Agents

When federal agents leapt from their cars and pointed guns at three Northern Virginia men poised to invade a home in Lutherville last week, it was the end of a long road -- literally.Agents had been investigating one of the men arrested Thursday, Yuem Ming Chan -- who calls himself Austin Chan -- for almost three years, trailing him from New York to a small brick rowhouse in Burke, Va., and finally to a secluded street in Lutherville.All three have been charged with conspiracy to rob and extort, and with weapons violations.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Patrick Webb cautiously entered Theodore J. Kaczynski's Montana shack, leading a team of bomb experts. In the gloom, he examined shelves crammed with baby food jars and baking soda cans that were carefully marked with the chemical names of explosives.Then, in a Quaker Oats box, agents found what they had hoped for: 23 bomb igniters, each made from a piece of appliance cord pulled through a wooden plug. A Unabomber signature.For Webb, who saw his first Unabomber crime scene in 1982, fresh out of bomb school, and his last in 1995, when he examined the shredded body of Gilbert B. Murray in a Sacramento office, it was the instant of realization that, after 17 years, the FBI's quest for the serial terrorist had ended.

The Orioles have spoken with representatives for free-agent reliever Rod Beck about a multi-year deal that would restore a proven commodity to the closer's role while bumping the team's payroll about $5 million per season.Though talks are not close to critical mass, sources familiar with the talks confirmed that Beck's agents spoke yesterday with Orioles majority owner Peter Angelos in an attempt to revive interest in the right-hander, who has spent seven seasons with the San Francisco Giants.

WASHINGTON -- Maryland investigators say in a sworn statement filed here they believe former state Sen. Larry Young may have been paid as much as $91,175 to help a Prince George's County health care firm win a lucrative state contract -- nearly three times as much as authorities first suspected.In a 32-page sworn affidavit filed in D.C. Superior Court, agents for State Prosecutor Stephen Montanarelli also claimed that PrimeHealth Corp. officers tried to cover up the payments by erasing or obliterating references to Young on checks and other records.

After two years in Baltimore, the Ravens are finally in financial shape to shop for quality instead of quantity during the free-agency period that began at midnight, but the team did not accomplish one of its biggest off-season goals when negotiations on a multi-year contract broke off with center/guard Wally Williams late last night.The Ravens were forced to label Williams, their most versatile and athletic offensive lineman, with the franchise-player tag, which requires the team to pay him $3.052 million, the average salary of the top five offensive linemen in the league, for the 1998 season.

The Orioles' interest in Rod Beck was shown to be a non-starter yesterday when the free-agent right-handed reliever signed a one-year, $4 million contract with the Chicago Cubs plus a player option for 1999.After listening to Beck's agents for the past several days, the Orioles never presented a formal offer, even when the asking price crashed from three years guaranteed to one. As recently as Wednesday, agents Rick Thurman and Jeff Borris had tried to interest Orioles majority owner Peter Angelos in a deal that would bring Beck an average $5 million a year.

Realtors offer May classes for ABR designationThe Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors will begin to offer classes in May for real estate agents who will be seeking the Accredited Buyer Representative designation.The ABR is a fairly new accreditation given by the Real Estate Buyer's Agent Council, which was recently acquired by the National Association of Realtors. The council, which keeps agents and brokers informed of all aspects of buyer's agency, will remain a separate organization but will be managed by the NAR.Gayle Briscoe, president of the GBBR, said agents who desired to gain the accreditation previously had to go out of state to attend classes.

Agents for O'Conor, Piper and Flynn are being introduced to the next wave of technology, which President of Operations Ramsey W. J. Flynn is calling a "re-engineering of the practice of real estate."OPF hopes that its "Worome" program, announced last week, will allow its agents to accomplish anywhere many of the computer-related tasks that usually have been confined to the office. Flynn said agents will be able to access the company's main file server in Timonium and to use the "OPF Navigator" to compile contracts, make marketing presentations, interact with various offices and associated OPF companies and even search the multiple listing service.

The raid on George Goehring's Baltimore home was snake-bit from the start.First, federal agents slipped on ice as they tried to enter the house on Lake Montebello Drive, where they had traced a small package of hashish from Amsterdam. When they couldn't break the door down, they broke through the glass. Once inside, a U.S. postal agent opened fire, striking Goehring -- a songwriter and antiques dealer with no criminal record -- in the forearm.But there was a problem. Goehring, 63, said he was simply trying to surrender.

Art Modell sat in his golf cart in the morning heat, watching the Ravens' first practice, longing for a simpler age.You know, once upon a time, when top draft picks actually showed up for the start of an NFL training camp, and agents weren't running sports.Let's get this out in the open, OK?The agents are out of control.From David Falk to Scott Boras to Eugene Parker, fans are sick and tired of them.So is Modell, who yesterday accused the agents for the Ravens' top three draft picks of orchestrating a combined holdout.

