Draft Protest

A member of the Boston Alliance Against Registration and the Draft (BAARD) was convicted in federal court yesterday for his refusal to leave a Boston courthouse during an anti-registration demonstration last month.

Magistrate Robert L. DeGiacomo found Gary Sachs, the BAARD member, guilty of obstructing access to an elevator and of refusing to comply with the orders of federal officers to leave the McCormack federal building in Boston during a BAARD sit-in on January 6, the first day of draft registration for men born in 1962. Sentencing has been scheduled for March 31.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Janice F. Berry charged during the trial that Sachs lay down in the elevator and refused to move as police officers attempted to escort him from the building.

Sachs testified yesterday that he had attempted to leave the building peacefully, but that the officers had dragged him by the hair and pinned him to the back wall of the elevator.

Sachs also said one officer who had seen him at another demonstration told him "I remember you from July. You're not going to get out of here without being arrested."

Carla F. Wallace, a BAARD member who was with Sachs in the elevator, said yesterday that at first both she and Sachs had refused to leave the elevator. "They dragged me out of the building, but they arrested Gary," Wallace said, adding, "It seemed they wanted to 'get' Gary because of his involvement in previous rallies."

Robert L. Hernandez, Sachs' attorney, said yesterday he would appeal today's decision as well as a decision by DeGiacomo last month in which 14 BAARD members received maximum sentences of 30 days in prison and $50 fines for their participation in the January 6 sit-in.

"We plan to file appeals on both the conviction and the sentencing, emphasizing what we consider to be misleading statements by the judge in the pretrial hearings," Hernandez added.