Monday, May. 31, 1999

Milestones

By Melissa August, Harriet Barovick, Michelle Derrow, Tam Gray, Daniel Levy, Lina Lofaro, David Spitz, Flora Tartakovsky and Chris Taylor

INDICTED. ALI MOHAMED, 46, former Army sergeant; on federal charges that he helped train terrorists implicated in the World Trade Center bombing and those suspected of last summer's U.S. embassy bombing in Kenya; in New York City. Mohamed is an Egyptian native whose three-year U.S. Army stint ended in 1989.

PLEADED GUILTY. YAH LIN ("Charlie") TRIE, 49, Democratic fund raiser and Clinton crony; to two counts of violating federal election laws; in Little Rock, Ark. He pledged to cooperate with the Justice Department's campaign-finance inquiry in exchange for immunity and probation.

WON. JEFFREY KATZENBERG, former Disney filmmaking big cheese; his ongoing lawsuit against Walt Disney Co.; in Los Angeles. A judge ruled that Katzenberg is owed a slice of the profits, plus interest, from films and related products he oversaw as Disney's studio chief from 1984 to 1994. The trial resumes this week to determine Katzenberg's compensation, which could hit the quarter-billion-dollar mark.

DIED. GEORGETTE SMITH, 42, shooting victim; of gunshot wounds sustained in March; after being removed from life support; in Orlando, Fla. Smith's mother, Shirley Egan, 68, had already been charged with attempted murder for the shooting and now may face a murder charge. Egan allegedly shot her daughter after overhearing her talk about moving Egan to a nursing home.

DIED. HENRY JONES, 86, Everyman actor; of injuries suffered in a fall at his home; in Los Angeles. Jones' neighborly face and subtle acting skill allowed him to slip unnoticed into roles in 350 television shows and dozens of plays and films. A favorite of Alfred Hitchcock's, Jones appeared most memorably as the coroner in Vertigo.

DIED. JOHN MINOR WISDOM, 93, pioneering civil rights judge and an architect of the New South; in New Orleans. Wisdom was one of four judges of the South's Fifth Circuit in the 1950s and '60s whose opinions helped end segregation (see Eulogy).