Conspiracy

Washington. -- Is this country sinking into hopeless insanity about who is perpetrating the great crimes of our time?I have read some astonishing articles and seen some unbelievable movies about who killed John F. Kennedy, or Martin Luther King Jr., or who or what sickened so many soldiers who fought in Desert Storm. But I don't know that I've read anything projecting rampant paranoia that matched an article in the Aug. 4 edition of USA Today about the suspicions that engulf supposedly sane people in Oklahoma City.

Washington -- It's easy to understand why an otherwise respectable publication like Time magazine would devote nine full pages -- a fifth of its news hole in the current issue -- to the new movie about John Kennedy's assassination.It's almost as easy to see why publishing houses would bother to print yet another book about the alleged conspiracy surrounding XTC that crime. But why would Time's competitor, Newsweek, put such a piece of fakery on its cover? Why would the New York Times and Washington Post give the time of day to such a sham?

Twenty-two people, including one of the boys featured in an acclaimed documentary about city children attending school in Africa, were indicted this week by a federal grand jury on charges related to a drug distribution conspiracy in the Gilmor Homes public housing complex in West Baltimore. Among those indicted was Romesh Mustafa Vance, 20, who along with his brother was one of four high-risk students whose journey to attend the Baraka School in Kenya on scholarship was captured in the acclaimed documentary "The Boys of Baraka."

A Pasadena man pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Baltimore yesterday to conspiracy to make false statements, admitting that he used fraudulent documents to get government-backed mortgages for buyers of houses sold by his company. William E. Dunn Jr., 36, and a partner bought houses, refurbished them and sold them at higher prices that, prosecutors claim, were sometimes inflated. A statement of facts by Assistant U.S. Attorney Bonnie Greenberg listed seven Anne Arundel County properties involved in the deals.

Was there a conspiracy to murder President John F. Kennedy? The new Oliver Stone movie -- "JFK" -- argues that there was, involving the Secret Service, the CIA, the FBI, the military-industrial complex and just about every other element of the 1960s establishment. Why did they want to kill President Kennedy? Because he had decided to turn soft on communism in his second term, pull out of Vietnam, ease up on Fidel Castro, make friends with Nikita Khrushchev -- in other words, throw the Cold War.The cold, hard fact is, there is no credible evidence of such a conspiracy.

Almost two years after an armed robbery case against him collapsed in state court, Armistead D. Myers went on trial again yesterday, charged this time with federal conspiracy in a string of Howard County hold-ups that included a grocery store robbery in which he was suspected of brandishing an AK-47 assault rifle. Myers, 27, won an acquittal at the state level when a Howard County judge said prosecutors had failed to support the testimony of the main witness to put Myers at the scene of the January 1999 robbery.

Willie "Bo" Mitchell, 31, of Baltimore was sentenced to nine life terms plus 60 years in federal prison yesterday for a racketeering conspiracy that involved at least five killings and drug trafficking, Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein announced. According to evidence during a nine-week trial, Mitchell and three other men were members of a violent organization that conspired to commit murder, armed robbery and home invasions from 1994 until August 2006. Mitchell was convicted of two double homicides.

An Anne Arundel County grand jury indicted nine people yesterday, including two brothers and their mother, on charges of conspiring to operate a drug ring.State's Attorney Frank R. Weathersbee said that Steven E. Downey, 20, of the 6400 block of Golden Oak Road, Linthicum, was at the center of the ring, which distributed marijuana in Anne Arundel, Howard and Baltimore counties.Mr. Downey, who was arrested in October, was being held without bail yesterday. He was indicted on three counts of operating as a drug kingpin.

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Rite Aid Corp.'s former chief executive Martin L. Grass pleaded guilty yesterday to two counts of conspiracy - to defraud shareholders and to obstruct justice - in one of the nation's biggest corporate accounting scandals in recent history. Grass, the son of Rite Aid's founder, agreed in a deal with federal prosecutors to serve up to eight years in prison and pay the government $3.5 million in fines and forfeitures. If approved by U.S. District Judge Sylvia H. Rambo, the sentence would be the stiffest punishment handed a former CEO for accounting fraud since corporate scandals at Enron, WorldCom and Adelphia began undermining investors' confidence, prosecutors said.

Two teen-agers accused of conspiring to fake the holdup of an Eldersburg 7-Eleven store Saturday have been charged with felony theft, conspiracy and filing a false report, state police said yesterday.Investigators said a clerk at the convenience store in the 2000 block of Liberty Road reported he was robbed by an armed man about 6:30 p.m. Saturday.The clerk initially gave police a description of a man dressed in black who fled with $596 after threatening him with a large semiautomatic pistol.