Chief Inspector

The chief inspector of the Baltimore liquor board, who is due to stand trial for bribery early next year, has agreed to resign in a deal that allows him to collect nearly $28,000 in accumulated sick time and vacation pay.Liquor board officials made the agreement with Anthony J. Cianferano, saying his 20 years of service justified resignation rather than termination."

The longtime chief inspector of the Baltimore County liquor board denied yesterday that former Sen. Thomas L. Bromwell Sr. had unusual influence over the board as he boasted to an undercover federal agent in a series of wiretaps released this week. Bromwell, under indictment for corruption charges, was recorded in 2001 assuring the agent that his connections could secure permission for an off-track betting facility in Baltimore County. Bromwell said he could get the state's major thoroughbred racetracks to go along, as well as the county's liquor board.

CHICAGO -- A British police officer on a tour of Chicago's police headquarters left the building's crime lab saying, "I didn't know there were that many weapons in the world."Constable Ian Yarham, who doesn't carry a gun on the job, said there were "shotguns, rifles, all the handguns you could think of. It's incredible."Constable Yarham was one of four British "bobbies" who visited police headquarters recently and left with the impression that a police officer's lot was very different here from in Britain.

WASHINGTON - David Kay, who led the U.S. effort to find banned weapons in Iraq, said yesterday after stepping down from his post that he has concluded that Iraq had no stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons at the start of the war last year. In an interview with Reuters, Kay said he thought that Iraq had illicit weapons at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf war but that the subsequent combination of U.N. inspections and Iraq's own decisions "got rid of them." Asked directly if he was saying that Iraq did not have large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the country, Kay replied, according to a transcript of the taped interview made public by Reuters, "That is correct."

State Sen. George W. Della Jr. said yesterday he's no longer interested in the city liquor board's top administrative job, vacated Friday by Aaron Stansbury after 29 years.Della, who inquired about the $59,000 executive secretary post, now says he is not interested after learning "it's more than a full-time job."Della had lunch July 19 with Stansbury to ask what the job entailed. Della said he lost interest after Stansbury sent Baltimore's state senators a list of 37 duties required of the executive secretary, who supervises a 46-person staff.

The longtime chief inspector of the Baltimore County liquor board denied yesterday that former Sen. Thomas L. Bromwell Sr. had unusual influence over the board as he boasted to an undercover federal agent in a series of wiretaps released this week. Bromwell, under indictment for corruption charges, was recorded in 2001 assuring the agent that his connections could secure permission for an off-track betting facility in Baltimore County. Bromwell said he could get the state's major thoroughbred racetracks to go along, as well as the county's liquor board.

About 40 people, six of them employees of the Baltimore liquor board, have been notified that their telephone conversations were secretly intercepted and recorded as part of the state prosecutor's investigation that led to recent indictments.Nathan C. Irby Jr., executive secretary of the liquor board, said yesterday that the employees' calls were intercepted when they called the home of Anthony J. Cianferano, the chief inspector of the board who was indicted on bribery charges this month.

Stephen J. Arata Jr., a machinist and former member of the House of Delegates from southwestern Baltimore County, died of cancer Thursday at his Arbutus home. He was 82.He had been chief inspector of the Baltimore County liquor board and a zoning inspector."He was a people person and they loved him," said Dan Minnick, a Baltimore County Democrat who served in the House of Delegates from 1966 to 1982.Mr. Arata, a conservative Democrat, was remembered as a strong representative of the concerns of constituents in Catonsville, Arbutus, Lansdowne and Baltimore Highlands.

Attention, lovers of Brit mysteries. There's a little slice of heaven in store for you tonight when Chief Inspector "I-never-use-my-given-name" Morse returns at 9 on MPT (Channels 22 and 67).Morse is in his own peculiar heaven tonight, as the chief inspector has to travel from his native Oxford to Italy -- the birthplace of Morse's beloved opera -- to solve a particularly nasty murder. An Englishwoman at a new-age treatment center in Vicenza was found with a spike driven through her skull.

A former state delegate with the assistance of his friend, the city liquor board's chief inspector, alerted the owners of a Frederick Avenue club to a police raid and then bragged to a former state senator about his actions, according to evidence in his trial.The warning and the boast were detailed in a series of wiretapped telephone conversations played to a Circuit Court jury yesterday in the corruption and bribery trial of former Del. William J. Madonna Jr. and Anthony J. Cianferano, the former chief inspector.

