Affidavit

A Baltimore County policeman indicted on federal weapons charges bought more than 215 firearms from Maryland dealers over seven years, and illegally sold many of them, according to an affidavit filed in Baltimore's federal court.Officer Timothy Thomas Mitchem -- said to have told a federal agent that his nickname in the Parkville police station was "Gunrunner" -- was indicted by a federal grand jury Feb. 1 after a search of his apartment turned up an assault rifle and written inventory of firearms purchases.

Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold and his administration are facing new accusations they destroyed documents, deployed spies to detect disloyalty and attempted to conceal misconduct in an office beset by sexual harassment. An affidavit by a current employee was filed Wednesday in a gender discrimination suit that has alleged Leopold made unwanted sexual advances and retaliated against women who complained about his conduct. Carla Sagerholm, who has worked there for four years, described a sexually charged work environment where officials "appear very concerned that workers within the office will expose various practices and acts committed by these officials.

Nearly a year after the Rafael Palmeiro steroid scandal and months removed from the federal government's inquiries into Miguel Tejada's vitamin B-12 usage, the Orioles are again intertwined in an investigation involving drugs and baseball. Former Orioles reliever Jason Grimsley told Internal Revenue Service investigators that he purchased human growth hormone between 10 and 12 times in the past several years and also admitted he paid for a double shipment while with the Orioles, according to a federal affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Arizona.

A retired Air Force sergeant from Bowie was charged yesterday with conspiring to commit espionage after federal investigators said he provided a foreign country with classified documents from the top-secret defense agency where he worked. Brian P. Regan, 38, appeared yesterday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., a day after FBI agents arrested him as he prepared to board a flight to Zurich, Switzerland, after telling colleagues that he was taking his family on vacation to Disney World.

If the original release of the infamous Jason Grimsley affidavit - with the names of the alleged steroid and amphetamine users blacked out for public nonconsumption - helped pull the cover off baseball's performance-enhancement scandal, the release of the unredacted version Thursday might have been an even bigger blow to the integrity of the sport. Think about it. When the feds decided to throw those last few names into the public arena, they probably never considered how the surprising absence of several well-known players might undermine the credibility of the Mitchell Report and create a new layer of uncertainty about the steroid era. Of course, it isn't the job of federal investigators to worry about the effect of their work on a private enterprise, even one that is considered to be the national pastime.

WASHINGTON - The clandestine meeting between the arms dealer and the prospective buyer of the surface-to-air missile, the government says, took place at a New Jersey hotel with a commanding view of the runways at Newark International Airport on Sept. 17, 2002, less than a week after the first anniversary of the September 2001 terrorist attacks. The two watched aircraft land and take off from the nearby airfield, according to an FBI affidavit unsealed yesterday in federal court in Newark.

Three of the Orioles' most popular and highest-profile players were accused of being anabolic steroid users by former teammate Jason Grimsley in a federal affidavit earlier this year, the Los Angeles Times is reporting in today's editions. Grimsley said All-Star shortstop Miguel Tejada, second baseman Brian Roberts and designated hitter Jay Gibbons "took anabolic steroids," the Times reported. All three Orioles vehemently denied the report in interviews with The Sun after last night's 5-4 victory against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park.

FBI agents involved in the mistaken traffic stop and shooting of an unarmed Pasadena man March 1 had a photograph of the actual bank robbery suspect they sought and earlier that day had discovered that an air pistol, not a handgun, apparently was used in the holdup, court records show. Those details, contained in an FBI affidavit in the bank robbery case, could play a central role in the investigations into the shooting of Joseph C. Schultz, as authorities examine how much federal agents knew about the real suspect they were tracking and how dangerous they thought he was. Schultz, 20, was shot in the face with an M-4 rifle after FBI agents stopped the car his girlfriend was driving that day. In a case of mistaken identity, the agents thought Schultz was the man they sought, but Schultz had no connection to the crime or to the suspect.

Federal prosecutors charged noted Maryland con woman Deborah Kolodner yesterday with obstruction of justice and tampering with a grand jury witness -- namely, a 76-year-old man she intimated she would marry if he would recant incriminating testimony, a federal affidavit said. Kolodner, 47, an attractive redhead alleged to have enticed numerous well-to-do men to act as pawns in an elaborate mortgage-flipping scheme, was accused yesterday of writing two beguiling letters from jail to Robert Wesley Harris.