Doggett

Prison authorities are investigating whether heroin smuggled into the Roxbury Correctional Institution in Hagerstown sickened or caused strange behavior in five inmates. Three of the inmates were taken to a local hospital after they were discovered unresponsive in their cells Tuesday, according to Priscilla Doggett, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Division of Correction. She said test results have confirmed that drugs were in the system of two of the inmates. The test results of the other three inmates are pending, she said.

Inmate fatally stabbed at House of Correction JESSUP - An inmate at the Maryland House of Correction in Jessup died from stab wounds to the abdomen yesterday morning after a correctional officer found him bleeding outside his cell, a Maryland Division of Correction official said. Capt. Priscilla Doggett, division spokeswoman, did not release the man's identity yesterday, saying officials were trying to locate his family. The 32-year-old had been serving a life sentence for homicide and weapons charges since June 1992.

AS THE NEW head of the troubled Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association, travel industry veteran Leslie R. Doggett will face many challenges. Not the least of these will be putting the city back on the map and uppermost in the minds of the nation's convention and meeting planners -- a job for someone with a fat Rolodex, keen promotions ideas and a deal-closing handshake. Tough times complicate the job: America's hospitality industry has been in turmoil since 9/11. Safety concerns have altered travel patterns while economic woes have curtailed conventions and family tourism, unleashing cutthroat competition among destinations.

An inmate was stabbed at the Maryland House of Corrections Annex in Jessup yesterday, only hours after authorities lifted a lockdown that had confined 1,200 inmates to their cells for nearly a month as officials searched the facility for homemade weapons. The 40-year-old inmate was stabbed at 2:45 p.m. by another prisoner, 20, who had pried a piece of metal from a light fixture in his cell and fashioned it into a shank, said Capt. Priscilla Doggett, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Division of Correction.

Seven inmates at the Metropolitan Transition Center in Baltimore were hospitalized last night with stab wounds after an exercise yard fight, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Division of Correction said. The stabbings come 2 1/2 months after 18 inmates there were taken to hospitals after a similar melee in the exercise yard. The nature of the injuries and the conditions of the men were not available. No correctional officers were hurt. The prison, in the 900 block of Forrest St., was put under lockdown, during which inmates are generally confined to their cells and denied visitation.

The problems at Maryland's troubled prisons in Jessup continued yesterday as authorities thwarted an attempted escape by an inmate serving a life sentence for attempted murder. State prison officials said the inmate scaled an interior fence at the Maryland House of Correction Annex and was trying to get past razor wire and over another fence to the outside before he was ordered down by a correctional officer patrolling the prison perimeter. "He was not being combative, he was compliant," said Maj. Priscilla Doggett, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Division of Correction.

All 18 men injured in the clash at the Metropolitan Transition Center last Friday have been released from the hospital and placed at other state prisons, according to Maj. Priscilla Doggett, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. With the proliferation of gangs in Maryland prisons, I'd have bet money that the fracas started as a beef between the gangs known as the Bloods and Crips. I'd have lost my money. But I'd have been half right. Sources say one of the groups involved was indeed the Bloods.

Dan M. Lincoln, the Baltimore convention bureau's senior vice president of sales and marketing, said yesterday that he will step down from that position next month to pursue other interests. Lincoln's departure, effective Oct. 3, will come several weeks after Leslie R. Doggett took over as the new president and chief executive of the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association. The organization has been struggling with sagging convention sales and internal turmoil after a highly critical outside evaluation and the ouster of the association's former chief executive, Carroll R. Armstrong.

In a glitzy celebration attended by hundreds and punctuated with pyrotechnics, Baltimore christened its long-awaited Inner Harbor visitor center last night. Guests watched from two boats docked nearby until the appointed moment when the drapes came down and the lights came up on the $4.5 million building, revealing its inner contents. "We want this building to be a vibrant reflection of the best Baltimore has to offer," Leslie R. Doggett, president and chief executive of the Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association, said in an interview this week.

Mistakenly released, suspect back in custody A murder suspect who was mistakenly released from prison Tuesday was behind bars again last night arrested and charged with escape even though prison authorities acknowledge they had set him free.The escape charge was the only way tolegally return James C. Burton to custody because paperwork ordering his detention has disappeared or was never generated, said Maj. Priscilla Doggett, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Division of Correction. "This will afford us the opportunity to go ahead and try to find out what happened here," Doggett said last night of the "retake warrant" served to Burton after he surrendered to police.