Documents

A cabal of corrupt corrections officers and members of the Black Guerrilla Family gang enjoyed nearly free rein inside the Baltimore City Detention Center, federal authorities allege, smuggling drugs and cellphones into the jail and having sexual relationships that left four guards pregnant. An indictment unsealed Tuesday names 25 people - including 13 women working as corrections officers - who face racketeering and drug charges. Twenty of the accused also face money-laundering charges.

The Harford County Department of Inspections, Licenses and Permits, or DILP, working in cooperation with the Department of Information Systems, has made technology enhancements that will now allow DILP to migrate from traditional file storage to electronic storage of construction documents. Because of limited file storage space, DILP's practice had been to discard a large percentage of submitted documents after 180 days from the issuance of the Certificate of Occupancy. The new electronic storage retrieval system will alleviate the need for maintain paper or "hard" copies of approved plans and will assist DILP inspectors in accessing documents while in the field on assignments.

The 19-year-old man charged with fatally stabbing Dennis Lane allegedly told investigators that his girlfriend had instructed him to kill her father and his fiancee, specifying the number of times each was to be stabbed in the throat - 10 for him and 15 for her. Jason Anthony Bulmer charging documents In a conversation at school hours before the Ellicott City blogger and businessman was killed, Jason Anthony Bulmer said, 14-year-old Morgan...

The 19-year-old man charged with fatally stabbing Dennis Lane allegedly told investigators that his girlfriend had instructed him to kill her father and his fiancee, specifying the number of times each was to be stabbed in the throat - 10 for him and 15 for her. Jason Anthony Bulmer charging documents In a conversation at school hours before the Ellicott City blogger and businessman was killed, Jason Anthony Bulmer said, 14-year-old Morgan...

The Nottingham woman had ducked into a bathroom at the White Marsh Sears when she heard a voice from the adjoining stall: Her neighbor had found the toilet-paper dispenser empty. Could she pass some under the divider? As she gathered a bunch, authorities said, someone reached over the stall's door and took cash and credit cards from the purse she had hung there. It wasn't until she stopped at other stores that she realized her cards were missing. She would later find that the thieves had bought thousands of dollars' worth of merchandise with the cards.

A four-page personal handwritten letter from John Jay Audubon to Gideon B. Smith, dated May 18, 1843, taken from the Connecticut Historical Society. A single-page letter from Marie Antoinette written in French on Oct. 2, 1784, taken from the Connecticut Historical Society. A letter written in French from Napoleon Bonaparte on Sept. 17, 1878, taken from the Connecticut Historical Society. A letter written by Karl Marx on April 14, 1874, to P.H. King inquiring about the title and price of a book bearing Marx's signature, taken from the Wilbur Collection at the University of Vermont Library.

Every now and then, you get a press release that breaks new ground in the areas of creativity and hilarity. This is one of those times. Yesterday, the CIA sent out an Earth Day press release highlighting the agency's environmentally friendly initiatives.  Their plan? Burning documents.  Seriously. You can't make this stuff up. The release said:  "The Central Intelligence Agency’s practice of shredding and burning classified papers—often referred to in movies and books as “ burn after reading ” —is one of several ways the CIA conserves energy, reduces its impact on the environment, and lowers costs through its sustainability efforts.

Document thief Barry Landau may have sold more of the national treasures he stole from museums — including the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore, where his scheme unraveled — than previously thought, according to the National Archives inspector general, who said Wednesday that his investigators have uncovered new evidence. Members of the agency's Archival Recovery Team are now targeting historic document dealers who illegally, if unknowingly, bought pieces from Landau for $500 to $6,000 apiece, based on the disgraced collector's own sales records, which were found during an FBI search of Landau's Manhattan apartment.

Disgraced collector Barry H. Landau was sentenced Wednesday to seven years in federal prison for stealing thousands of historic documents worth as much as $2.5 million from archives along the East Coast, including one in Baltimore, where the scheme unraveled last summer. The 64-year-old Manhattan resident, who for years fooled celebrities and political players into believing he had significant ties to the White House, was also ordered to pay $46,525 in restitution and to stay away from all archives and libraries after he is released.

