DAUGHTER'S POT PHOTOS LEAD TO ARREST OF TWO

A senior Energy Department official and his wife, one of the lead attorneys
involved in the Karen Silkwood case, were arrested last week on charges of
growing and possessing marijuana after their 16-year-old daughter, armed
with photographs of the plants, went to police.

Robert Jason Alvarez, 54, and Kathleen Marie "Kitty" Tucker, 55, of Takoma
Park, Md., were charged with the manufacture and distribution of marijuana
and possession of marijuana as well as conspiracy to manufacture and
possess marijuana.

The couple's attorney said Friday that the daughter, Kerry Tucker, was
staying with family friends by order of a Montgomery County District Court
judge.

Energy Department officials said that after his arrest, Alvarez, a
political appointee, was fired from his job as a senior policy adviser in
charge of environmental safety and health.

Tucker was one of the anti-nuclear activists who brought national attention
to the 1974 fatal car accident of Karen Silkwood, a lab analyst at the
Kerr-McGee Cimarron Plutonium Plant in Oklahoma. At the time of the
accident, Silkwood was on her way to meet a reporter to discuss alleged
safety problems at the plant.

Kupferberg said that the charges against them "will eventually be lowered
to simple possession,"adding that Tucker uses the marijuana to treat
migraines and fibromyalgia, a chronic muscle pain disorder.