"It's the kind of evidence that's not open to a lot of interpretation," he said. "The Maryland prosecutor has clearly chosen the best facts for his claims."
Lead Dixon attorney Arnold M. Weiner will probably try to undermine Rohrbaugh's case by alleging the Republican prosecutor is going after Democrats and by calling the evidence dubious, attorneys and legal experts said. But in a 30-minute news conference after the indictment Friday, Weiner also responded to specific allegations.
He said the perjury charges for failing to disclose gifts from developer Ronald H. Lipscomb on her ethics forms were flawed. Weiner displayed a page of Baltimore City Code - Section 2-5 - that he says erases the need for Dixon to report anything she received from Lipscomb.
"This ordinance is very specific," Weiner said, denying that it covers someone like Lipscomb, "who owns a company that in turn has a minority interest in somebody else's company that is run by somebody else."
He chastised Rohrbaugh for overlooking "the most critical sections" of the code.
But Weiner did not mention another section that prohibits acceptance of gifts from "any person" who "has a financial interest that might be substantially and materially affected ... by the performance or nonperformance of the public servant's officials duties."
Lipscomb allegedly gave Dixon, then City Council president, more than $15,348 in gifts, including a $2,000 gift certificate to a local furrier, plane fare to Chicago and a stay at a luxe New York City hotel, according to the indictment. Lipscomb owns Doracon Contracting, which had projects that were awarded millions of dollars in city tax breaks about the time he was allegedly giving gifts to the council president.
Lipscomb also has a financial stake in the Inner Harbor East redevelopment project.
Lipscomb was not indicted in the Dixon case. But he and Councilwoman Helen L. Holton were charged by the same prosecutor last week with bribery. He is accused of paying for a $12,500 political poll at Holton's request at a time when she was chairwoman of a council committee overseeing tax incentives.
Those charges came from Rohrbaugh's nearly three-year investigation of alleged City Hall corruption.
Defense attorney Kenneth W. Ravenell, who is representing Lipscomb, said he found the charge that Dixon failed to report gifts from the developer to be "a ridiculous interpretation" of city law.
