Crofton

A Glen Burnie man died of injuries he suffered Sunday when his car collided with an SUV driven by an unsupervised teenager on a learner's permit, Anne Arundel County police said. Javaid Firdaus, 63, of the 300 block of Thelma Ave., was taken to Baltimore Washington Medical Center, where he died, police said. This was the 19 t h fatal crash in the county this year. Police said the driver of the SUV, Elizabeth Ramirez, 19, of the 600 block of Wheat Mill Court East, Millersville, had a learner's permit, and that her passenger, also 19, was not old enough to supervise her. County police also said she took a relative's vehicle without permission.

An Anne Arundel County prosecutor and judge both used the word "mind-boggling" in court this week to describe what they called methodical and well-documented secret video recordings of 260 women by a Crofton man. "It's the most far-reaching case I've ever seen," Assistant State's Attorney Kathleen Rogers told Judge Paul A. Hackner. "Frankly, I don't know how the defendant had time to hold down a job or even to sleep and eat because of the scope of his activities. " Rogers said the activities of 35-year-old Charles Dean Novak included learning the routines of some of the women he recorded, and returning to their homes to make multiple videos of them as they dressed and undressed in their bedrooms and showered in their bathrooms.

The younger of two teenagers found responsible for the death of a 14-year-old boy in Crofton will be placed on probation next week after having spent about 21 months in a juvenile facility, an Anne Arundel County judge ordered Thursday. The ruling closes a chapter in a case that highlighted the issue of suburban youth gang violence, but it left the victim's parents sharply criticizing the outcome. "Two years for killing somebody? That's a joke," said Jennifer Adkins, whose son, Christopher Jones, was killed over Memorial Day weekend in 2009.

A father accused of slitting the throats of his wife and daughters in the family's Crofton home was ordered held without bail Monday, and no motive was offered for why he may have harmed his family and himself. Julio Cesar Esquetini, 49, of the 1600 block of Forest Hill Court in the Crofton Meadows Four townhouse community, appeared on a monitor in District Court in Annapolis from the Anne Arundel County Detention Center. He was arrested Friday and faces more than a dozen charges.

A father suspected of stabbing his wife and daughters at the family home in Crofton will face attempted- second-degree-murder and related charges, Anne Arundel County police said. Investigators obtained an arrest warrant Thursday for Julio Cesar Esquetini, 49, of the 1600 block of Forest Hill Court in the Crofton Meadows Four townhouse community. He was under police guard at Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, according to police spokesman Justin Mulcahy. The victims — his wife, also 49, and daughters, ages 20 and 13 — were in fair condition at the same hospital, he said.

A mother and her two daughters were hospitalized Wednesday after being stabbed by the girls' father at their Crofton home, Anne Arundel County authorities said. Identified by their Crofton Meadows neighbors as the Esquetini family, all four members suffered stab wounds and cuts and were taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore. The female victims suffered injuries to the upper part of the body, with the mother, 49, and daughters, 20 and 13, reported in serious condition.

A teenager who was found responsible in the killing of a 14-year-old Crofton boy was ordered released Wednesday to his mother after a year and a half in a Pennsylvania juvenile facility, upsetting the victim's parents. Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge J. Michael Wachs placed Javel M. George, now 18, on probation until he is 21. He will have a GPS monitor and authorities will have a standing order to arrest him if he violates the terms of his release, which say he must be at his mother's home unless he is in court-ordered activities, including attending school or work and completing 100 hours of community service.

In the two years since Jennifer Adkins buried her 14-year-old son after he was fatally hit by teenagers involved in a gang, the Crofton mother has been unable to bring herself to wash the towels in his laundry basket. But she has turned her grief outward, speaking about what she wants to be known as her son's "legacy": protecting children from violence by their peers. She doesn't want other teens meeting the same fate as either her son, Christopher Jones, or his attackers, who are now in juvenile facilities.

The 50-year prison sentence of a Crofton teenager who lured a 7-year-old neighbor from a playground and raped her was cut by more than half Tuesday, and the distraught mother of the victim ran from the courtroom as lawyers argued over her request to bar him from living near her family once he's released. The new sentence, 20 years, means that David B. Raszewski, now 19, may be eligible for parole consideration before he is 30 — about the same time his victim could get a driver's license.