Alford Plea

A Laurel supermarket clerk accused, along with her sister, of killing a man who prosecutors say owed her money for drugs entered a plea to second-degree murder Tuesday that will get her between eight and 10 years in prison. Patrice Rashah Dove, 22, cried as she entered an Alford plea before Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge William Mulford II, meaning she did not admit to killing Jamal Medina, 22, of Laurel on Dec. 21, 2009, at the Maryland City Plaza Shopping Center, but acknowledged that prosecutors had enough evidence against her for a conviction.

A Baltimore County man has been sentenced to 60 years in prison for the May 2010 murder of a Dundalk bar owner. Robert Garner, 28, was sentenced Wednesday in Baltimore County Circuit Court for the first-degree murder of Lee Martin, 43, his brother-in-law, who was shot eight times as he left the Hops Inn on Railway Avenue. Garner, one of four defendants in the case, had pled guilty before Judge Robert E. Cahill, Jr. in November. Garner's 31-year-old sister, Jaclyn Martin, had solicited him to kill her husband, prosecutors said.

A 19-year-old Taneytown man could be sentenced to 10 years in prison for stabbing a man with a pocketknife in December, according to a plea agreement reached yesterday in Carroll County Circuit Court. William Paul Diebel of the 3900 block of Sells Mill Road entered an Alford plea, meaning he did not admit guilt, but agreed it was in his best interest to enter a guilty plea because the state had enough evidence to convict him of first-degree assault. In return, prosecutor David P. Daggett agreed to ask for no more than a 10-year prison term.

A 25-year-old man died after he was shot Sunday night in the parking lot of Mo's Seafood in Glen Burnie. The Anne Arundel County police department identified the victim as Andrew Michael Johnson of the 100 block of Sloane Drive in Glen Burnie. According to police, officers responded to a report of a shooting about 10:34 p.m. Sunday outside the seafood restaurant, in the 7100 block of Ritchie Highway. Officers found the victim in the parking lot with a gunshot wound to the upper torso, police said.

A former and current Baltimore police officer received suspended jail sentences yesterday in a case in which a Morgan State University office manager and two young women were assaulted outside a Federal Hill pizza shop in 2005, according to city prosecutors. The victim, Akhenaton R. Bonaparte IV, has said the two officers, who are white, harassed him and called him a racist as he and his two young female friends talked about African-American history in Maria D's shop on Light Street. Jack H. Odom, who resigned from the force after the incident, was sentenced to a 10-day suspended jail sentence and a year of probation.

An Edgewater woman admitted yesterday in Anne Arundel Circuit Court that she fatally shot her boyfriend after a night of drinking and fighting in the motel room that was their home.Vicki Lynn Flanagan, 37, entered an Alford plea to manslaughter in the May 13 shooting death of 37-year-old Joseph Boswell. She did not admit she was guilty, but acknowledged that the state had enough evidence to convict her.Assistant State's Attorney Warren W. Davis III said Flanagan called 911 shortly after 4 a.m. and told a police dispatcher that she had "just shot her boyfriend" in their room at the Mayo Motel in the 800 block of Mayo Road in Edgewater.

A Pasadena man charged in the death of a pedestrian who was walking home from work a year ago entered an Alford plea yesterday. William Glenn Greene, 60, did not admit guilt but agreed that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him of negligent homicide while under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of the fatality. Roger Gordon Sr., 61, also of Pasadena was killed in the early evening of Jan. 22. At Greene's March 18 sentencing, Deputy State's Attorney William D. Roessler said, he will ask Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Nancy Davis-Loomis to incarcerate him. The day of the accident, Greene was eastbound in his van on Mountain Road when he failed to yield to an oncoming car, turning left in front of it and into an Exxon station, Roessler said.

A 24-year-old Pasadena man pleaded guilty to manslaughter yesterday in connection with the December 1989 shooting death of his live-in girlfriend.Raymond Edward Davis, of the 7800 block Water Oak Point Road, had been charged with the second-degree murder of 24-year-old Linda S. Kohlhoff.Kohlhoff died within hours of being shot near the eye with a .22-caliber handgun, said Assistant State's Attorney Kathleen Rogers.Davis entered an Alford plea, in which a defendant concedes the existence of enough evidence to convict him but does not admit guilt.

