Prisoner Releases

Reporters from all over the country have converged on the story of Charles Rothenberg's Wednesday prison release, for weeks inundating both the man who set his son afire and his ex-wife with interview requests. From Oprah Winfrey's show in Chicago to East Coast network and local television news programs, the media have tried to arrange coverage of Rothenberg as he leaves prison.

Stacey Lynn Merkt, 32, the first sanctuary movement supporter convicted of an immigration violation, has been granted an early release from prison because of complications in her pregnancy, her attorney said. Merkt's husband, attorney John Blatz, was at the federal prison in Fort Worth on Friday to pick up his wife, officials said. A federal court order will allow her to serve 83 days of her 179-day sentence under house arrest.

A judge on Tuesday ordered a Palmdale man awaiting trial for selling rock cocaine and possessing guns to remain in jail, despite a request from a Lancaster city councilman who is also a Baptist minister that the man be released on his own recognizance. Councilman Henry Hearns acknowledged sending a "character reference letter" on church stationery seeking the release of 19-year-old Terrence S. Williams, a former parishioner.

A leading suspect in the 1982 tainted-Tylenol killings was freed from federal prison Friday after serving more than 12 years. Seven people were killed by cyanide-tainted Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules purchased from drugstores and groceries in the Chicago area in 1982. The killer was never identified. James W. Lewis, an out-of-work accountant, was a prime suspect but never was charged with the deaths, which prompted dramatic changes in the way almost all food and medical products are packaged.

Daniel Tavares Jr. served 16 years in a Massachusetts prison for killing his mother with a carving knife. He associated with racist inmates, but Tavares expressed universal hostility: He repeatedly threatened to kill or maim his father, various state officials and prison guards. His father called him "pure evilness." Tavares, 41, was released from prison in June.

ISRAEL * Aryeh Deri, a former Israeli government kingmaker and leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, won early release from prison, where he has been serving a three-year term for corruption. The Israeli Prisons Authority parole board said it had decided to free Deri after nearly two years on July 15, citing his good behavior.

Threatened, reviled and shunned in this state and others, ax-wielding rapist Lawrence Singleton was released from prison at dawn Saturday after serving less than eight years in custody. With the law mandating his parole, Singleton left the California Men's Colony at San Luis Obispo without incident at 5:15 a.m. and was driven by parole officers to temporary quarters in Northern California, Department of Corrections spokesman Robert Gore said.

Saudi Arabia has freed three former Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainees who have completed their jail sentences in their home country, the state news agency SPA reported. It said the three were handed over last year by the United States, which operates the prison at its naval base at Guantanamo Bay. This month, Saudi Arabia said that it had received 15 Saudi detainees from Guantanamo Bay and that they would be put on trial in the kingdom if a review of their cases showed a trial was justified.

A judge's last-minute intervention kept Randall Dale Adams in prison Monday as he was about to walk free after serving 12 years in prison on a controversial conviction for the killing of a police officer. District Judge Ron Chapman reset Adams' bond at $100,000, superseding another judge's decision to release Adams simply on a promise to appear in court.

Suburban officials reacted with concern Wednesday to a proposal that would require inmates released from jail to be returned to the communities they came from -- rather than being dumped onto the streets of downtown Los Angeles. Some said the plan would cause problems because suburbs don't have the resources -- such as drug treatment programs and cheap rents -- to deal with the influx. On Tuesday, state Sen.