The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 1

i VOLUME 245 NUMBER 22 76 pages 35 cents if EARLY WARMING SYSTEM Saturday: AM cloudxPM xiin, JO Sunday: Clouding up, 25 High tide: 646 p.m. Full report: Page 56 cents at newsstands beyond MO miles (nun Boston SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 1994 Patriot tome stoytag 1 Jury acquits wife in sex mutilation Mrs. Bobbitt found insane Kraft is said to buy team Vj I i 1 By Mitchell Zuckoff GLOBE STAFF By Bill Mille and Marylou Tousignant WASHINGTON POST MANASSAS, Va. Lorena Bobbitt, charged with malicious wounding for cutting off her husband's penis last June, did not walk out of court a free woman yesterday, but she got the next best thing: a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. 1 i I Bobbitt could have gone to prison for up to 20 years.

Instead she was whisked from a courthouse here to a state hospital in Petersburg, for psychiatric evaluation. "She's not guilty of anything She's fully exonerated," a jubilant Blair D. Howard, one of Bobbitt's three attorneys, said after the conclusion of the eight-day trial, one of the nation's most watched AP PHOTO LORENA BOBBITT The New England Patriots, whose threatened departure became a symbol of regional malaise and a rallying point for civic pride, will be purchased by Foxboro Stadium owner Robert K. Kraft and will remain in Massachusetts for the indefinite future. Kraft agreed yesterday to pay current Patriots owner James B.

Orthwein an amount sources said would approach $170 million, the highest price ever paid for a National Football League franchise. If approved by the NFL next month, the deal would put the Patriots under local ownership and fulfill Kraft's childhood dreams. By stepping into the role of white knight for the Patriots and Massachusetts, Kraft ended fears of losing the team to St. Louis, Hartford, Baltimore or some other city hungry for the status and economic spinoffs of a professional football team. Less certain is the impact on the proposed Boston megaplex.

The current design calls for a convention center combined with a domed stadium, envisioned by its supporters as the Patriots' future home. Gov. Weld and state lawmakers have been trying feverishly for two months to decide whether to build the facility, motivated partly by fear that Orthwein would sell the team to an out-of-state bidder unless a new stadium were in the offing. Now, with Kraft owning the team and its existing stadium in suburban Foxborough, momentum for a new, publicly financed stadium and perhaps even the entire $700 million megaplex could slow to a halt. At the very least, it could force a sweeping re-evaluation of the project.

Megaplex supporters, however, said resolving the question of Patriots ownership should free legislators to consider the issue purely on the basis of its economic impact through jobs, taxes, and convention and tourism business. Kraft refused to comment yesterday on whether he thinks a domed stadium is needed. He also declined to say whether he would proceed with previously announced plans for a $60 million renovation of Foxboro Stadium. Kraft's associates had said those improvements would make a domed stadium in Boston unnecessary. Instead, Kraft kept his focus on the team and his plans for its future.

With his wife and children behind him in a conference room at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, Kraft spoke as a sports fan as well as a businessman, rhapsodizing about his love of the city, his youth as a follower of the Boston Braves and his feeling that "a part of me died" when the baseball team moved to Milwaukee in the 1950s. and debated sagas of marital strife a soap opera come to life. When the verdict was announced, the 24-year-old defendant smiled briefly but showed no other emotion. A dozen or so of her friends in the back of the small courtroom emitted a loud gasp of relief. John Bobbitt was not in court, and his attorney, Greg Murphy, refused to comment on the verdict.

BOBBITT, Page 6 Of men and women, crime and punishment By Tom Mashberg GLOBE STAFF For every wisecrack, there was a wince, for every salacious pun, a spasm of phantom pain. With the Lorena Bobbitt verdict blaring from TV screens guilty" for cutting "it" men and women headed for opposite sides of the sexual divide and debated whose punishment had fit which crime. "She shouldn't have to spend the rest of her life in jail," said Sandra Dawson, 27, of Dorchester. "Maybe he did rape her; I don't think she just woke up one morning and just did it. I mean, she drove off and threw it out the window of the car." Answered Robert Patro, 23, also of Dorchester: "Maybe it wasn't so good that he did what he did, but that's not how you handle it.

She took the mat- or A. i GLOBE STAFF PHOTO FRANK O'BRIEN A beaming Robert Kraft, right, hugs Patriots owner James Orthwein after announcing his purchase of the team. Robert Kraft is a businessman and fan who says he has wanted to own a professional team since the Braves left town. Profile in Sports, Page 72. St.

