Accomplice

A 62-year-old Baltimore County man indicted in one of the county's oldest unsolved homicides has pleaded guilty to participating in the 1976 assault on a construction company owner and the apparently inadvertent fatal shooting of an accomplice during that attack. Ronald Ehrman Smuck, of Rosedale, pleaded guilty last week to one count of involuntary manslaughter in the shooting of Ronald Paul McFarland and one count of common-law assault in the attack on construction company owner Franco Marcantoni, according to court records and lawyers handling the case.

The scheme was inspired in its simplicity: Fake a series of auto accidents and then file numerous claims for damages against the insurance companies of dozens of accomplices and unwitting participants. For three years, Charles L. Burton of Mitchellville in Prince George's County got away with it, collecting $268,000 in bogus claims against 12 auto insurance companies in what state officials described yesterday as one of the largest insurance frauds in recent years. It wasn't until claims investigators for one of the companies tipped off state insurance regulators that the scheme unraveled, resulting in an eight-year prison sentence for Burton on April 9. With Burton, 33, behind bars, officials with the Maryland Insurance Fraud Division say their next step is to go after his accomplices as part of a campaign to stem fraud that costs every insurance policyholder in the United States.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - Buttressing a prosecution claim that John Allen Muhammad was the triggerman in a handful of last fall's serial sniper killings, a witness recounted yesterday that she saw Muhammad's car emerge from a secluded spot moments after a Baton Rouge, La., beautician was fatally shot with a high-powered rifle. The testimony was intended to point to Muhammad as firing the shot that killed Hong Im Ballenger and to provide the jury with a theory as to how the alleged sniper team's early robbery-shootings went down.

FAIRFAX, Va. -- Lawyers for sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo will present an insanity defense at the teen-ager's trial next month, contending that Malvo was brainwashed by his alleged accomplice, John Allen Muhammad, and could not tell right from wrong. "This case is so bizarre and the degree of indoctrination is so great that we would be remiss if we didn't let a jury consider this issue," Craig S. Cooley, one of Malvo's two lead attorneys, said outside the Fairfax courthouse while the insanity plea was being filed.

The arrest yesterday of a man police say is responsible for several armed robberies in Fells Point has merchants there breathing a little easier. But the business owners say they won't feel totally at ease until a suspected accomplice is arrested. They also want foot patrols reinstated in the area. "Certainly it's good news that they caught someone, but I think that from the descriptions people were giving, it's more than one person," said Susan Singer, president of the Fells Point Business Association.

The arrest yesterday of a man police say is responsible for several armed robberies in Fells Point has merchants there breathing a little easier. But the business owners say they won't feel totally at ease until a suspected accomplice is arrested. They also want foot patrols reinstated in the area. "Certainly it's good news that they caught someone, but I think that from the descriptions people were giving, it's more than one person," said Susan Singer, president of the Fells Point Business Association.

CHICAGO - Father John Geoghan preyed on children for a long time. The first complaint to his superiors in the Archdiocese of Boston came in 1979. The last one came in 1992. Not until 1993 was he removed from his parish position. His years in the priesthood gave him innumerable opportunities to find victims. In all, some 150 people have accused him of sexual abuse. Last year, he was convicted of fondling a 10-year-old boy in 1991 and sentenced to nine to 10 years in prison. It would be a mistake, though, to put all or even most of the blame on Mr. Geoghan for yielding to his grotesque impulses.

German investigators say they have evidence that Mohamed Atta, the suspected ringleader of the attacks Sept. 11, and two accomplices trained at al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan from late 1999 to early 2000. They have also established a clear link between al-Qaida and a recent attack on a Tunisian synagogue, a top official said. The timing of the Afghanistan training, outlined yesterday by a senior investigator, provides the strongest evidence that plans for the attacks on the United States were worked out there.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - John Walker Lindh pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges that he conspired to kill Americans and aided Osama bin Laden's terrorist network as the parents and widow of the first American killed by enemy fire in Afghanistan watched intently from the packed courtroom. In a quiet, polite voice, Lindh said, "Not guilty, sir," when U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III asked how he wanted to plead to the 10-count federal indictment against him. His attorneys requested a jury trial, which was tentatively scheduled to begin in late August.

A Woodlawn man sentenced to death in the killing of a Baltimore County woman during a break-in at her home won a new trial yesterday from the state's highest court. The Maryland Court of Appeals reversed two first-degree murder convictions against Clarence Conyers Jr. in the killing of the woman and his alleged accomplice. The court ruled that county prosecutors did not turn over evidence that might have helped the defense, as required by state law. Conyers was sentenced to death by a Wicomico County jury in 1998 in the killing of Wanda Johnson, the mother of his former girlfriend.