The Anne Arundel County branch of the NAACP is asking the state prosecutor to investigate a complaint that an elected official made "unwarranted, unauthorized advances" toward a woman in a county building.
"A complaint has been filed against an elected official regarding an allegation of misconduct," NAACP President Jacqueline Allsup told me Thursday. "Because it involves an elected official, we will be referring it to the Office of the State Prosecutor."
Allsup declined to identify the accused, the accuser - or the county building, for that matter.
Asked if the office of County Executive John R. Leopold knew of complaints lodged against any county officials, spokesman Dave Abrams first told The Baltimore Sun's Tyeesha Dixon that the office had "not received any complaints against Mr. Leopold."
About 30 minutes later, Abrams released a statement in Leopold's name, which the spokesman said was issued after news media inquires.
"I expect the state to quickly dismiss this complaint," the county executive said. "I am being asked to respond to a litany of outrageous claims that I have yet to see in writing."
Allsup, the NAACP official, said the complaint alleges that the elected official made "some unwarranted, unauthorized advances toward this person" in a public area of the building.
Allsup said the civil rights group received the complaint Tuesday. She was in the process of referring it to the state prosecutor's office when I reached her Thursday afternoon.
There's been talk in Annapolis all week that an Arundel official had made an unwelcome advance toward an African-American state employee he'd encountered in a county building.
A tipster reported that Gerald Stansbury, the former head of Arundel's NAACP branch who works in the state's Department of Human Resources, had received the complaint at some point.
"That's nothing I can discuss," Stansbury said when I reached him Thursday. "I can't discuss that."
VIProtection
Interior designers Lee Whitehead and Steve Appel were asked to turn a tent into a lounge fit for John Waters, Barry Levinson and other directors participating in the Maryland Film Festival, which opens Friday.
They went with lots of teal, lots of chandeliers and lots of Scotchgard.
The co-owners of Nouveau Contemporary Goods are lending $8,000 to $10,000 worth of furniture to the festival for the filmmakers' lounge, which will be open to big-dollar sponsors as well as film VIPs.