IRAQ - SURPRISE, surprise - is not cooperating. The chief U.N. weapons inspector delivered his long-awaited report yesterday, and said that Saddam Hussein's regime was not coming clean on questions of disarmament and in fact does not appear to have accepted the idea that the country should disarm. Does this mean war? The White House is all but saying so - in that more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger sort of tone that the self-righteous like to adopt. But we would argue that it's the wrong question.

There's a scene in "The Remorseful Day," tomorrow night's final episode in the 13-year run of PBS' "Inspector Morse" series, that's one of the most elegantly crafted and perfectly distilled television moments you will ever see. Chief Inspector Morse (John Thaw) and Detective Sgt. Lewis (Kevin Whatley) are sitting outside a quiet pub at sunset - Morse with the usual glass of ale, Lewis with orange juice. The camera is shooting them from the side so the two serve as bookends at the lower left and lower right of the frame.

The chief inspector of the Baltimore liquor board told one of his inspectors early last year to warn the operators of a Fells Point bar of an impending undercover investigation into underage drinkers.In a wiretapped telephone conversation played yesterday in Circuit Court, Anthony J. Cianferano, the chief inspector, called inspector Michael Hyde and instructed him to call the Fells Point Cafe and warn the manager that police were planning to send in underage drinkers."It would be a good idea if you can get hold of him and tell him that they put him on the list," Cianferano told Hyde in the conversation Feb. 12, 1998.

A former Baltimore bar operator, who is a paid FBI informant and an admitted arsonist, testified yesterday that he witnessed the payment of a cash bribe to the chief inspector of the city liquor board.Charles Wilhelm, who testified under immunity from prosecution for his role in the bribes, said he saw an envelope containing "a couple hundred" dollars being handed to Anthony J. Cianferano while the two were sitting at a table with friends at Kislings Tavern on Fleet Street. He said the meeting occurred shortly after he learned Cianferano was being promoted to the chief inspector's job.Wilhelm, who came under immediate attack from defense attorneys for his long criminal record, was one of two key witnesses to testify yesterday in the bribery and conspiracy trial of Cianferano and William J. Madonna Jr., a former state delegate.

A former state delegate with the assistance of his friend, the city liquor board's chief inspector, alerted the owners of a Frederick Avenue club to a police raid and then bragged to a former state senator about his actions, according to evidence in his trial.The warning and the boast were detailed in a series of wiretapped telephone conversations played to a Circuit Court jury yesterday in the corruption and bribery trial of former Del. William J. Madonna Jr. and Anthony J. Cianferano, the former chief inspector.

The chief inspector of the Baltimore liquor board, who is due to stand trial for bribery early next year, has agreed to resign in a deal that allows him to collect nearly $28,000 in accumulated sick time and vacation pay.Liquor board officials made the agreement with Anthony J. Cianferano, saying his 20 years of service justified resignation rather than termination."

In a move its supporters say is designed to bring professionalism and credibility to a long-beleaguered agency, the Baltimore City Liquor License Board has won state approval to automatically boost employee salaries by up to 23.5 percent.Under a bill approved by the General Assembly and signed into law last week by Gov. Parris N. Glendening, the pay increases for the chief inspector, inspectors, secretaries and other personnel at the liquor board will go into effect Oct. 1.Indictments expectedThe approval comes as sources within the liquor licensing agency say that indictments of liquor board employees are expected within days as the result of a long-standing investigation by Stephen Montanarelli, the state prosecutor.

The chief inspector of the Baltimore liquor board told one of his inspectors early last year to warn the operators of a Fells Point bar of an impending undercover investigation into underage drinkers.In a wiretapped telephone conversation played yesterday in Circuit Court, Anthony J. Cianferano, the chief inspector, called inspector Michael Hyde and instructed him to call the Fells Point Cafe and warn the manager that police were planning to send in underage drinkers."It would be a good idea if you can get hold of him and tell him that they put him on the list," Cianferano told Hyde in the conversation Feb. 12, 1998.

About 40 people, six of them employees of the Baltimore liquor board, have been notified that their telephone conversations were secretly intercepted and recorded as part of the state prosecutor's investigation that led to recent indictments.Nathan C. Irby Jr., executive secretary of the liquor board, said yesterday that the employees' calls were intercepted when they called the home of Anthony J. Cianferano, the chief inspector of the board who was indicted on bribery charges this month.

A former state legislator and the chief inspector of the Baltimore liquor board were indicted yesterday on charges they were involved in a 10-year bribery scheme to thwart enforcement of state liquor laws.The three-count indictment announced by state Prosecutor Stephen Montanarelli accuses former bar owner and former Del. William J. Madonna Jr., 46, of masterminding a conspiracy under which he controlled the appointment and promotion of liquor license inspectors and then bribed them to go easy on bar owners, himself included.