People in the News

JERUSALEM — David Lynch, on a five-day visit to Israel to encourage transcendental meditation, met with Israeli President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres.

"Lynch is one of the greatest directors of our generation and a giant artist on his own, and it is a great honor for the state of Israel to host you and listen to you,” Peres said Monday. "The whole of Israel recognizes your work and is proud to host you.”

The 61-year-old director, who has received Oscar nominations for "The Elephant Man,” "Blue Velvet” and "Mullholland Dr.,” is visiting Israel to encourage transcendental meditation as a new approach to eliminating violence in schools and creating a peaceful world.

"Real peace is not just the absence of war, but the absence of all suffering, all negativity,” Lynch said at the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem. "Change comes from within. From the first meditation, boom, you’re there.”

Lynch has been meditating for more than 30 years.

He started the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace to promote transcendental meditation as a way to aid students in violence-ridden schools and bring about world harmony.

With meditation, Lynch said, the "black cloud of negativity dissolves.”

Meditation can aid not only schoolchildren, but also bring tranquility to troubled regions of the world, he said.

"The experienced gardener doesn’t worry about the leaves. Get at (the problem) from its roots,” he said. "A peace on the surface — it doesn’t address the seeds of war ... it’s a ‘peace’ of paper.”

Lynch said if he had to choose between meditation and filmmaking, meditation would win.

Co-defendants in armed robbery case agree to testify against O.J.

LAS VEGAS — A second co-defendant in the O.J. Simpson armed robbery case said Monday that he will plead guilty to a reduced charge and testify against Simpson and four others in the alleged hotel room theft of sports collectibles from two memorabilia dealers.

Walter Alexander, 46, of Mesa, Ariz., told a judge he will plead guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery, a felony. He could face between one and six years in prison.

Outside the courtroom, Alexander and his lawyers declined to say what testimony he will provide.

Earlier Monday, Charles Cashmore, 40, of Las Vegas, told the same judge that he would plead guilty to a felony and testify for the prosecution.

"It’s always a prosecutor’s strategy to go after the little fish to get to the big fish,” Cashmore’s attorney, Edward Miley, said outside court. "In this, it seems to be that O.J. Simpson is the big fish.”

The plea agreements up the ante in the prosecution of Simpson. Cashmore can testify that guns were involved in the Sept. 13 confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers at a Las Vegas casino hotel room, his lawyer said.

"He can establish who was in the room, what was said, who had guns, who didn’t have guns, potentially who may have seen guns, who didn’t see guns,” Miley said. "I think he wishes he would have never met O.J.” Simpson and his lawyers have denied guns were in the room at the Palace Station hotel-casino. His lawyers did not immediately respond Monday to requests for comment.

Alexander and Cashmore waived their preliminary hearings. Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Joe Bonaventure Jr., set both men’s arraignments for Oct. 23.

Cashmore faces up to five years in prison. "In District Court, he’ll be pleading guilty to accessory to robbery,” Clark County District Attorney David Roger told Bonaventure. "He’s agreed to provide truthful testimony.”

Outside court, Cashmore said he thought he’d done the right thing, but declined additional comment.

Cashmore was initially arraigned on nine felonies and a gross misdemeanor, charges that included kidnapping, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and conspiracy. A kidnapping conviction alone could have resulted in a sentence of life in prison with parole.

Simpson and the others, Clarence "C.J.” Stewart, Michael McClinton, and Charles Ehrlich, are due in court for a preliminary hearing on Nov. 8 and 9. Bonaventure will decide then whether there is enough evidence to send the case to trial in state court on charges including kidnapping, armed robbery, assault, burglary and conspiracy.

McClinton’s lawyer, Bill Terry, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Clark County District Attorney David Roger declined comment outside court and has not outlined the prosecution’s strategy.

If asked, Cashmore will testify if asked at the preliminary hearing that Alexander and McClinton were armed when they entered the room with Simpson, Miley said. He said Alexander’s testimony could clarify Simpson’s role.

"What Mr. Alexander, I’m assuming, will be able to say is who told them to bring firearms, what planning there was, and what was said and done after the fact,” Miley said.

Alexander’s lawyer, Robert Dennis Rentzer, expressed doubt Cashmore knew whether Alexander was armed.

Simpson claims at least some of the items taken from collectors Alfred Beardsley and Bruce Fromong belonged to him, and his lawyers have maintained that no guns were used. Simpson and the others are charged with kidnapping, armed robbery, assault, burglary and conspiracy.

Cashmore was introduced to Simpson and most of the others in the group for the first time minutes before the alleged robbery, Miley said.

"He didn’t know anyone. He didn’t know what was going on,” Miley said. "He didn’t have a gun.”

Cashmore, a journeyman laborer, bartender and disc jockey, surrendered to authorities six days after the encounter, and after police released images from hotel security videotapes showing him carrying a box from the room at the hotel.

Cashmore didn’t look at everything in the box, but said some items included lithograph prints of football great Joe Montana, his lawyer said.

Cashmore should have immediately gone to the police and turned over the items he carried out of the room, Miley said. "He should have done something, but he didn’t,” Miley said.

In 1996, he plea bargained a felony theft charge to a misdemeanor and received probation in an embezzlement case in Utah.

Alexander’s lawyer, Robert Dennis Rentzer, declined to say whether Alexander had a gun in the room, but expressed doubt Cashmore could say Alexander was armed.

McClinton’s lawyer, Bill Terry, did not respond to requests for comment.