BERKELEY -- More than 200 protesters demanded Wednesday (August 26, 1998) that UC Berkeley officials expel one of its students who is accused of keeping quiet about the murder of a 7-year-old girl in a Nevada casino. The hour-long demonstration, which attracted a horde of media and gathered about 500 onlookers at the university's central plaza, focused on 19-year-old David Cash, a former student at Wilson High School in Long Beach.

The protesters, many of whom drove through the night from Los Angeles on a chartered bus, believe the second-year nuclear engineering major was partially responsible for Sherrice Iverson's death on May 25, 1997, in a bathroom stall at the Primadonna Resort and Casino in Primm, Nev. They say he failed to stop his friend, Jeremy Strohmeyer, from allegedly molesting and killing the Los Angeles girl. Strohmeyer's murder trial is scheduled to begin Monday with Leslie Abramson and Richard Wright as his defense attorneys.

"I believe that David Cash is equally responsible for my little girl's death because he saw what was happening, and he refused to stop it," said Sherrice's mother, Yolanda Manuel. "I want him expelled from this university and charged as an accomplice to murder."

University officials said they can not expel Cash because he has not been legally charged with any crimes. "This student has not been charged with any violation of criminal law or the campus code that would provide a basis for (a due process review)," said Berkeley Chancellor Robert M. Berdahl. "We cannot set aside due process upon our outrage over a particular instance."

Many students attending the rally said they understand the university's legal constraints with expelling Cash but they still want him to leave the college. "He's an embarrassment to our school, and he doesn't belong here," said 29-year-old Sharon Sheller. "If the university heads can't or won't take a stand, the students need to get involved."

Preston Taylor, executive president of the Associated Students of the University of California, said he will submit a bill this week to the student government that would request that Cash voluntarily withdraw from the campus. "The Berkeley tradition is one of honor, truth and justice," said 21-year-old Taylor. "David Cash's actions go contrary to everything our university stands for."

In a statement sent by e-mail to the San Francisco Chronicle on the eve of the protest, Cash said he was "completely ignorant" of the events surrounding Sherrice's murder. "Most people seem to be under the impression that I was in a position to stop the heinous crime," Cash wrote. "I did not witness the alleged molestation and murder."

Radio talk show hosts Tim Conway Jr. and Doug Steckler (pictured below right) of KLSX (97.1), said they organized the event after reading grand jury transcripts in which Cash says his recent notoriety helped him "score" with women and that he feels no remorse for Sherrice because he did not know her. Soon after, the pair interviewed Cash on their radio show. He boasted to them that he would not be expelled from Berkeley because the "university is behind me, baby."

Conway said if they can't convince university officials to expel Cash, then they hope their protest demonstration will persuade students to ostracize him.

Protesters held large posters displaying various messages including: "Because of David Cash, Sherrice Iverson will never go to college ... or even the third grade" and "David Cash belongs in a jail cell, not in a Berkeley classroom."

Many students said they would probably not say anything to Cash if they recognized him on campus. "I wouldn't want to waste my breath on him." said Carolyn Richens, 23. Kelly Mitchell said she probably would give Cash a frown and then turn her head "in disgust." "This university has a reputation having students with integrity and creating good citizens," said Sonja Hillman, 26. "(Cash) is a menace to society and an incredibly sick person who must leave."

While Bob Johnson said he would never choose to be friends with Cash, he also believes that his "crude" comments made on radio and in newspapers are not grounds for hisexpulsion. "The fact is he did nothing legally wrong," Johnson said. "We have no idea if maybe he made his comments because the press was hounding him, and he didn't know what else to say."

Berkeley alumnus John Robinson said he doesn't think the university will have to expel him. "With all this attention on him, the students will run him out of town and, quite frankly, I hope they tar and feather him," Robinson said. "In fact, he should just go back to Long Beach."

Note: The San Francisco Chronicle contributed to this story. This story appeared on page A1 in the Long Beach Press Telegram on 8/27/98. Visit the Press Telegram web site at <http://www.ptconnect.com>.]

LOS ANGELES -- Yolanda Manuel's little girl is dead, and David Cash is about to start his sophomore year in college. The murder trial begins a week before classes. Cash is not charged with killing 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson. A young man he calls his best friend is. But Manuel says it might as well have been Cash's fist over her daughter's mouth, his hands around her neck.

Cash has admitted he was in the Nevada casino restroom moments before Sherrice died. He says he saw his friend, Jeremy Strohmeyer, struggle with her in a stall. Then Cash left. Now, more than a year later, he says he never thinks of the girl, and that his newfound notoriety has helped him meet women.

Legally, Cash may be home free. Las Vegas police say he violated no state law. But his refusal to help Sherrice has triggered a campaign to make him an outcast among his college peers.

"David Cash has been saying horrible things,'' Manuel said. "He says he cries over no one. He mentions that he wants to go to school and get girls and I don't think that's the place he needs to be. He needs to be in jail. You don't do nothing when a child -- a child -- is getting her life taken away.''

Calling Cash an accessory to her daughter's May 1997 murder, Manuel has launched a petition drive demanding that some form of criminal charge be filed against him. With her blessing, two radio talk show hosts in Los Angeles are also planning to make his life miserable on campus, since it is unlikely he will be expelled for his inaction.

University officials "are behind me, baby,'' Cash, 19, told the radio duo on KLSX-FM last week. Later in the broadcast, he added, "There is no chance I will go to jail, simply because I have done nothing wrong.''

