Campaign Signs

An Anne Arundel County police sergeant told a judge Wednesday that he drove County Executive John R. Leopold on a predawn tour of Pasadena and Glen Burnie, with Leopold directing him to spots where the county executive uprooted his opponent's campaign signs. Sgt. Gregory Speed testified that he picked Leopold up at home around 6 a.m. - "it was still dark," he said - on the October Sunday before the 2010 general election. He said he returned Leopold home by 7 a.m., and that he thought most of the signs removed had been staked along roads.

Former Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold walked out of jail Friday morning after being locked up since March on a misconduct conviction. Leopold, 70, dashed through a gate into a black Chevrolet waiting in the Jennifer Road Detention Center employee parking lot before being driven off in the rain. Although he will no longer be spending his nights in a cell, Leopold will be under house arrest for a further 30 days. Reached later on at his blue, clapboard-sided home in a private community in Pasadena, Leopold peered through the top window of his front door, but did not come out. "I can't talk now," he said.

On York Road near the entrance to St. Joseph Medical Center, the blue-and-yellow sign promoting Todd Huff for Baltimore County Council is teetering on wobbly two-by-fours. The Ehrlich sign nearby toppled two days ago, but at least the name of the Republican gubernatorial candidate is face up in the grass. Pity the incumbent judges, whose sign also fell but landed against a brick retaining wall, their names obscured. Voting finished Tuesday and the results are in, or mostly in, and the roadside campaign signs now resemble litter.

John R. Leopold stepped down Friday as Anne Arundel County executive, bringing an apparent end to the decades-long career of an idiosyncratic and charismatic force in Maryland politics who as recently as a year ago was considering a run for statewide office. The two-term Republican, suspended from his position since his conviction Tuesday on two counts of misconduct in office, announced the decision in a letter to acting County Executive John Hammond. "After much thought and deliberation, it is with great sadness and personal regret that I advise you of my decision to resign from the Office of County Executive," Leopold said in the typewritten letter.

Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III has taken down the campaign signs that prompted accusations of impropriety from State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy, but some officials continued to criticize his actions as they rallied behind the prosecutor. Bealefeld's yard signs for attorney Gregg Bernstein were taken down Monday, before Jessamy's news conference Tuesday in which she questioned the police commissioner's integrity and called for a probe of whether he was politicking while on the job. In an e-mail sent from his private account — as well as in brief remarks at an event promoting the seizure of marijuana plants — Bealefeld said fighting crime was his priority.

Anne Arundel County police have charged a man with stealing more than 70 campaign signs from a Pasadena intersection Saturday. Police said that David S. Corrigan, 50, of the 100 block of Foxtrap Drive in Glen Burnie removed signs from the area of Ritchie Highway and Earleigh Heights Road at about 4 a.m. Police said Corrigan admitted to taking the signs belonging to the Jobs & Revenue Corp. The officers found about 70 additional signs in Corrigan's car, police said, and they said he might be linked to other missing signs in the county.

Two Baltimore County residents say their rights to free speech have been violated because they were ordered to remove signs supporting Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s bid for governor. Their concerns have led county officials to suspend acting on anonymous complaints about improper campaign signs. In one case, Steve Kolbe, who lives on Dulaney Valley Road, had a 32-square-foot sign supporting Ehrlich, the former Republican governor seeking another term, in his yard until removing it to avoid a possible $200-per-day fine or 90 days in jail.

It's apparent that we're once again in election season in Howard County. The signs for the school Board and Circuit Court are beginning to appear everywhere. That's part of the election process and I have no problem with it. What bothers me is when I see the illegal signs of the challenger to the sitting judges. They're on medians, rights of way, county property, etc. — places where clearly no permission was given. These signs say much about someone who wants to be a judge, but has no respect for the law. David Dagold Columbia

As Howard County Council members described their frustrations in trying to craft a new policy governing signs for a redeveloped central Columbia to a group of League of Women Voters members, Susan Fingerman voiced a pet peeve some elected officials might find embarrassing — unsightly political campaign signs. "They were really awful last year," she said at the biennial discussion between the League and council members at the George Howard Building on Feb. 5. "They seemed bigger than ever.

