October 21, 1993

Stew Leonard Sr., whose circuslike Connecticut dairy stores made him a folk hero of American retailing, was sentenced today to more than four years in prison and fined $947,000 for his role in a sophisticated tax-fraud scheme. The prison sentence, five months shy of the maximum recommended by Federal guidelines, cemented a remarkable fall for Mr. Leonard, whose reputation was shattered this summer when he and three executives pleaded guilty to skimming more than $17 million in sales from the family's Norwalk store.

BOARD FINES DINKINS CAMPAIGN The Campaign Finance Board fined the Dinkins campaign $320,000 for spending more than the legal limit during the Democratic Primary. A1. In stump speeches that he delivers several times a day, Mayor Dinkins has been working to shift the focus of the race from a referendum on his four-year term to one on Rudolph W. Giuliani's politics and ideology. B10.

PURE esthetics never drives design changes, real life does. You fall in love, you start moving furniture. You have a child . . . watch out. At precisely the same moment my husband and I brought our newborn son home seven months ago, we began freely admitting into our apartment an alarming number of objects of questionable demeanor.

Not long ago, it would have been inconceivable. But today, at the first industry gathering after last week's announcement of the biggest communications merger in history, longtime rivals, many of them accustomed to accusing each other of monopolistic tendencies, met for a two-hour love fest.

A $150 million plan to keep the Yankees in the Bronx through 2032 will be offered in the next few days to George M. Steinbrenner 3d, the team's principal owner, Gov. Mario M. Cuomo said yesterday. The new offer follows a far less detailed project proposed by the Governor last month, which offered the Yankee owner a 50,000-seat stadium on Manhattan's West Side at a cost of $530 million. That proposal was quickly opposed by city officials and community leaders as too extravagant and impractical given the traffic congestion in the area.