Judge Retains Two Central Counts Against North

The judge in the Iran-Contra case on Tuesday retained two of the central charges against Oliver L. North but dismissed a third as a “purely cumulative count” that would only confuse jurors.

U.S. District Judge Gerhard A. Gesell refused to dismiss charges of conspiracy to defraud the government and theft of government property against the former National Security Council aide that arose from the diversion of U.S.-Iran arms sale proceeds to the Nicaraguan rebels.

“The indictment clearly alleges a conspiracy which involved concealing the very existence of the profits of the enterprise from the start and hiding from Congress information relating to the conspirators’ assistance for the Contras,” Gesell said.

“Its purpose depended on deceit from the start, and acts of concealment were actually part of the commission of the substantive crime,” the judge said of North’s contention that the conspiracy count was invalid because it alleged more than one conspiracy.

The judge dismissed a wire fraud charge, saying that it “is, in many ways, a cumulative count” that would only create “substantial confusion in the minds of the jurors.”

All three charges were also filed against North’s co-defendants: former National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter and arms dealers Albert A. Hakim and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord. Gesell’s dismissal of the wire fraud count suggests that the charge may be dropped against the other defendants, who are scheduled to be tried separately.

6 Other Counts Retained

The judge refused to dismiss six charges that North lied to congressional committees that investigated whether he and other members of the security council staff were covertly providing military aid to the Contras in violation of the law.

So far, Gesell has ruled on 34 of North’s 37 pretrial motions. Of the 16 original counts against North, only two have been dismissed by Gesell, including a charge that the retired Marine lieutenant colonel obstructed an FBI probe of the installation of a security fence around his home in Great Falls, Va.

In a separate ruling Tuesday, the judge refused to exclude independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh and his associates from closed hearings set to begin today on North’s objections to editing 350 classified documents the prosecution wants to use as evidence.

He said that excluding prosecutors “would alter the purpose of the hearing and result in further and wholly unnecessary delay” of the trial, which he previously had indicated may start in late January.