Officials destroyed a shipment of bunny scarecrows that recently arrived at the port of Baltimore after agricultural inspectors determined that the bamboo poles to which they were attached could contain harmful pathogens. The shipment from Hong Kong raised the concern of Customs and Border Protection agents working at the port, who are trained in biological sciences and agricultural inspection. Bamboo is regulated to prevent the spread of bamboo smut and other pathogens, officials said.

Shortly before federal agents arrested 24 Latinos outside a Fells Point 7-Eleven in January 2007, the acting field office director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Baltimore told a deputy "to bring more bodies in," according to an internal ICE report. The roundup at the 7-Eleven occurred after the official told that deputy "to go back out to make more arrests, as the quantity of arrests that were made that morning was unacceptable," said the report. It appears to contradict previous statements by ICE officials that the agents were taking a drink break Jan. 23, 2007, when they happened to be approached by Latino laborers who thought they were contractors in need of workers.

At midmorning, sunlight streams through three sets of windows, creating an elongated pane pattern on the floor of a Reisterstown house. "This is nice, because you have this floor, you have nice shadows on the wood," says photographer Craig Westerman, sizing up the room. Click. The image captures the breakfast room from the recessed lighting to the Brazilian cherry floors. It shows a slice of the kitchen at just the right angle to showcase the space's openness. As the owner/photographer of Hometrack in Baltimore, Westerman makes his living photographing houses for sale - and he's snapped thousands of photos in the area since starting a part-time business in 1996 and going to full time in 2002.

A 33-year-old Baltimore man was sentenced yesterday to 10 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of a handgun, according to the Maryland U.S. attorney's office. Cortez Fisher also will have to serve three years of supervised probation when he is released, prosecutors said in a statement. The prosecutors said he had been convicted in federal court of unlawful gun possession in 2005, meaning the gun police found in his home earlier this year was illegal.

Didn't know the house was for sale and it's already sold? Some properties seem to sell at lightning speed without sprouting for-sale signs and open-house balloons. Take that Cape Cod in Lutherville that settled two weeks ago. The house wasn't on the regional Multiple Listing Service until it was sold. Anyone waiting for an open house would have been too late, because the first sign that went up said "Sold." "We had a contract before we had a sign," said Jill Jahries. She and her husband Peter were the sellers.

In the shadow of Baltimore City Hall, a shiny, black Cadillac Escalade was parked on Guilford Avenue - in a no-stopping zone, Violation 12 in ticketing parlance. Parking control agent Tiffany Chambers, attempting to extend a courtesy yesterday morning, asked members of a nearby film crew if the vehicle was theirs. Her supervisor radioed the office to check whether the hulking sport utility vehicle with a rear license plate frame advertising Miller Brothers Cadillac in Ellicott City had some sort of permit.

Still looking to add an impact bat to the middle of their lineup, the Orioles made a contract offer yesterday to Aubrey Huff, one of the most accomplished players left on the free- agent market. Exact details of the contract offer are unknown, but one industry source said the Orioles proposed a three-year deal to Huff, worth in the neighborhood of $6 million per season. Huff's asking price has gone down significantly since the opening of free agency. One baseball executive, whose team has talked to Huff's representatives, said the 30-year-old, who can play first and third base and the corner outfield spots, was seeking a three-year deal worth around $7.5 million per season.

WASHINGTON -- Two sports agents, including one who represented a handful of Ravens in the 2000 Super Bowl season, accused the National Football League Players Association yesterday of unfairly barring them. Sports agent Steve Weinberg, a Baltimore native now living in Dallas, appeared at a congressional hearing and said through an attorney that the players union wrongly decertified him in 2003. His attorney, Lawrence Friedman, told a House Judiciary subcommittee that the players union appeared to want to punish Weinberg because the agent was "an outspoken critic" of NFLPA practices.

PHOENIX -- With a major expansion proposed by President Bush, the Border Patrol might overtake the FBI as the largest federal law enforcement agency. But the expanded mission comes as the patrol wrestles with recruitment and training problems and several agents face accusations of misconduct and corruption. In response to concerns, the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the Border Patrol, said it would audit its recruitment, hiring and training practices. A spokeswoman, Tamara Faulkner, said the review could begin this month.

Maydeen Tharp wanted a living trust. She wound up buying a $230,000 annuity. Tharp, a widowed homemaker, had invited an insurance man to her home in Upland, Calif., to get her estate in order. The salesman shifted the conversation to a different subject: annuities. Then he asked whether they could move outside to the back patio so that her cats wouldn't trigger his allergies. The salesman talked for hours. The November afternoon grew cold and dark. Finally, Tharp gave in. She agreed to move the bulk of her retirement savings into an annuity.