Attorney General S Office

Towson-based Baci Management Inc., which left the Lyric Opera House and other theaters in the lurch recently after its subscription-series touring shows were abruptly canceled, has filed for bankruptcy. All but three of the eight Broadway-style productions that Baci had booked for Baltimore's Lyric between last September and this May were called off, hurting the theater and aggravating customers. The Maryland attorney general's office said it is trying to mediate 77 complaints about Baci.

In office barely a month, Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler has ousted the state's independent monitor of juvenile detention programs and replaced her with a politically connected lawyer from his home county of Montgomery. The new monitor is Marlana R. Valdez of Takoma Park, a former family law professor who was campaign manager for freshman Sen. Jamin B. Raskin, a Montgomery County Democrat who is a close ally of Gansler's. Created in 2002, the independent monitor's office is the state's watchdog over programs for juvenile offenders, and in recent years it has released scathing reports about poor conditions in youth detention facilities.

Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. said yesterday that his office had shut down a Ponzi scheme run by an Ellicott City man who solicited more than $12 million from more than 500 investors.The Securities Division of the attorney general's office obtained a temporary restraining order against E. Robins Rich, 79, of Ellicott City and his company, Starboard Associates of Baltimore.Baltimore Circuit Judge Evelyn O. Cannon ordered the assets of Starboard frozen and appointed a temporary receiver to take control of the company's assets.

A former Lusby man pleaded guilty yesterday to stealing more than $250,000 in a credit-card scheme, with much of the money going toward his gambling problem, the Maryland attorney general's office reported.David E. Williams, 32, admitted in Calvert County Circuit Court in Prince Frederick that he ran up bills on at least 27 credit cards from 15 different banks, the attorney general's office said.To avoid paying the bills, Williams reported that the charges were unauthorized.He will be sentenced Jan. 6.Pub Date: 11/11/97

The owner of an Annapolis health club must refund the advance payments collected from members and stop collecting the payments from other customers under a ruling announced yesterday by Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr.The ruling, issued by the Consumer Protection Division of Curran's office, also requires Gary D. Mackler, owner of Bay Fitness in the 100 block of Defense Highway, to pay a $47,000 fine plus the cost of the investigation.Mackler had not posted a bond with the Consumer Protection Division to cover the amount Bay Fitness had collected in advance payments, as required by Maryland's health club law, said Steven Sakamoto-Wengel, an assistant attorney general.

The state attorney general's office is alleging that a Dundalk stonecutter and his wife took thousands of dollars for grave markers they never delivered.Thirty consumers have complained that they did not receive markers they ordered from Frances and John Wilkinson, owners of Dundalk Memorials Inc., said Assistant Attorney General William Gruhn. Twenty of the complainants together lost $16,000, but the total amount lost probably would be several times more, he added.But John Wilkinson said he had no intention of stealing money from anyone.

If a piece of paper resembling a check for $7,500 arrives in the mail -- "cash due you," according to an accompanying letter -- you could wind up with less money than you had before opening it.The practices of Direct American Marketers Inc., a direct-mail sweepstakes company located in Irvine, Calif., have generated about 70 complaints to the consumer protection division of the Maryland attorney general's office. The company also is being sued by the state of Colorado for the alleged scheme, which encourages people to call a $3.98-per-minute 900 number to enter the contest.

Hamilton A. Schmidt sat quietly in Baltimore County Circuit Court yesterday, recalling a day over 20 years ago when he waited for hours in another courtroom, defended himself over a traffic ticket and won."It was the principle," he said.Moments after that reverie, Schmidt, 41, pleaded guilty to the fraudulent misappropriation of $702,393.32 and the theft of $215,000 from Charter Group Inc., the company he helped build into one of Maryland's largest independent insurance agencies -- and the company he ultimately destroyed.

After a four-month investigation, Baltimore police charged a surgeon and a nurse at Bon Secours Hospital with operating a pyramid game in which 20 people, most of them medical staff members, lost $1,500 each.But when the case went to trial recently in Baltimore District Court -- with witnesses ready to testify -- a prosecutor dropped the misdemeanor charges and sent the witnesses home without explanation."I feel cheated," said Rekha John, a Bon Secours Hospital nurse who said she lost money in the game and was prepared to testify.

Deputy Attorney General Ralph S. Tyler was incorrectly identified in an article about a Detention Center death in Harford County in Tuesday's editions.The Sun regrets the errors.The administration of Harford County Executive Eileen M. Rehrmann said yesterday that the Maryland attorney general's office is refusing to provide it with copies of DNA reports on William M. Ford, a Detention Center inmate who died in an isolation cell nearly two years ago.Also, a lawyer for the Ford family said the attorney general has refused to provide him with copies of the reports and any other written documentation involving tests on bodily fluids found during an autopsy.

