May 4, 1995

Steven Baker is back where he belongs: in jail. Mr. Baker, 24, who was released from prison in a paperwork foul-up, was captured yesterday and returned to prison at Yardville, where he had been set free by mistake on March 25. He is serving 50 years for his part in an armed robbery.

Kenneth Gribetz, the District Attorney of Rockland County, resigned today and pleaded guilty to two Federal misdemeanor counts, one for failing to disclose $36,000 in taxable income and a second for using county investigators on personal errands, like delivering copies of a book he wrote. It was the first time in 22 years that a District Attorney in the New York metropolitan area had been forced out of office for committing a crime, Federal authorities said.

Senator Bill Bradley asked his colleagues yesterday to take a second look at budget cuts that threaten the start-up of a board to investigate chemical plant explosions like the one that killed five workers last month in Lodi. Bills passed in the House and Senate would wipe out $500,000 for a Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.

The collapse of the latest effort to find John Doe No. 2, the elusive suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing, forced Federal law-enforcement officials today to question some of their basic assumptions about the case, including whether such a man exists and whether they should focus more aggressively on the suspects and evidence already in hand. The decision to release Gary Land and Robert Jacks, the two men arrested in Missouri on Tuesday after a nationwide manhunt, made it painfully evident that the two-week effort to track down John Doe No. 2 had gone nowhere, despite thousands of tips and a $2 million reward.

Pressure from insurance agents has derailed for now proposals by the Clinton Administration and conservative Republicans to allow commercial banks to merge with insurance companies and industrial corporations, Democratic and Republican members of Congress said today. As a result, they said, the legislation expected to emerge from the House Banking Committee next week is likely to be limited to a dismantling of the barriers between banks and securities firms.