Court Records

A Howard County grand jury indicted a 22-year-old man yesterday in the shooting death of an unemployed salesman who was visiting a friend at a North Laurel apartment in December.The latest development comes after the March arrest of the man, Randall Bagley, in Portsmouth, Va. He did not fight extradition to Maryland, authorities said.Prosecutors would not say what the victim, Donald R. Mitchell, 43, was doing at the apartment of his friend, Donovan O. Bowen, on Dec. 10, when three men entered and one shot him.Court records -- and previous statements by police -- suggest the shooting was drug-related.

A Westminster motorist who struck and killed a pet Dalmatian last year was found guilty yesterday of animal mutilation and failing to stop at the scene of an accident.Gary L. Wilson, 53, of the 2300 block of Sandel Lane, pleaded not guilty, but agreed not to contest the prosecutor's version of what occurred court records show.Wilson will be sentenced on Nov. 12 by Circuit Court Judge Luke K. Burns Jr.Prosecutors said Wilson was driving on South Center Street about 11: 23 p.m. Dec. 28 when his van struck the dog. As the vehicle dragged the dog, Matthew Davis, the animal's owner, tried to flag down the van.Wilson did stop briefly and, as Davis tried to remove his yelping pet, prosecutors said Wilson's car struck Davis.

Michael J. Cornell's apparent fondness for the Crestar Bank on Frederick Road in Catonsville proved to be his undoing.When he returned there March 13 to rob the bank for the third time in six weeks, the FBI was waiting in the parking lot. Suspecting he was the robber being sought, an agent waited until he was inside, then called the bank on a cell phone and learned that Cornell was at it again.Yesterday, Cornell, 32, of Woodlawn admitted in federal court to five Baltimore-area bank robberies since Jan. 28, including the three at Crestar and those Feb. 4 and March 3 at the NationsBank at the Rotunda Shopping Center.

In a move to crack down on carjackings, U.S. prosecutors yesterday charged a Baltimore man accused in a series of brazen heists in downtown Baltimore with violating a federal law that carries a 25-year prison sentence without parole.Harold Wright, 32, of the 1700 block of N. Broadway was indicted by grand jurors in U.S. District Court in Baltimore on two counts of carjacking and one count of attempted carjacking, accused of threatening three women on Charles Street in April with a knife and demanding that they give him their cars.

An Anne Arundel County firefighter convicted this month of exposing himself to two girls at Glen Burnie High School in 1996 remains on the force, angering one of the victims."

A Finksburg man was sentenced in Carroll County Circuit Court yesterday to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to savagely assaulting his wife in November.Steven L. Brown, 24, also received an 18-month concurrent sentence for a similar assault and was placed on three years of probation in lieu of a drunken-driving conviction.Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. ordered Brown to pay $353 in restitution within six months of his release, remain in alcohol counseling for 18 months and have no contact with his wife.

A woman who was found dead yesterday in the bedroom closet of a Hampstead home may have been the victim of a homicide, state police said.The woman, who police refused to name, was unclothed and partially hidden under a blanket in a home in the 4400 block of Utz Road. Police were called to the house after Baltimore fire officials received a tip.Two children were asleep in a bedroom and a man was lying unconscious in a bathtub when troopers arrived about 12: 30 a.m. The children, 2 and 11 months, were turned over to the county Department of Social Services.

An Eastern Shore garbage hauler who swindled a string of banks and lending institutions out of nearly $3 million to keep his struggling company afloat was sentenced yesterday in federal court in Baltimore to three years and five months in prison without parole.David James Duffy, 55, also was ordered to pay $224,000 to the eight banks and two lending institutions and to serve three years of probation after he is released from federal prison.In a short, tearful plea, Duffy said yesterday that he was sorry for what he had done.

A New Windsor man who pleaded guilty in January to assault with intent to murder two state police troopers who critically wounded him in July was sentenced to two concurrent 20-year terms in state prison yesterday in Carroll County Circuit Court.Complying with a plea arrangement, Judge Francis M. Arnold suspended all but eight years of the sentence against John Meredith Carter, who has been in jail since July 31, 1994.Judge Arnold allowed 20 months and three days of credit for time served in jail and placed Carter on five years of supervised probation after his release.

Two Westminster women who were released on bail last week after being arrested Dec. 6 on shoplifting charges have been accused of failing to return a car they borrowed Thursday, state police said.Kimberly L. Cook, 26, and Rhonda M. Poole, 25, both of the 400 block of Arters Mill Road, were back in custody Friday, court records show.Police arrested Cook on a charge of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. Bail was set at $7,500, pending a bail review hearing in District Court tomorrow.Poole, who also appears in court records as Rhonda Flynn, was arrested on a bench warrant issued Wednesday in Circuit Court after she failed to appear to face charges of violating probation in a 1994 misdemeanor theft case.

