Bribery

I LAST TALKED with former state Sen. Larry Young by telephone Sept. 16. He was in the studio of WOLB Radio -- and gearing up for the fourth day of his trial. I was in Florida for a news writing and editing seminar, thankful The Sun had arranged things so that I'd miss the ravages of Hurricane Floyd.Young, on the other hand, had a different view of this paper. It's not that he thinks we're evil. It's more like he sneers at us in disdain and regards this paper as a journalistic Attila the Hun.The articles about the trial in The Sun weren't fair, Young protested at the time.

In the first public defense of the corruption case against him, lawyers for former state Sen. Larry Young said yesterday that he never took money from a health care company, but prosecutors contend he picked up envelopes of cash, some taped to the bottom of a desk drawer.On the opening day of Young's bribery and extortion trial in Anne Arundel Circuit Court, defense attorney Gregg L. Bernstein told jurors that the owner of the health care company concocted the corruption tale about Young to save himself from prosecution.

The Baltimore city liquor board corruption case came to a virtual end yesterday when a Circuit Court judge threw out bribery charges for lack of evidence and the defendants agreed to plead guilty to a lesser conspiracy charge.Effectively ending a high-profile trial that had stretched for more than two weeks, Judge Mabel Houze Hubbard ruled that the state prosecutor had failed to provide independent corroboration needed to make the bribery charges stick.After Hubbard's decision, lawyers for William J. Madonna Jr. and former chief liquor inspector Anthony J. Cianferano said that their clients would enter guilty pleas to the remaining charge of conspiring to thwart enforcement of state liquor laws.

WASHINGTON -- Lobbyists who wine and dine federal government officials gained some legal shelter from the Supreme Court yesterday as the justices made such gift-giving and other favors harder to prosecute as crimes.The law against giving a federal employee "something of value" applies, the court ruled unanimously, only when someone who provides a gift or favor understands that the gesture is linked to a specific action by the official.The court rejected the argument, made by an independent counsel and supported by the Justice Department, that the very act of giving something of value to someone who holds a government position is illegal.

President Clinton isn't the only American man accused - for the time being - of lying under oath and obstructing justice. Yesterday in U.S. District Court here, a 31-year-old guy named Gregory Savoy went on trial for perjury related to a civil case that's been settled. (Sound familiar?) He's also accused of obstruction. If convicted of these offenses, Savoy could go to jail for up to five years; a judge could order him to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. Already he's lost a good-paying job with one of the world's largest and richest companies.

JERUSALEM -- Israeli politician Aryeh Deri, a street-savvy rabbi who marshaled the country's ultra-Orthodox Jews of Arabic and North African ancestry into a political force, was convicted yesterday in a bribery scandal that has plagued him for nine years.Deri's black-coated followers, who danced and sang his praises outside the court, vowed to take their revenge in the May 17 elections. Deri, a 40-year-old father of eight who was born in Morocco, heads the Sephardic Torah Guardians party, known as Shas.

If we would just loosen the residency requirement a little, Tony Williams could be mayor of both Deecee and Bawlamer at the same time.Using the surplus to pay off the debt is so obvious Congress will never do it.Investing Social Security funds in the stock market is a neat idea as long as the market goes up.First ballroom dancing. Now bribery is an Olympic sport.Pub Date: 1/22/99

Former state Sen. Larry Young, once one of Maryland's most powerful and promising politicians, was charged in a nine-count bribery and extortion indictment yesterday with using his office to shake down a pair of minority-owned health care companies for more than $72,000.The indictment was handed up by an Anne Arundel grand jury after a yearlong investigation by State Prosecutor Stephen Montanarelli that included testimony from dozens of witnesses, including the last-minute appearance yesterday of the governor's chief of staff, Major F. Riddick Jr.The charges against Young are the latest development in a scandal that resulted in his ouster from the Senate, the first such expulsion in more than two centuries in Maryland.

Prosecutors thought they had a slam-dunk bribery case against Baltimore police Officer Catherine D. Miele. Her husband turned her in, claiming she sold secret police information. Two of Miele's former friends agreed to take the witness stand against her.But prosecutors committed an irreversible blunder.They botched the wording of Miele's bribery indictment, and waited too long to file a misconduct charge, prompting a judge to dismiss the case Monday. The rulings set Miele free, prohibiting prosecutors from trying her again for allegedly profitting from her public position.

Even as the International Olympic Committee moved to combat the worst scandal in its history by banning committee members from visiting cities bidding to be Olympic hosts, officials working to bring the 2012 Summer Olympics to the Baltimore-Washington area are fielding tougher questions than usual from the community."

