The Michigan Daily-Friday, May 25, 1979-Page 3 Bert Lance pleads innocent to 22 counts offinancial corruption ATLANTA (AP) - Bert Lance, President Carter's close friend and onetime adviser, pleaded innocent yesterday to charges he misused the funds of two Georgia banks. He called the accusations "totally ridiculous." The former federal-budget director and three northwest Georgia associates entered innocent pleas at an arraign- ment before U.S. Magistrate Allen Chancey Jr. ' Their trial is likely to last at least eight weeks, prosecutor William Gaf- fney said. Chancey assigned the case to Judge Charles Moye. No trial date has been set, but it could come as early as August. LANCE, WHO was federal budget director for nine months in 1977, had no comment on the specific charges in the 71-page, 33-count indictment handed down Wednesday. "I find it to be totally ridiculous," he said as he left the courthouse. "I am not going to comment until I read the indic- tment." Pressed by a crowd of reporters and photographers spilling onto a downtown street, Lance warned: "Y'ALL BE careful. I don't want any of you to get run over. I want this same crowd around when I'm found in- nocent." The indictment alleges a pattern of loose credit, unsecured loans and falsified bank records for the benefit of Lance, his family and friends, building to a total of 383 loans from 41 banks totalling $20 million. Lance was charged in 22 counts, in- cluding conspiracy, misusing bank fun- ds, falsifying personal financial statements and making false entries in bank records. If convicted and given the maximum penalty on each count, he could be imprisoned for 95 years and rtoday fined$115,000. LANCE AND HIS attorneys arrived early for the arraignment and shook hands with the Justice Department lawyers who for more than a year have been probing into Lance's practices while president of the Calhoun First National Bank in Calhoun, Ga., and the National Bank of Georgia in Atlanta. The other three defendants, Thomas Mitchell of Dalton, Ga.; H. jackson Mullins of Calhoun, Ga., and Richard Carr of Ringgold, Ga., also pleaded in- nocent. Carr, a former bank president now represented by a public defender, refused to make any comment on the case. MITCHELL AND Mullins, both represented by Thomas Mitchell's cousin, Erwin Mitchell, each said they believed they had done nothing illegal. "Apparently my crime is being frien- ds with Bert Lance," Mullins said after the arraignment. Thomas Mitchell, who controlled Lance's holdings while Lance was budget director, said of the indictment, "They've alleged a lot of things that aren't true." ASKED IF HE was apprehensive about the trial, Mitchell said, "I have looked forward for many, many months to the date we could have a trial, rather than a continuing investigation." The grand jury charged that the con- spiracy began in 1970, when Lance was a little-known small-town bank president and continued through his rise to prominence as Carter's closest friend and adviser. The "overt acts" listed in the indic- tment extend well past September 1977, when Lance resigned his budget post after several months of mounting con- troversy about his finances. AP Photo FORMER FEDERAL budget director Bert Lance tells reporters he is innocent in his home at Calhoun, Ga., yesterday. Earlier in the day, a federal grand jury indicted him for misusing bank funds and misleading bank regulators. Meak vs. mighty A classic confrontation between the meak and the mighty yesterday afternoon proved that in a clash between drivers, the one in the bigger vehicle is always right. Yesterday's test of wills began when a former University. student driving a Volkswagon Scirrocco down Tappan Street met with a Univer- sity Commuter bus turning right onto Tappan from South University Ave. According to the Volkswagon driver, he stopped about 20 feet from the bus when he saw it coming, giving the driver plenty of room to back out and make another turn. But the bus kept rolling until it was about four feet from the Volkswagon. Both refused to back up and the two sat for over 20 minutes until the bus driver called a campus security officer, who in turn summoned a city police officer. Although the officer explained that the bus couldn't back out onto a busy street, the Volkswagon driver stuck to his guns, saying "I like to be courteous, but when someone takes advan- tage of me, I say the hell with it." The ordeal ended when the police officer forcefully removed him from the car and back it into a nearby parking space. Perhaps Plato? So-called "sex guru" Larry Levenson, who owns Plato's Retreat, a private sex cub in Manhattan, Wednesday would not confirm whether he plans to bring a similar establishment to Ann Arbor. Leven- son did, however, announce on WXYZ-TV'sKelly & Company that he has found a location in the greater Detroit area for a midwestern branch. He told the Detroit Free Press "hostile community groups" in Ann - Arbor might prevent the liberal club from locating in the city. He also said the building would be in a business district, would be open only at night, and would contain private rooms, a whirlpool, a swimming pool, movie rooms, and a "mat room," which could hold more than one per- son. Maybe the city should have sold the old fire station to Levenson for a small fortune. Clarification Several points in yesterday's article on Hesse Nasir's speech in the Michigan Union Wednesday night were unclear. Nasir is the exiled president of Bir Zeit University, an Arabic school in the oc- cupied West Bank. Happenings ... .... kick off at 1:30 p.m. in the International Cen- ter Recreation Room, where Prof. Teshone Wagaw of the School of Education and the Center for Afro- American and African Studies will discuss "Lear- ning for Development in Africa: Crisis and In- novation" . . . open auditions and a crew infor- mational meeting for Bertolt Brecht's play, "Pun- tila and Matti, His Hired Man," will le held in the Residential College Auditorium in East Quad at 4 p.m.... starting at 7 p.m. and ending at 11 p.m., WICN-AM 650 and WCBN-FM 88.3 are sponsoring a Memorial Day Weekend dance in the Liberty Plaza . . . at 7:30 p.m., Project Voyager--To the Giant Planets will be shown and Jim Loudon will discuss "Voyager Report I: Jupiter" in Aud. 3, MLB.. . senior dance students again will present a dance concert at 8 p.m. in the Dance Building, 1310 N. University Ave.... it's the astronomy depar- tments' Visitor's night and Robert Fessen will talk about "Colors in the Night Sky" and the film Space Navigation will be presented at 8:30 in Aud. B, Angell Hall. On the outside Someone should copyright this weather so it can't be reproduced without special permission. It'll be cloudy again, and it'll probably rain. The high tem- perature will be around 60', the low around 40.