Leaders of the embattled Baltimore City Foundation must provide documents explaining how they collect and distribute funds, the number and type of accounts that belong to each city agency, and how much work is done for the nonprofit while employees are on the city's clock. The demands came at the end of a two-hour hearing Wednesday night, during which members of the City Council's legislative committee barraged the foundation's president, the city's finance director and the heads of city agencies about how the nonprofit handles money.

Charles T. Mahan Jr., who spent 75 years painstakingly documenting the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad — better known as the Ma & Pa — that zig-zagged across Maryland from Baltimore to York, Pa., died Friday of kidney failure at Oak Crest Village. He was 88. "Every fan of the Ma & Pa will be eternally indebted to Charlie. He was a treasure," said Rudy Fischer, archivist of the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad Historical Society. "He documented its rolling stock, narrow- and later standard-gauge days.

A Baltimore County police officer has been charged with malfeasance in office after detectives said he repeatedly engaged in and recorded sexual acts while on duty, including at least one video sent to a 16-year-old girl. Aaron Z. Pross, 29, of Newark, Del., who was assigned to the Pikesville Precinct, is being investigated by his agency and could face additional charges. Detectives said he took more than 120 images and 20 videos engaging in sexual acts with himself and an adult woman while he was working.

Baltimore's spending panel on Wednesday unanimously approved $285,000 for city police to hire a Massachusetts-based consultant — the highest of five bidders — to recommend how the department should be run. Despite the protests of competing consultants and a city councilman, the city's Board of Estimates, which is controlled by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, voted 5-0 to hire Strategic Policy Partnership LLC, based in Martha's Vineyard, to...

This is cracking me up. A father has started a Tumblr collection of photos of his toddler crying with captions that explain why he's crying. My two favorites so far: "He asked me to put butter on his rice. I put butter on his rice," and "I wouldn't let him drown in this pond. " Check out more here: http://reasonsmysoniscrying.tumblr.com/

The Nottingham woman had ducked into a bathroom at the White Marsh Sears when she heard a voice from the adjoining stall: Her neighbor had found the toilet-paper dispenser empty. Could she pass some under the divider? As she gathered a bunch, authorities said, someone reached over the stall's door and took cash and credit cards from the purse she had hung there. It wasn't until she stopped at other stores that she realized her cards were missing. She would later find that the thieves had bought thousands of dollars' worth of merchandise with the cards.

When De'ontae Smith was fatally stabbed and two friends were injured three blocks from the route of the Ravens' Super Bowl victory parade, police initially said the celebration was unrelated to the violence. As it turned out, the teen had cut school to cheer on the team. Officials have since said they didn't know enough at the time to conclusively link the events. The Baltimore Sun wanted to know: How were various city agencies talking about the stabbing in the minutes and hours after it took place?

Debt buyers have sued thousands of Marylanders over the years without showing much proof that the companies owned the debt — or that the consumers owed it. But that changed this month. Under new rules, debt buyers — who purchase old consumer debt and then try to collect — must provide greater evidence of their claims when suing consumers in Maryland courts. Consumer lawyers and debt buyers say it's too early to know whether these new filing requirements will permanently reduce collection lawsuits that have inundated the courts in recent years.

Less than four months after a Maryland Historical Society employee uncovered a cultural property heist called "truly breathtaking" by national archivists, one of the men charged in the scheme has pleaded guilty. Jason James Savedoff, 24, admitted Thursday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore that he and co-defendant Barry H. Landau, 63, conspired to steal and sell valuable historic documents from museums in several states, including Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

The Hays-Heighe House at Harford Community College will host Emancipation and Its Legacies, a national traveling exhibition on display through Feb. 25. In conjunction with the exhibit, the Hays-Heighe House is sponsoring free programs and other events for the public. Developed by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in partnership with the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Emancipation and Its Legacies marks the sesquicentennial of President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.

The Enoch Pratt Free Library 's only document signed by Abraham Lincoln will be on display Tuesday for one day only, in honor of the Great Emancipator's 204th birthday. The document - the appointment of Walter Graham of New Jersey as the American consul at Cape Town, South Africa - will be exhibited in the main hall of the Central branch, 400 Cathedral St. between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., according to library spokesman Roswell Encina. The appointment was signed on Jan. 19, 1863 by Lincoln and his Secretary of State, William Seward, and was donated to the Pratt in September 1940 by Mrs. William F. Bevan.