July 16, 1996

A doctor from East Brunswick was sentenced to six months in jail yesterday and ordered to pay $9,000 in fines for molesting nine female patients between 1987 and 1990. Frank Graves, an assistant prosecutor for Middlesex County, said that Dr. Benjamin Levine, 55, got some of the women to grope him during examinations. Dr. Levine was convicted in May.

A state appeals court yesterday turned down a request by 14 counties to share in a windfall the state is getting as reimbursement for treating the poor at psychiatric hospitals and residential homes for the mentally disabled. Because of a rules change, the Federal Government has agreed to pay New Jersey $816 million for patients who were previously ineligible for Medicaid, The AP reported. The court wrote that it would be "impermissible judicial intrusion" for judges to intervene in a dispute between the counties and the state.

Bob Dole has chosen an abortion rights supporter, Representative Susan Molinari of Staten Island, to give the keynote address to the Republican National Convention. Woman in the News, page A15.

The New York Legislature approved a striking change last weekend in the way subway, bus and commuter railroad improvements are paid for, shifting the burden from government to riders and relying heavily on borrowed money, which critics say will lead to sharply higher fares in a few years. The Assembly and Senate voted Saturday to approve the financing for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's new capital program, which will spend $7.3 billion in 1997, 1998 and 1999 on a fleet of new subway trains, more than 1,000 new buses, new commuter trains and refurbished subway stations. The program also contains money to lay the groundwork for linking the Long Island Rail Road to Grand Central Terminal some time in the next century.

A Newark woman was charged with aggravated assault yesterday after shoving her 9-year-old daughter through a department store window, the police said. The 30-year-old woman, who was not identified by the police, got off a bus at Broad and Market Streets with her three children and discovered that $900 she had hidden in her baby's diaper bag was missing, Sgt. Derek Glenn said. After reporting the loss to a police officer, the woman accused the 9-year-old of losing the money and pushed her through a window at the CiCi Department Store, Sergeant Glenn said. The girl was in stable condition at University Hospital with multiple cuts.