State plans review of probation system

RALEIGH -- One after another, the mistakes mounted in the probation offices handling the cases of the men charged with murdering Eve Carson.

Demario Atwater, 21, had not received as much as a phone call from his probation officer for more than a year.

Laurence Alvin Lovette, 17, had a probation officer who, after seven months on the job, still had not received basic training or met the teenager.

The mistakes were so egregious that Robert Guy, the man in charge of the state's probation system, announced Wednesday that veteran administrators from the state Division of Community Corrections would temporarily take the reins in Wake, and comb through cases there and in Durham.

"It's a flat-out embarrassment," Guy said.

The shuffling comes nearly a month after Carson, president of the UNC student body, was shot in a neighborhood near campus.

Atwater, a felon who was supposed to be under the watch of the Wake County probation office, was passed from officer to officer -- 10 officers and supervisors in three years. Not one, Guy said, realized that a curfew, weekly meetings and nighttime checks should have been imposed.

Even worse, Guy said, probation officers lost track of the offender for more than a year.

"There are major deficiencies that we're going to address from top to bottom."

-- Sarah Ovaska and Anne Blythe, sarah.ovaska@nando.com; 829-4622

Accused pediatrician will stop seeing patients

CHAPEL HILL -- Melvin Levine, the pediatrician accused of sexually abusing boys decades ago while working in Boston, has said he'll stop seeing patients, a UNC School of Medicine spokeswoman said Wednesday.

Levine, 68, voluntarily offered to stop seeing patients, saying lawsuits against him would "impair the effectiveness of his practice," said Karen McCall, vice president for public affairs and marketing.

The most recent lawsuit, announced Monday, was filed by a man who says Levine sexually abused him from age 8 to 12 while Levine was treating him for psychological problems.

Levine, who has written childhood development books and appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," will continue to teach and research, McCall said. He is an adjunct professor of pediatrics on the staff of UNC's Clinical Center for the Study of Development and Learning.

Boston lawyer Carmen Durso represents five men who have sued Levine in five separate cases since 2005. In the suit Durso filed last week, a man identified as John Doe No. 5 alleges Levine abused him for five years while working at Boston's Children's Hospital.

Efforts to reach Levine at his home in Rougemont have been unsuccessful. A man identified as his attorney told The Boston Globe in a statement this week that Levine is innocent.

-- Samuel Spies, 932-2014; samuel.spies@nando.com

Fire measures include sprinklers, materials ban

CARRBORO -- Fire Chief Travis Crabtree gave the Board of Aldermen a list of future fire protection measures Tuesday night.

Apartments and duplexes in Carrboro sustained a rash of fires at the end of last year, and many did not have adequate fire-protection measures.

In 1997, the town's fire-rescue department responded to 372 emergency calls, 352 of which were fires, according to Crabtree's report. In 2007, it responded to 1,397 emergency calls, 743 of which were fires.

The majority of the major fires have occurred on balconies or decks of multifamily homes, sparked by cigarettes or other "smoking paraphernalia," or ashes from fireplaces, the report said.

Protection measures presented Tuesday included installing different sprinkler systems; restricting certain landscape materials, such as pine straw; and changing some building materials.

The board referred the report to the town staff. The staff will come back to the board with recommendations and an itemized list of costs.

-- Meiling Arounnarath, 932-2002; meiling.arounnarath@nando.com