have to subpoena the phone company records for use in criminal court. "I want it settled within Harvard," Guberman said.

Asked what he thought the CRR should decide, Guberman said he hoped they would require the defendant to withdraw for at least a year if she actually made the calls, or would require her to withdraw for at least one semester if she is protecting the person who made the calls. "But I will live with whatever the CRR decides," he added.

Interviewed last night, the defendant said she did not make the calls but that she knows who did make them. "Guberman has started a witch?unt," shesaid. "By prosecuting one innocent person he hopes he can force that person to divulge information in order to get acquitted."

John W. Moscow, a second-year Law student and legal adviser to Guberman in the CRR case, said last night that although Guberman is charging her with making the calls, "her behavior gives every indication that she didn't make the calls."

"But it shouldn't matter to the CRR whether she made the calls or whether she sat by and let someone else do it," he added. "The assumption must be that she made them, and the burden of proof is on her at this point."

Moscow also said that in two or three situations similar to Guberman's, other Harvard students authorized the phone company to tap their phones, but that so far, no criminal or CRR action has resulted from the taps.