Sherrice's mother, as well as radio hosts Tim Conway, Jr., and Doug Steckler, say otherwise. They say Cash should have stopped Strohmeyer, 20, or gone for help. Now they want him punished, if not by Nevada authorities, if not by university administrators, then by them.

When Cash returns to the University of California at Berkeley this month, Conway and Steckler intend to greet him with a busload or two of picketers. They plan to distribute fliers. Their aim: to drive the aspiring nuclear engineer from class by making him a pariah.

The demonstrations will coincide with Strohmeyer's trial, slated to begin Aug. 17. Cash, who, like Strohmeyer, grew up in relative affluence in Long Beach, is expected to testify. Yolanda Manuel, who lives in South Central Los Angeles, is trying to raise enough money to attend the Las Vegas trial of the man accused of sexually molesting and killing her only child.

"We will demonstrate at the school, at his house; we will demand justice,'' said Irv Rubin, who is national chairman of the Jewish Defense League and is involved in the upcoming protest as a friend of the radio duo. "You can call me a vigilante; you can call me anything you want. ''

University officials, however, say Cash has the same right to his education as any student. After all, he faces no formal charges, since failing to report a crime or refusing to help a victim is not against the law. Spokesman Jesus Mena pointed out that Cash's class was admitted to Berkeley in March 1997, two months before the May 25 murder.

"People are morally outraged that this young man probably had the opportunity to do something to save this young lady's life and they want there to be some type of remedy for their indignation,'' said Stewart Bell, the district attorney in Clark County, Nevada, where Strohmeyer will be tried. "But the remedy for what he did requires a response from a higher authority. That will require divine intervention.''

Conway and Steckler said they are more outraged by Cash's decision to leave the murder scene than by his actions and statements to the Los Angeles Times afterward. Cash admitted he did not turn in his friend when Strohmeyer became a suspect. He said he did not regret keeping quiet, and told the newspaper his connection to the case gave him a kind of cachet.

"We couldn't believe that this kid, who could have prevented a death, not only decided not to do anything about it but that he's going to use it to score with chicks,'' said Conway, whose popular show airs weeknights. "We want everybody on campus to know exactly what kind of person he is.''

On the air, in a show filled with profanity, Cash said he was sorry for the Iverson family. But again he denied any feelings for Sherrice.

"It's a very tragic event, OK,'' Cash said on the radio. "But the simple fact remains I do not know this little girl. I do not know starving children in Panama. I do not know people that die of disease in Egypt. The only person I knew in this event was Jeremy Strohmeyer and I know as his best friend that he had potential. . . . "I'm sad,'' he added, "that I lost a best friend.''

Earlier he had told the Times he was not upset when Strohmeyer told him what he had done; later, however, Cash was furious when their high school refused to allow him to attend graduation or the prom. He showed up outside anyway, in a rented limousine. The moment, Cash standing in the sunroof, his fist raised in triumph, was captured on film.

"I'm not going to get upset over somebody else's life,'' Cash was quoted as saying in the Times. "I'm not going to lose sleep over somebody else's problem.''

Said Conway, who has received hundreds of e-mails from listeners offended by Cash's comments, "It's unbelievable that he's going to be getting his degree when he should be in prison as an accomplice to murder. . . . If we don't do anything else, we're going to make him quit school.''

Cash, who testified before a grand jury, could not be reached by the Globe for comment. But he has not disputed the outline of the accusations against Strohmeyer -- although, on the radio, he called them "out of character.''

According to law enforcement authorities, Cash followed Strohmeyer into the bathroom of the Primadonna casino, about 40 miles south of Las Vegas. The young men were there with Cash's father; Sherrice and her 14-year-old half brother were with their parents. The four young people had been playing in a casino arcade. It was almost 4 a.m.

Cash allegedly watched Strohmeyer carry Sherrice into a stall, his hand over her mouth, then lock the door. He told the grand jury that he tried to get his friend's attention and make him stop. Then, as Sherrice struggled, he nonchalantly left the restroom and the arcade.

Later, the two allegedly made a pact to tell no one what had occurred, to deny it even when local TV stations played the surveillance camera videotape of them entering the bathroom. Other students called police to report their suspicions, but Cash kept quiet. He told KLSX, "I did not want to be the one who takes away my best friend's last day.''

"The law needs to be amended or rewritten because David Cash is guilty of something,'' said Najee Ali, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Project Islamic Hope, which is helping Manuel gather signatures for her petition and raise $10,000 for her trip to Las Vegas. "This issue has crossed over religious and racial lines. People are just sickened by it.''

Ira Reiner, the former district attorney for Los Angeles County, said the "facts are thin'' to charge Cash. But he believes Berkeley could have rescinded Cash's admission, a privilege based in part on moral character.

"The picture of him at the prom shows you everything you ever need to know about this person,'' said Reiner. "The school looked at that and said, `Yeah, this is the kind of person we want at Berkeley.' That's insane.''

Yolanda Manuel said she has plenty to say to prosecutors and to university administrators. She also has something to say to David Cash.

"I would like to tell this young man that, whatever he does in his life, he always better believe that there's a god somewhere watching over him, his evilness.'' she said. "You had a chance to save my girl's life, to go out and tell the security guard, some adult, that something was going wrong. How could you choose the way you did?''

Note: This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 08/07/98. The newspaper's online version can be found at <http://www.bostonglobe.com>.