NATION : Mom, 2 Sons Face Pot Charges

INDIANAPOLIS — The former president of the Indianapolis League of Women Voters and her two sons were led to federal court in chains today to answer charges that they ran one of the largest marijuana-smuggling rings ever uncovered.

Less than 24 hours after their extradition from Austria, Linda Leary and Richard and Paul Heilbrunn appeared before U.S. Magistrate John P. Godich.

Before leaving the United States in 1985, Leary, 58, had been president of the Indianapolis League of Women Voters and the local chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women. Paul Heilbrunn, 35, was a commodities broker and columnist for a local business journal. His 38-year-old brother lived with his wife and two children on a farm outside Indianapolis.

Leary and her sons were among 34 people named in a 1987 indictment outlining the marijuana-smuggling ring that allegedly involved 11 states and moved at least 250,000 pounds of the drug.