Maryland Dish Network subscribers will share $325,000 in restitution under a settlement concerning the satellite television company's marketing and billing practices. Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, through his Consumer Protection division, joined 45 other states and Washington in suing the company for not adequately disclosing all the terms of its contract, making telemarketing calls to consumers who requested not to get them, failing to disclose the availability of rebates, credits and free offers and not telling consumers they were purchasing used equipment.

You find the new home of your dreams. But what happens when the builder does not deliver as promised? As if buying a home is not stressful enough, what are your rights and recourse? How do you protect your deposit? Marylanders buy more than 10,000 new homes each year, according to the attorney general's office, and a new-home purchase is protected by state law. Here are questions to consider: How do I find a reputable builder? For starters, make sure your builder is registered. All homebuilders operating in Maryland must register with the attorney general's Home Builder Registration Unit, except for firms that build exclusively in Montgomery County.

City faces federal suit over group homes The U.S. Department of Justice says it will file a civil rights suit against Baltimore in early April, claiming the City Council approval process for starting group homes is discriminatory, according to a letter sent to the city Wednesday. Federal attorneys have, for years, been threatening such a lawsuit. But they were supportive of legislation introduced by Mayor Sheila Dixon that removed provisions allowing the Cty Council to veto those facilities.

The New Jersey attorney general's office has reached a settlement with Ticketmaster over the recent sale of tickets to a Bruce Springsteen concert there, calling for major changes in how Ticketmaster does business. The settlement - announced yesterday, a day before hearings open in Washington on the proposed merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation - requires Ticketmaster to reform several of its business practices, in particular with regard to its ticket resale operation, TicketsNow.

A brief article Friday about a corruption case failed to note that the University of Maryland, Baltimore County alerted the attorney general's office after finding discrepancies in construction projects and cooperated in the resulting investigation.

Maryland State Police didn't do their homework before they started spying on peace activists and anti-death-penalty groups. If the amateur spymasters had read up on their Maryland law enforcement history before launching this escapade, they might have had a good laugh and learned a thing or two. They would have discovered that similar surveillance efforts went awry for a state law enforcement unit that included troopers more than a half-century ago....

A hotly disputed fee imposed on Annapolis property owners for maintenance of city sidewalks was unlawfully levied, according to an opinion issued by the Maryland attorney general's office. The fee is essentially a new tax because it is mandatory and assessed even on those who have no sidewalks, said William R. Varga, an assistant attorney general. Municipalities cannot levy new taxes without state lawmakers' approval. "The city lacks the authority to impose the charge unless the General Assembly was to enact enabling legislation applicable to all municipal corporations throughout the state," he wrote Monday.

A former concrete contractor from Cockeysville has been sentenced to five years in jail, all suspended, for a kickback scheme involving University of Maryland, Baltimore County construction projects, the attorney general's office said yesterday. In 2006, Patrick R. Sisk pleaded guilty in Baltimore County Circuit Court to theft, conspiracy to commit theft and bribery. He admitted that between 1999 and 2003, he participated in a scheme with a UMBC construction manager to create a steady stream of illegal cash generated by false and inflated invoices to the university.

The state Department of Legislative Services received yesterday a wide-ranging grand jury subpoena from federal prosecutors requesting "all documents relating to the office" of Sen. Ulysses Currie, a leading Prince George's County Democrat who is under investigation by the FBI in connection with his previously undisclosed consulting work for a regional grocery chain. Karl S. Aro, executive director of the legislature's administrative office, said lawyers for the General Assembly spent yesterday in discussions with the U.S. attorney's office to try to "figure out exactly what it is they would like to see" so that the order's June 11 deadline can be met. The subpoena - which asks for the budget committee chairman's personal and professional records and computers, along with all records kept by the committee staff - offered little insight into the nature of the FBI investigation, though it appears that the 70-year-old politician is the intended target.

Personal information of about 56,000 Maryland consumers was compromised when several former employees of LendingTree.com, an online mortgage lending exchange, gave three mortgage brokers unauthorized access to company databases, according to state records. Charlotte, N.C.-based LendingTree's internal security discovered the breach in early February, according to an April 17 letter sent to the Maryland attorney general's office. An investigation revealed that the former employees divulged passwords for company databases containing consumer information.