Jurisprudence

The head of the nation’s largest black church organization denied reports that the National Baptist Convention U.S.A. tried to coerce a teen-age beauty pageant contestant into withdrawing her rape complaint against boxer Mike Tyson. The Rev. T.J. Jemison, president of the group, acknowledged he telephoned the woman but denied that he tried to pressure her into changing her story or offered her money.

An Indianapolis television station quoted unidentified sources as saying the FBI is investigating allegations that representatives of the group approached Tyson’s accuser and her parents before the Jan. 27 start of the boxer’s trial. An FBI spokesman in Boston would neither confirm nor deny the report.

In a related story, Indianapolis attorney Robert Prather said Wednesday he overheard a juror from the Tyson trial claim that the trial was fixed. Prather said that a man he recognized as juror No. 2 was exercising at a gym on Saturday when he made the remark. WISH-TV in Indianapolis, which broadcast the initial report of the juror’s comments Wednesday night, reported that the Marion County prosecutor’s office will question the juror about the report.