NEWSMAKERS

NEWSMAKERS

Former prosecutor: Don’t pardon Wahlberg

BOSTON

A former prosecutor in Massachusetts says Mark Wahlberg shouldn’t be pardoned for an attack as a youth on two Asian men.

Judith Beals is a former Massachusetts assistant attorney general who argued against a pardon in an opinion piece published this week in The Boston Globe.

She told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday that the actor has not acknowledged the racial element of his crimes and has focused instead on his heavy drug and alcohol use at the time.

Beals secured a civil-rights injunction against a young Wahlberg in a case accusing him of hurling rocks and racial epithets at black schoolchildren in Boston.

Wahlberg’s pardon was filed with the state in November in a different case.

He seeks a pardon for hitting a Vietnamese man in the head with a wooden stick while trying to steal alcohol and punching another in the face while trying to avoid police in 1988.

He served about 45 days in jail.

Flavor Flav indicted on driving charges

MINEOLA, N.Y.

Rapper Flavor Flav is due in a Long Island courtroom this month after being indicted on charges stemming from a traffic stop while driving to his mother’s funeral.

Court documents show the rapper, whose real name is William Drayton, was indicted last month on a felony charge of driving with a suspended license.

He also faces a speeding violation and two misdemeanors for aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.

A spokesman for Nassau County acting District Attorney Madeline Singas declined to comment. The spokesman confirmed that Drayton has a court appearance next Wednesday.

Curry to exit NBC News

NEW YORK

Longtime NBC News correspondent and anchor Ann Curry is leaving her full-time job with the network after a quarter-century.

But she will still be seen on NBC platforms, the company said Tuesday in announcing a partnership with her and the media venture she will launch, to be “seeded” by NBCUniversal.

Associated Press