Louis, Hartford react. Sports, Page 74. IVlore on the Patriots deal inside For the president of Bank of Columnist Dan Shaughnessy Boston, which played a large part writes that because all sports is in the deal, it was a sweet mo- local, this is a happy day for ment. Business, Page 59. Massachusetts.

Sports, Page 67. PATRIOTS, Page 73 Cable TV plans to police itself Sale lessens megaplex urgency 5' By Frederic M. Biddle GLOBE STAFF By Peter J. Howe GLOBE STAFF The economic argument for the megaplex remains in place, even though you now do have certainty that the Pats are going to remain in GOV. WELD is now scrutinizing a megaplex bill and plans at least two more investigative hearings.

Finneran said he would now like to consider whether a megaplex should also include a baseball park for the Red Sox. Some studies suggest Fenway Park may not remain structurally sound past 2005 or 2010, Finneran said. House Speaker Charles F. Flaherty, the leading Beacon Hill critic of a megaplex, said legislators will continue to investigate the need for convention space along MEGAPLEX, Page 73 islative process, will become a reality." But the urgency to approve a combined Boston convention center and football stadium quickly evaporated with Kraft's purchase. Bay State legislators, who often seem to need a crisis to compel them to act, now have months or years to consider whether a big new convention center with or without a football stadium is necessary any more.

"It probably reduces the likelihood of action this year," said Rep. Thomas M. Fin-neran (D-Mattapan), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which I Threatened with regulation by lawmakers amid the public outcry against TV violence, the nation's cable television executives yesterday said they are formulating a plan to control violent programming. They are considering a program ratings system as well as independent monitors and introduction of the much-discussed V-chip that would allow adults to block violent programs. "It's believed and hoped by the cable industry that this will reduce the need for legislation," Bridgit Blum-berg, a spokeswoman for the National Cable Television Association, said.

"As the plan is being developed, a rat- CABLE, Page 4 The megaplex pressure cooker on Beacon Hill lost almost all its, steam yesterday as the New England Patriots were sold to a local owner who refused to say whether he wants to move the team out of Foxborough. James B. Orthwein, who sold the football team to Foxboro Stadium owner Robert K. Kraft, said he had received asswv ances in the last two weeks from Beacon Hill's top three leaders that a Boston me; gaplex, "regardless of the length of the leg-, Inside FEATURES CLASSIFIED Ask The Globe 18 Classified real estate: Opening doors Business 59 Autos 37 'She believes in him; he is the man with the plan. She has also gotten a lot out of him as well' JOHN BRUMMETT, Clinton biographer Clintons' marriage: a powerful state of union Comics 18-19 Help Wanted 34 Deaths 16 Real Estate 30 Editorials 32 10 Apartments Horoscope 18 Comm'VInd'l 32 LivinArts 21 Market Basket 36 Lottery 14 YachtsBoats 69 Reader Feedback We asked: "Should figure skater Tonya Harding be allowed to compete in the Winter Olympics?" A sampling of your answers on Page 9.

By Michael Kranish (JLOBt) STAFF MetroRegion 13 Learning 28 Sports 67 Globe Newspaper Co. TVRadio 57 ASHINGTON When President Clinton was inaugurated one year ago, the commentary about his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is not just about their style orabeukthe way Mrs. Clinton has become one of the most influential women in American history. It is, instead, about how the Clintons operate as the First Power Couple. They rely on each other, with results that are sometimes effective, sometimes explosive.

And each one occasionally rescues the other. Whether she is bashing the life insurance industry, fighting the release of records in the Whitewater case or defending her husband against a new round of accusations about mari tal infidelity, Mrs. Clinton has emerged as a person on whom the president relies to fight some of his toughest battles. The president, meanwhile, has given her an extraordinary platform of power, but it has been limited publicly to health care and He has sometimes overridden her recommendations. "They are best friends; they are each other's strongest defenders but also, perhaps, their strongest critics," said.

Skip Rutherford, an Arkansas businessman who has worked 1 COUPLE, Page OA 64 A I $10b turnaround: Paramount Communications has reversed itself and re-chosen Viacom as its preferred merger partner. Business, Page 59. ranged from criticism about her hat to predic- tions that she would be a far-left "copresident." But after a tumultuous first year in office, it 5 become clear tat the story of the Clintons iii in i ii liii 947725.