Attempted kidnapping reported by Jessup mother
A woman told Anne Arundel County police that while she was waiting in her car Tuesday for the arrival of a school bus in Jessup, another woman picked up her 4-year-old son and tried to abduct him. Police said the youngster had been playing outside the car shortly before 12:30 p.m. in the 7800 block of Clark Road. A woman whom the boy did not know picked him up and began to walk away with him, according to police. The boy insisted on being put down, and the woman complied, police said. Officers canvassed the area and arrested Leslie Banker Offutt, 50, at her home, also in the 7800 block of Clark Road. Offutt was charged with kidnapping, kidnapping a child under age 16, abduction of a child under age 12 and second-degree assault. Her bail was set at $100,000, according to court records.
- Andrea F. Siegel
Crofton man gets 60 days in jail for killing dog
A Crofton man was sentenced Wednesday to 60 days in jail for killing a dog that he and a girlfriend were pet-sitting for a woman recovering from surgery. Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Paul A. Hackner sentenced Philip Joseph Balboni, 25, to three years in prison for animal cruelty, then suspended all but two months. Balboni was also given two years of probation, ordered to pay the pit bull's owner $300 in restitution and to obtain counseling. He was barred from having pets. Hackner said Balboni's actions had caused anguish for the pet owner. Balboni and his then-girlfriend, Sarah Nicole Tavenello, 21, were pet-sitting in February, but their landlord told them to get rid of the dog and the owner was unable to retrieve her pet quickly. The couple took the dog to a park where Balboni shot it and left it. The dog's owner was identified through an implanted microchip. "He's not the first young man who's done something stupid for a young woman," said Balboni's lawyer, W. David Davenport, blaming his client's actions on Tavenello's having urged him to get rid of the dog. Tavenello had previously been given a 90-day suspended sentence.
- Andrea F. Siegel
Man gets 7 years for rape of mother's friend
A Frederick man has been sentenced to seven years in prison for raping a friend of his mother. Twenty-three-year-old Corey Bailey was sentenced Tuesday in Frederick County Circuit Court after pleading guilty to second-degree rape of the 51-year-old victim. Prosecutors say Bailey brought a 12-pack of beer with him when he visited the woman at her home in February, ostensibly to comfort her over a breakup with her boyfriend. The woman told police she fell asleep on the couch during the visit but awoke during the assault and tried to fight Bailey off.
- Associated Press
