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© 1993 IDS Financial Corporation.
Custody fight with grandmother
prompts sex charges, couple says
Lexington, NC—A lesbian couple fac
ing charges that they sexually abused their
daughter say the child’s grandmother insti
gated the case in order to get custody be
cause she disapproves of their relationship.
Shirley Edwards and her partner, Donna
Madren, have been accused of kissing the
genitals of their 2'/:-year-old daughter.
They face first-degree sex offense charges,
which carry a maximum penalty of life in
prison. They also are charged with hitting
the girl and biting her on the leg.
Madren, 34, and Edwards, 26, claim
the charges, which they deny, are being
used by Edwards’ mother, Elaine Vanzant,
in an attempt to gain custody of the little
girl. Madren says the case began stewing
last fall when Edwards told her mother of
her sexual orientation.
“It’s pretty dirty tactics,” said Edwards’
attorney, Jeffrey Koenig.
Vanzant, who has temporary custody
of the girl, says the charges have nothing
to do with the fact her daughter is a les
bian.
“I could care less who she sleeps with,”
Vanzant said. “All I care about is my grand
daughter and her welfare.”
The case is similar to a Virginia case,
where a judge ruled that a grandmother
was more fit to retain custody of a young
boy than the child’s lesbian mother, says
the cofounder of a gay-rights group.
Both women vehemently deny that they
sexually abused the girl.
“I might be gay, but I’m not a per
verted person,” Madren said. “There are a
lot of times when I sit at the house and
wonder why, what have I done to these
people. I just don’t understand it.”
Edwards has been in jail on $75,000
bond since both women were arrested on
Jan. 11. Madren’s family bailed her out
after 26 days.
A social services report to the court said
the girl told a babysitter that Edwards and
Madren “kiss her ‘kitty kat’ and they are
mean to her.” The child was examined by a
local physician who found no evidence of
sexual abuse but did see some fading
bruises.
“There is something strange about the
case,” said Jennifer Brock, Madren’s attor
ney. “Typically, there are all kinds of doc
tors and tests done.”
“It boils down to some statements of a
2i/2-year-old child without any medical
documentation,” Brock said. “I believe there
are better ways to try to extract the infor
mation from a young child, experts in the
field. None of that’s been done with this
child.”
Vanzant says she believes her grand
daughter.
“When I asked her about it, she told me
who did it without a blink of the eye,” she
said.
Madren, who says the store she owns
has been broken into and that she has been
shot at since the charges were brought, said
it’s her love for her partner that has kept her
fighting the case.
“I would not go through what I have
gone through and continue to go through if
I did not love her,” Madren said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gay candidate loses Florida runoff
Ft. Lauderdale, FL—With the city’s
gay/lesbian community split between can
didates, an openly gay man has lost his bid
for a seat on the Ft. Lauderdale City Com
mission.
Cary Keno, the straight incumbent, beat
Ken Wolf, his gay challenger, in a runoff
March 8 by a 61 percent to 39 percent
margin at the end of a highly contentious
campaign. Wolf had led after the first round
of balloting, but a runoff was held because
no candidate received a majority.
Keno had courted the gay/lesbian com
munity since his election in 1992, and dur
ing the campaign, he placed an ad in a gay
publication saying that “I can’t help that I
am heterosexual. I was born that way.” The
day after the election, in which he received
significant gay/lesbian support, he was pic
tured in a photograph in the Ft. Lauderdale
Sun-Sentinel, waving a rainbow flag.
But Wolfs supporters claimed Keno was
at the same time trying to appeal to conser
vative voters in the city with anti-gay fliers
that featured a picture of Wolf superim
posed over the face of another man with his
arms around other men clad only in under
wear.
FT. LAUDERDALE
SUN-SENTINEL
Compound Q trial leader dies at 32
Ft. Lauderdale, FL—-Paul Sergios, an
author, filmmaker and crusader in AIDS
research who led an underground trial of
Compound Q, died March 6 from AIDS
complications. He was 32.
Sergios, a Fort Lauderdale native, was
active in a successful effort to expedite
U.S. Food and Drug Administration ap
proval of new drugs for life-threatening
diseases and helped to gain legal access to
promising drugs before they were approved.
His account of that struggle, “One Boy
at War, My Life in the AIDS Under
ground,” was published in April 1993.
He graduated from the University of
Southern California with a double major in
film and psychology and landed a job in
the development department of a Los An
geles film production company. He later
moved to San Francisco to work for an ad
agency. Within months, he learned he had
contracted HIV. He was 22.
Sergios talked his way into the first AZT
drug study, even though he didn’t meet the
criteria. He made contacts with top research
ers around the world to learn about promis
ing drugs.
He returned to South Florida to partici
pate in a drug trial at the University of
Miami and to be near his mother, Madeline
Sergios, a local artist
When he read about a Chinese drug
called Compound Q, he called China and
talked a doctor into selling him some. Fear
ing the normal drug approval process would
take years, he recruited volunteers for an
underground trial working with North Mi
ami Beach physician Robert Mayer. The
trial, which followed a strict protocol, ex
panded to four cities, including New York,
San Francisco and Los Angeles, and its re
sults, which were mixed, were presented to
an FDA panel.
ASSOCIATED PRESS