March 20, 1996

The partner of a Paterson housing police officer who fatally shot a man last month at a housing project has been suspended without pay for filing a false report, officials announced yesterday. The partner, Officer Richard DeJesus, who has not been charged with a crime, first told internal affairs investigators that he did not see the shooting. But in a subsequent written report, he reversed himself and supported his partner's story about the shooting, said Boris Moczula, first assistant prosecutor for Passaic County. Confronted with the inconsistency, Officer DeJesus admitted he had made up the written account, Mr. Moczula said. The Paterson police said that Officer Philip Perrone was investigating a burglary and was struggling with Christopher Thompson when his gun went off, a bullet striking Mr. Thompson once in the head.

The president of a tax preparation firm in Moorestown admitted yesterday in Federal Court that he neglected to file his own Federal tax return for 1991, when his income was $80,000, said Holly Kulka, an assistant United States attorney.

Just three weeks after abruptly canceling a joint service that was two years and millions of dollars in the making, AT&T and I.B.M.'s Lotus Development Corporation are expected to announce a revamped alliance today. As part of the deal, AT&T will use the forthcoming version of Lotus Notes software as the foundation for many of its future commercial offerings on the Internet's World Wide Web.

PUFFY parkas and fuzzy flannels must go. So decreed Mo Stein, the owner of Frank's Sport Shop on Tremont Avenue in the Bronx, who has placed those items on sale. It's time for baseball, soccer and fishing, which in his business are surer harbingers of spring than sunshine or flowers. No snow? Mo knows. Like it or not, those wool shirts might come in handy. Although Monday was a roll-down-the-windows-and-roll-up-your-sleeves kind of day, cold and clouds linger, bringing punishing storms like last night's. Take no chances with the winter that took no prisoners.

Senator Bob Dole roared through the industrial Midwest Tuesday, piling up resounding primary victories in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin that left him just a handful of delegates short of sealing the Republican Presidential nomination. "I think it's safe to say now that I will be the nominee," Mr. Dole, shedding his usual caution, declared at a rally of mostly young supporters at a Washington hotel Tuesday night. Next week's primary in California is likely to put him over the top.