North Ordered to Delay Start of Service Work

Oliver L. North was told to stay away Tuesday from the church where he was scheduled to begin 1,200 hours of community service work in an anti-drug program, apparently to avoid touching off a media circus.

An official of Project Save Our Youth Inc. said that North’s probation officer, Ralph Ardito, said U.S. District Court Judge Gerhard A. Gesell told North to delay his participation in the program in an effort to avert a wave of media coverage.

“He (Ardito) said Judge Gesell does not want the press hounding North . . . does not want this to turn into a super-hero situation,” project coordinator Don Lewis said.

Gesell, who sentenced the former White House aide for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal, “did not want any press coverage relating to North’s work or any unnecessary gathering of the press,” Lewis quoted Ardito as saying.

The judge was on vacation in Maine, and Ardito was not available for comment.

Project officials said they were not sure when North would begin the community service, or exactly how to limit media coverage when he does.

North, who was fined $150,000 and ordered to do community service for three felony convictions in the scandal, attended a two-hour orientation Monday and had been scheduled to start work Tuesday afternoon at Project SOY, a nonprofit group operating out of a church in northwest Washington.