Drug Charges

Federal authorities have issued an arrest warrant for the boyfriend of a woman whose body was found this week in the trunk of her car in Northwest Baltimore. The man, who is awaiting trial on drug charges, is accused of violating the conditions of his release. U.S. marshals searched yesterday for Jermarl A. Jones, 31, of Hyattsville, who is charged in a year-old federal indictment with conspiring to sell heroin. A U.S. District Court judge ordered the issuance of a bench warrant for Jones on Tuesday evening.

Woman beaten, purse stolen A purse-snatcher threw a 20-year-old pregnant woman to the ground, kicked her and stepped on her head in front of a crowd outside the Harbour House complex in Eastport, Annapolis police said this week. The group, police added, did nothing as she screamed for help and he ran off with her purse. The victim, who is three months pregnant, told officers she had gotten out of her car to visit a friend in the public housing community around 7 p.m. Dec. 17 when a man approached and asked if she wanted to buy drugs.

Hotel is latest target of attempted fraud, For the fifth time in a week, a city business has reported that a man claiming to be a police officer requested patrons' credit card information. An employee of Loews Annapolis Hotel reported that the caller identified himself as "Annapolis Police Detective Robert Clark" on Tuesday and asked for all of the hotel guests' credit card numbers, saying he needed them for an unexplained investigation. The department has no such employee and does not make a practice of asking for credit card information.

Arrested three times in 1996 and facing a possible prison sentence, Albert Sherman Stokes eagerly became an informant when approached by a Howard County police officer.In exchange for introducing undercover Howard County detectives to a drug dealer, the 31-year-old carpenter received a deal: Prosecutors dropped several charges -- including lying to a police officer -- put others on hold and recommended probation."I figured, the police are asking me to help them," said Stokes, who most recently lived in Laurel.

Police raided 15 dwellings in three sections of Baltimore yesterday afternoon and evening and arrested at least 10 people charged in warrants and grand jury indictments with narcotics violations.Sgt. Scott Rowe, a police spokesman, said officers seized suspected cocaine worth $5,000, a 9 mm handgun, a 1998 Ford Expedition sport utility vehicle and $3,500.Rowe said "Operation South Park" occurred in West, Southwest and Southern Baltimore between 2 p.m. and 9 p.m. He said the raids were the result of a two-month investigation by undercover officers assigned to the drug enforcement division of drug trafficking and gun-related violence.

Police raided two nightspots on Baltimore's Block last night in an attempt to round up the last of 42 dancers, doormen and other strip club workers indicted on drug charges.Officers swept into the Jewel Box and The Big Top about 8: 30 p.m. as part of Operation Block Bust and detained employees and customers out for a night of entertainment. They arrested 10 people, all employees of the two establishments.Over the past two months, undercover officers said they infiltrated the two bars in the 400 block of E. Baltimore St., befriended bartenders and dancers, and secretly tape-recorded suspected drug deals.

4 men arrested on drug charges in two incidents in WestminsterWestminster police arrested four men on drug charges in unrelated incidents early yesterday.The first arrest occurred about 2: 10 a.m. at an apartment in the 200 block of E. Main St. A woman told police that a man called her about drugs.The woman made arrangements to buy $50 worth of cocaine.According to charging documents, a man came over and they argued about the prices of the bags he brought as officers watched and listened.

An inmate at the county detention center awaiting trial on drug, firearm and assault counts has been charged with obstructing justice and intimidating another inmate, court records show.Bail was set at $10,000 in the latest charges against David Bowen, 37, of Westminster.Edward Dunlap Jr., a 37-year-old being held on unspecified charges at the county jail, said Bowen threatened to stab him Jan. 14, according to a complaint.Dunlap alleged that Bowen said he would "get his friends on the outside to kill his whole family," if Dunlap testified against him in a first-degree assault case.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland is poised to file a lawsuit against the city of Annapolis, charging that a new anti-loitering law that targets those convicted of drug charges within the last seven years violates their constitutional right to hang out in communities in which it is enforced.The law, which the Annapolis city council approved by a 5-4 vote Monday, will allow communities to apply for "drug-loitering free zone" status so police officers can ask suspected drug dealers loitering in privately owned areas within those designated neighborhoods to move along.

Responding to complaints of a growing drug market in northeast Westminster, authorities arrested 20 people on drug possession and distribution charges early yesterday.More than 90 law enforcement officials from the Westminster Police Department, Maryland State Police and the Carroll County Sheriff's Department swept through Sullivan and Wimert avenues, serving search and seizure warrants at four apartments that police believe were centers for drug use and sales.Authorities said they seized small amounts of heroin, crack cocaine and marijuana, cash, weapons and a Lexus sedan.