The Baltimore woman who drove the getaway car from a double homicide outside an Odenton bar was placed on house arrest Thursday in exchange for pleading guilty to a role in the crime for which her boyfriend is serving five life sentences. Kecia M. Liverpool, 33, maintained her innocence in an Alford plea to one count of being an accessory after first-degree murder. The single mother of six boys did not know that her boyfriend, Russell "Yummy" Harden, 27, and two of his friends had just shot four men, two fatally, in a parked car early Nov. 16, 2008, defense attorney Carroll McCabe told Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge William C. Mulford II. In an Alford plea, a defendant acknowledges that prosecutors have evidence sufficient for a conviction, but does not admit guilt.

A former Fallston psychologist, who sexually abused three girls under his care, will serve 18 months in jail, rather than the six years he agreed to as part of a plea agreement reached with prosecutors in August. Despite calling it a "sad and distressing case," retired Harford County Circuit Judge Maurice Baldwin Monday sharply modified the sentence David Wayne Schrumpf, 56, of the 4400 block of Prospect Road in Whiteford, from what Schrumpf had agreed to when he entered an Alford plea, which is not an admission of guilt, but rather an acknowledgment that the state had enough evidence to get a conviction.

A Crofton man has been sentenced to 25 years in prison as the result of a plea agreement in a case in which he was accused of carjacking a Macy's employee in the parking lot of Marley Station mall, leaving her with debilitating injuries. Andre M. Ennis, 41, made no statements Tuesday as he entered an Alford plea, which allowed him to deny responsibility while acknowledging that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him. Among that evidence was Ennis' DNA, which prosecutors said was found outside and inside the victim's car, including on the steering wheel and on the straw of a cup, prosecutor Anastasia Prigge told Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge William Mulford II, according to a recording of the plea proceeding.

A registered sex offender could receive up to 20 years in prison after pleading Thursday to charges that he sexually assaulted two Dundalk teenagers near Annapolis after doing shots of liquor he had bought for them and two other girls. James Mason III, 29, of the 100 block of Simms Drive in Annapolis entered what is called an Alford plea, acknowledging that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him, but allowing him to assert his innocence. He had been charged with second-degree rape and third-degree sex offense in the case, which involved girls who were 13 and 14 years old. He is scheduled to be sentenced in August.

The carefully planned robbery and beating were supposed to be payback for stealing pills and cash from a drug dealer. But there was a glitch. When police apprehended the first of four men charged in the Severna Park ambush, he admitted that they'd robbed the wrong man, said Anne Arundel County prosecutor Michael J. Dunty. On Tuesday, Brian Keith Andrzejewski, 35, pleaded guilty to robbery. Circuit Judge Paul A. Hackner sentenced him to four years in prison, followed by five years of supervised probation, while the victim, a community college student, and his family, watched.

After Anne Arundel County prosecutors threatened to appeal a judge's ruling that threw out her confession in a fatal stabbing, a Laurel woman entered into a plea Tuesday that will send her to prison for between eight and 10 years. Latisha Montia Adams, 23, entered an Alford plea to second-degree murder in the killing Dec. 21, 2009, of Jamal Medina, 22. That is identical to the plea her sister, Patrice Dove, made last month in the killing of Medina, who prosecutors said owed Dove money for drugs.

A Laurel supermarket clerk accused, along with her sister, of killing a man who prosecutors say owed her money for drugs entered a plea to second-degree murder Tuesday that will get her between eight and 10 years in prison. Patrice Rashah Dove, 22, cried as she entered an Alford plea before Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge William Mulford II, meaning she did not admit to killing Jamal Medina, 22, of Laurel on Dec. 21, 2009, at the Maryland City Plaza Shopping Center, but acknowledged that prosecutors had enough evidence against her for a conviction.

A former Lothian man entered an Alford plea Tuesday to hurting his girlfriend's daughter's puppy so seriously that the hound mix was euthanized due to internal injuries. Glenn Allen Townsend Jr., 39, was sentenced to a 90-day suspended jail term and ordered by an Anne Arundel County judge to spend a year on supervised probation with the possibility of anger management treatment, according to prosecutors and court documents. Under the plea, he did not admit throwing the dog, Hope, to the ground after she chewed his wallet Nov. 12. He acknowledged that prosecutors had evidence to convict him. The pet's owner and family brought Hope to a veterinarian, who contacted police.