Brown and White Vol. 115 No. 31

              the brown and white lehigh university's student newspaper founded in 1894 vol 115 no 31 friday february 13 2009 all the lehigh news first ex-student sent to prison for blackmail burglary by john gilpatrick former lehigh student ricardo al vayero was sentenced to six to 23 months in prison for felony burglary on feb 9 ac cording to an article in the morning call alvayero was also sentenced to three years probation and 28 days of inpatient alcohol counseling for stealing a student's laptop and threatening to release nude photos he found on the hard drive if she did not send him more the article said on jan 16 2008 alvayero sneaked into the female student's room and stole two laptops and 100 worth of undergar ments according to past brown and white reports the victim received an e-mail on march 16 2008 telling her if she did not send al vayero more nude pictures he would post the ones he had all over campus the victim notified lehigh police and her parents who contacted the allentown fbi on march 20 alvayero admitted to investigators that he was the one who sent the e-mail and stole the property he was charged on march 24 with extortion two counts of burglary three counts of theft and three counts of receiv ing stolen property alvayero was also forced to pay 4,538 in restitution and a 1,000 fine i'd like to apologize to the victim i take full responsibility i apologize for my poor judgement alvayero said according to the morning call alvayero has spent the last ten months on house arrest he also said he hopes to get past what he did and to one day attend college again the morning call said know your rights b&wphoto by matt breitel c.l lindsay an expert on students rights speaks at packard auditorium on thursday feb 5 lindsay's presentation throwing a police-free party covered topics such as id checking kegs and noise pollution taylor gym upgrade not enough some students say by courtney molinaro students say the improvements to the welch fitness center in taylor gymnasium made over winter break are a positive change but the area still needs further renovations while students have said they enjoy the new equipment and look of the upstairs some still have concerns over the space available in the fitness center and the requirement of reserving certain work-out machines online prior to arriv ing at the gym jordan straker 09 said the lack of space is always a concern because of how crowded the gym becomes but said she enjoys the new machines on the top floor i definitely think it's a step in the right directions but i still think we are far behind most other college campuses with their workout facilities straker said our gym is just so tiny and i feel like it still has a lot of improvements to be made straker said updated machines and an expansion would improve the quality of the fitness center the majority of improvements have been made to the upstairs portion of the fitness center leaving the students who use the dumbbells and weight machines located on the bottom floor unaffected by the changes trolley tracks found under third street by martina russial steel trolley ties were discovered underground during a project to widen the third street lanes in south bethle hem over the last month said robert donchez bethle hem city council president sibel pamukcu associate chair of the civil engineering department said the discovery made him realize bethle hem was once a busy city this kind of public transportation is a good indica tion of a bustling place pamukcu said it reminds me of how close it is to having the aura of a metropolitan area pamukcu said it is very important to develop and pre serve history i think that it would be good to reinstate the trolley it would give such a good character to bethlehem if they would explore the possibilities pamukcu said this area is not a heavy traffic area if they can they may con sider the trolley being rejuvenated mary pongracz a member of the bethlehem histori cal society said she really enjoyed the trollies we used to get on them and go all over town she said pongracz said the trolleys were used to get to other cities we could get all the way over to allentown which was amazing she said pongracz also said the trolleys were an efficient and convenient form of transportation but once there were more cars on the road and more urban development the trolleys became unnecessary residential areas really expanded and it became necessary for people to have their own transportation she said pongracz said even though trolleys would be efficient in light of volatile gas prices people would not find the same use for them as before the reality is that we've become very self-sufficient and self-contained she said although he doesn't think bethlehem could reinstate a trolley system donchez said he would like to see more public transportation we need to make things more accessible to bethle hem people donchez said the road construction planned by the city that led to the trolley tie discovery will expand third street to four lanes across to allow for a more cohesive traffic pattern see gym page 3 see trolley page 6 paying the price for 9p^t c wrestling team check online for long-distance love to host army f&m breaking news page 7 mj page 16 www.thebrownandwhite.com