About 200 students were rushed out of a city school Thursday morning after a drug suspect fled police and ran into the Southeast Baltimore building, officials said. After more than six hours of searching, police located the man hiding in a cabinet under a sink on the second floor of William Paca Elementary School and took him into custody without incident. Officer Troy Harris, a police spokesman, said police kept looking after determining through camera footage that the man had entered the school but had not left.

Peter Hermann's "Crime Scenes" is a reported feature that provides context about many of the incidents that take place on the streets of Baltimore and beyond. The last shots in the decades-long feud between the Old York and Cator Avenue Boys and the McCabe Avenue Boys might have been fired years ago. Arrests, violent deaths and attrition have rendered these once-notorious neighborhood groups nothing more than street-corner legend. Graffiti and tennis shoes that once hung from power lines marking turf no longer mar the urban landscape that defines North Baltimore's Pen Lucy neighborhood, though its main street, Old York Road, remains a desolate, narrow passageway lined with empty, gated storefronts, one where a South Korean merchant was killed in a robbery in 1997.

Baltimore police homicide commander Terrence McLarney calls it the Trojan Horse strategy: Take down on drug charges a major organization believed to be linked to violence, and use the opportunity to clear hard-to-crack murder cases. That's what they say is now happening with Johnnie Butler, a 33-year-old taken into custody last summer after a wiretap investigation into his heroin and cocaine operation. At the time, Butler and eight co-defendants were hit with federal charges of conspiracy to distribute heroin.

Drug charges against city educator dropped The head of a city high school's special-education department has been cleared of drug charges after prosecutors could not locate a lab analysis of what police said was crack cocaine recovered from her home. Victoria Carter, a 35-year educator assigned to Northwestern High School, was arrested at school administration headquarters in April after police alleged that she conspired with her 19-year-old son to distribute 50 grams of suspected crack cocaine found in a first-floor bathroom.

ESPN said Jamal Anderson, arrested over the weekend on drug charges, wasn't scheduled for appearances anytime soon, except maybe an occasional 1st and 10 or SportsCenter. But the network has yet to hear from him. So let's guess we won't be seeing Anderson soon. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.com/mediumwell)

A man whose Baltimore trial on drug charges was postponed 14 times before he was found not guilty has been sentenced to seven years in prison for violating the terms of his probation from a 2002 case, according to the city state's attorney's office. Herbert Carter, 34, of the 300 block of S. Catherine St., was found guilty of the probation violation this week, prosecutors said. Circuit Judge John C. Themelis ordered the man to serve part of a nine-year, nine-month sentence that had been suspended in 2002 when he was convicted of selling drugs.

Teen arrested on drug charges after raid A Russett teenager was charged with multiple drug offenses after police raided his home and found a cache of crack cocaine, marijuana and money, Anne Arundel county police said. Police burst into an apartment on the 3400 block of Chiswell Court about 1:30 a.m. Thursday and found the target of their monthlong investigation, Marvin Leonard Sellman, 19, in his bedroom. There, detectives found 48 grams of crack cocaine worth $4,800. They also found $100 in marijuana, a digital scale, $469 and empty plastic baggies in the apartment.

A federal jury decided last year that Gary "Fat Boy" Williams Jr. was a drug dealer. But when his sentencing hearing resumes today in a Baltimore courtroom, he will face accusations that he was involved in the shooting death of an informant though he has never been charged with murder. Federal prosecutors are mounting what is essentially a trial within a trial in hopes of winning a stiffer sentence. Federal sentencing law allows a judge to consider alleged crimes that have been refuted at trial or which a defendant has never been charged with, a provision that critics say flouts the constitutional protections of the trial-by-jury system.

Glen Burnie man faces drug charges A Glen Burnie man was arrested on drug charges after officers seized $20,000 in prescription painkillers in a package addressed to him, Anne Arundel County police said. Officers intercepted the parcel at a local sorting facility on May 8 after drug-sniffing dogs detected drugs inside. Detectives found it contained about 200 80mg Oxycontin pills and 120 40mg Oxycontin pills. The package was delivered to Christopher Kunze, 22, of the 7300 block of Ridgewater Court, where he was arrested and charged with possession with intent to distribute Oxycontin and possession of Oxycontin.

Student, 16, charged in false bomb threat A 16-year-old Meade High School student was charged yesterday with falsely reporting a bomb threat that placed three Fort Meade area schools on lockdown for nearly two hours. A student called Anne Arundel County police about 9:25 a.m. saying that he knew of a male student who intended to blow up the school. The caller said he had seen the bag of explosives that the student planned to use. Twenty-seven police officers, including two K-9 units, eight detectives and members of the School Resource Unit searched the school area for the alleged suspect.