leichter (05/14/82)
>From the New York Times, 13 May 82:
Flash Gordon Writer Sentenced to Jail
Since 1951, long before men made the leap into space, Daniel
Barry has been writing and drawing the Flash Gordon comic strip.
"The scientist's job," he told an interviewer in 1969, "is to get
man into space and onto the planets. Mine is to presume he is already
there and to carry on with the uses and misuses of the accomplish-
ments"
Last Tuesday in Federal Court in Bridgeport, Conn., Mr. Barru
\\\(Barry) was sentenced to one year in jail and fined $10,000 for
income tax evasion after pleading guilty to the charge of not having
filed a return in 1978.
Mr. Barry, 59 years old, had been charged with four counts of not
\\\ tax evasion for not having filed from 1975 through 1978. Under plea
bargaining agreement, the first three charges were dropped and Mr.
Barry pleaded guilty to the fourth count, for which he received the
maximum sentence.
In passing sentence, Magistrate Thomas P. Smith said paying
taxes was "a fundamental obligation of all citizens" and hoped the
prison term and fine would be a deterrant to others.
Mr. Barry, formerly of South Kent, Conn., now lives in Sarasota,
Fla. He is due to start serving his sentence June 4. "Nothing's
going to happen to Flash Gordon," said Bill Yates, the comics
editor of King Features Syndicate, which distributes the strip.
"Being in jail doesn't preclude Dan's doing the strip."
-- Jerry