A 26-year-old man was ordered jailed in lieu of $1.5 million bail Monday after Annapolis police charged him with raping a teenager at a party early Sunday. Police charged John Walter Jennings III of the 800 block of Carrollton Ave., Annapolis, with 11 counts. Court records say he is on probation for assaulting his fiancee and awaiting a court hearing in January for a possible probation violation. On Sunday, Annapolis police were called to Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore about a rape.

A Glen Burnie teenager was charged with murder after police found his mother dead with multiple stab wounds in a bedroom of their apartment, police said Wednesday. When police went to the apartment Tuesday afternoon after receiving a tip, the 17-year-old boy was in the living room, playing a video game, according to court records. He later told police that his mother had been dead since Monday, according to court records. William Joseph Skiratko, a junior at Old Mill High School, was arrested and charged as an adult with first-degree murder in the death of Elizabeth Anne Skiratko, 45, Anne Arundel County police said.

Two men were arrested this week and charged with the fatal shooting of a man during a robbery in Southwest Baltimore in October, according to police and court records. About 9 p.m. Oct. 14, Rubin J. Nelson, 26, was approached by two people while walking in the 1900 block of N. Rosedale St. The pair robbed him of his backpack and then shot him as they fled. Nelson died 40 minutes later, after he was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center. Robbery apparently was a motive but it was unclear from charging documents what was stolen from Nelson, aside from his backpack.

The city's Board of Estimates approved payouts in two lawsuits against city police officers this week, including a $320,000 settlement for four men a jury found had been improperly arrested in Patterson Park two years ago. In May, a jury awarded Jacob Adams, Charles Bowman, Shawn Clowney and Kerney Toomer, as well as a fifth man, Rudolph Hill, a total of $1.85 million based on their accusation that Officer Robert G. Cirello arrested them in a show of...

A Reisterstown man accused of holding a woman against her will for more than a month pleaded guilty yesterday to two of nearly 40 charges against him in Carroll County Circuit Court. Standing in court yesterday in a bright-orange jumpsuit, William Thomas Parrish III, 26, pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree assault and a first-degree sex offense. He had also been charged with first- and second-degree rape, sodomy and false imprisonment. Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. sentenced Parrish to 25 years on the assault conviction and 55 years -- suspending all but 35 -- on the sex offense.

Two backyard farmers pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday to violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. They admitted using an insecticide that killed three bald eagles and a great horned owl, birds of prey that are protected by law. Ernest J. Long, 70, a farmer in Campden-Wyoming, Del., and Angel Gomez, 36, of Goldsboro, on Maryland's Eastern Shore, were placed on a year's probation and ordered to pay fines and restitution of $8,000 and $3,000, according...

Carroll man accused of abusing baby sitter A Carroll County man has been charged with sexually abusing a minor after an encounter with a baby sitter in early October, according to court documents. Gregory M. Trakney, 39, of Taneytown was arrested after being questioned Monday at the Carroll County Advocacy and Investigation Center, which looks into allegations of sexual abuse and physical abuse of children, according to court records. Trakney also was charged with a third-degree sex offense and with contributing to the condition of a child.

The civil rights unit of the Maryland attorney general's office is investigating the sentencing of an African-American man with no previous criminal convictions to 30 years in prison for writing bad checks. Carl O. Snowden, the attorney general's director for civil rights, said yesterday that he is looking into the situation in response to a complaint filed by the Baltimore County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Describing the sentence of Andrew Maurice Fisher as "blatant discrimination," Pat Ferguson, president of the local NAACP chapter, likened the situation to that of the "Jena 6" case, in which claims of racial discrimination have been made involving the prosecution of a group of black students in Louisiana.

On the basketball court Jordan Brown was known for passing the ball to teammates, leading his Baltimore County high school in assists, according to his coach. In the years after graduation, a love for basketball still dominated his life - playing, watching, hanging around the game wherever he could. Yesterday, as police announced the arrest of the man they believe responsible for killing Brown in West Baltimore, friends and relatives continued to remember a young man they knew as a leader on the court and off it. "He was a good kid," said his aunt, Videtta Brown, a prosecutor who heads the city's domestic violence unit.

A city police officer on foot patrol in a Northeast Baltimore shopping plaza spotted a man wanted in a double killing this month and stopped and arrested him, police said yesterday. Officer Richard Hall, 24, who joined the department in May 2006, recognized the man in Northwood Shopping Center in the Hillen neighborhood, according to Agent Donny Moses, a police spokesman. Moses said Hall knew the suspect from a photo distributed to officers by the Northeastern District's gang intelligence unit.