About two dozen political campaign signs for Patrick L. McDonough are missing in Anne Arundel County, and the outspoken Republican candidate for Maryland's 3rd District congressional seat smells a conspiracy."

At Chick and Ruth's Delly in Annapolis, where politicians' favorite meals are named for them and listed in large print signs above the counter, a diner can order a "John R. Leopold" - chicken noodle soup. But that may not be for much longer. A new menu at the downtown restaurant comes out toward the end of February, and officials who are out of office are also off the menu. Whether Leopold will be removed from his position as Anne Arundel County executive - he's currently suspended, having been found guilty Tuesday of misconduct in office - is unknown, and owner Teddy Levitt said he's thinking about what to do with the menu.

Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold treated the county government as his personal fiefdom, and he acted as if those paid by the public were his servants. He ordered them to engage in activity to further his political career, to facilitate his liaisons and to take on the demeaning task of changing his urinary catheter bag. That makes him a terrible boss and a bad public servant. Judge Dennis Sweeney ruled Tuesday that it also makes him a criminal. His decision in this case sets an important and wise precedent in the state's vague public corruption law and offers the promise that Anne Arundel County can put this tawdry episode behind it. State Prosecutor Emmet C. Davitt brought an indictment against Mr. Leopold that accused him of ordering his executive protection detail to put up campaign signs for him, to compile dossiers on potential political opponents, to chauffeur him around the county as he ripped out his opponent's campaign signs, to drive him to midday assignations in a parking lot with another county employee, and to prevent that woman from crossing paths with his live-in girlfriend.

Circuit Judge Dennis M. Sweeney today found Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold guilty on two counts of misconduct for using his executive security detail for personal and political gain. Reports of his sexual escapades and urinary malfunctions have filled the public with disgust. I've attended every day of the trial. Most remarkable for me is the vague law on which the indictment against Mr. Leopold was based. Maryland's state prosecutor based his case on Mr. Leopold's general fiduciary responsibility to the public rather than the violation of clear, specific rules.

A judge found Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold guilty Tuesday of two counts of misconduct for using public employees to perform political and personal tasks, and he was suspended from office while the County Council made plans to force him out permanently. Circuit Judge Dennis M. Sweeney said the two-term Republican broke the law when he directed his taxpayer-funded police protection detail to put up campaign signs, collect contributions and compile dossiers on adversaries during his 2010 re-election campaign, and when he required county workers to empty the urinary catheter bag he used after back surgery.

Circuit Judge Dennis M. Sweeney denied Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold's request for acquittal on all charges in his misconduct trial, clearing the way for closing arguments Tuesday. The defense rested today after calling a total of three witnesses: two doctors to testify to Leopold's health in 2010, and the county personnel director, who said she processed Leopold's requests to give some of his pay back to the county. Leopold's attorneys also entered his health records into evidence after asking Sweeney to seal them to preserve his privacy as a patient.

Friday afternoon in a spacious Annapolis courtroom with a flat-screen monitor, Dr. Roy E. Bands Jr., board-certified orthopedic surgeon, presented a side view of John Leopold's lumbar region - how his lower spine, abdomen and bladder looked in January 2010. Too bad the doctor didn't have a scan of the Anne Arundel County executive's prefrontal cortex. And too bad technology does not exist to tell us what Leopold was thinking when he treated his staff - mostly the police officers assigned to protect him - like a bunch of stooges and lackeys.

A circuit judge found John R. Leopold not guilty Friday of one count of misconduct in office, a partial victory for the embattled Anne Arundel County executive as his trial continued on other charges. Judge Dennis M. Sweeney said Leopold showed "a lack of sound judgment" when he used his taxpayer-funded police protection detail to drive around the county as he took down a challenger's campaign signs, and said he might have been charged with theft or malicious destruction of property.