LAKEWOOD, Wash. - Capt. Michael Nguyen had a profitable tour of duty in Iraq - so profitable, in fact, that soon after returning to this working-class neighborhood near Fort Lewis, he was parking a Hummer H3T outside his apartment. Then a $70,000 BMW M3 showed up. People notice cars like that on a street filled with pickup trucks, old Chevys and low-end sport utility vehicles. "I spent 10 years in the military, and I can tell you, nobody's giving me bailouts like that," said Mark Smith, who lives across the street.

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon's trial on theft, perjury and misuse-of-office charges could be held in early September, a Circuit Court judge ruled yesterday after meeting for the first time with prosecutors and defense attorneys. While the hearing was closed to the public, fresh details have emerged from court files that have grown thicker since indictments were handed down earlier this year in a wide-ranging City Hall corruption probe that also implicates City Councilwoman Helen L. Holton and developer Ronald H. Lipscomb.

Defense attorneys for Baltimore City Councilwoman Helen L. Holton and developer Ronald H. Lipscomb have filed requests for the state prosecutor to disclose details about the evidence that led to last month's grand jury indictment against them on bribery charges, including information about conversations between them and her role in helping to secure tax breaks for his company. The requests, called a "bill of particulars," are the first substantive legal documents filed by defense attorneys in the case, revealing some clues as to how they intend to fight charges stemming from a years-long investigation that also yielded an indictment against Mayor Sheila Dixon.

A former general manager of Siemens Building Technology's Baltimore office was convicted of conspiracy to bribe a University of Maryland Baltimore County official, state Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler's office announced yesterday. Scott Allan Wallick, 53, pleaded guilty for his role in the attempted bribery of George Alinsod, a former UMBC manager of construction services, over a period of six years. Prosecutors say that Wallick allowed sales engineers working under him to pad contracts with the university with extra expenses, allowing them to create a slush fund, which they used to buy Alinsod gifts.

JERUSALEM - A New York fundraiser and businessman testifying in a corruption investigation told an Israeli court yesterday that he gave $150,000, mostly in cash, to the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert. The businessman, Morris Talansky, 75, who is at the heart of the investigation involving Olmert, told the court that he believed the money was used for Olmert's political campaigns and also for his expenditures on hotels and first-class flights. But Talansky said he never received anything in return for the cash and other money, such as payment of credit card bills.

A salesman was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison yesterday for a bribery scheme that defrauded the Army of $288,000 at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Harford County, federal prosecutors said. Wayne Silbersack, a 65-year-old salesman for Lawson Products, also must serve three years of supervised probation upon his release and pay restitution to the government. Prosecutors said that from 2003 to 2004, Silbersack took orders from two civilians who worked in a testing center and then issued invoices that falsely described the products and showed inflated prices.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- HealthSouth Corp. founder Richard M. Scrushy was sentenced to six years and 10 months in prison for bribing former Alabama Gov. Donald Siegelman in a scheme to steer business to the company. U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller handed down the sentence yesterday, a year after a jury convicted Scrushy, 54, and Siegelman, 61. Fuller sentenced Siegelman to seven years and four months. The judge denied their requests for bail while they appeal their sentences. At the end of yesterday's hearing, both men were taken into custody.

Bar owner's liquor license suspended 10 days The Baltimore liquor board yesterday suspended the license of a South Baltimore club owner for 10 calendar days for allowing two patrons under age 21 to consume alcohol at a dance party this month. The board handed Club Mate owner Vu Huynh the penalty in addition to a $50 fine because, as board Chairman Stephan Fogleman said, "We take underage drinking very seriously." Huynh was hosting a "college night" May 5 when liquor inspectors found two patrons, both 20, with alcohol.

An article in yesterday's Maryland section gave an improper reference for a comment by a spokesman for Gov.-elect Martin O'Malley about a guilty plea from a former contracting company executive who says he bribed former state Sen. Thomas L. Bromwell. O'Malley spokesman Steve Kearney said that he found the bribery case and the guilty plea "deeply troubling," not a decision by the board of the quasi-public Injured Workers' Insurance Fund to keep Bromwell as president.

Two more people have been indicted as part of the Maryland state prosecutor's probe into allegations of corruption and bribery in the Baltimore school system's facilities and maintenance department. David J. Clemons, 59, of Bel Air and Harriet E. Fostervold, 55, of Owings Mills are accused of bribing Rajiv Dixit, a former schools facilities manager who is now serving a five-year prison sentence, according to the state prosecutor's office. Dixit has admitted participating in two schemes to steal millions from the city schools, including by submitting inflated boiler-repair invoices.