Drug Dealer

Defensive lineman-linebacker Fearon Wright and running back-defensive back Isaiah Grier, who play for the American Indoor Football Association's Baltimore Mariners, will be featured on today's episode of "The Steve Wilkos Show," which airs at noon on Channel 54. The players appear on the show in an effort to help Baltimore's Michelle Gordon, who fears she is losing her 15-year-old twin sons, Michael and Shaheim, to the streets. Michael once dreamed of a football career and Shaheim aspired to become a lawyer, but the two have gotten involved in gangs, violence and illegal drugs.

A Reisterstown pharmacist was sentenced Friday to six years in federal prison for selling 34,000 prescription painkillers to a drug dealer, the U.S. attorney's office for Maryland announced. Ketankumar Arvind Patel, 48, was also ordered to forfeit the $400,000 he was paid for the pills, which contained the powerful opioid oxycodone. Court records say that Patel, who lives in Eldersburg, told the dealer how to write phony prescriptions for OxyContin and Percocet, then filled them from his Medicine Shoppe pharmacy in the 11800 block of Reisterstown Road between 2007 and 2009.

One of nine people charged in what authorities contend is a huge drug conspiracy turned against two of his former bosses Monday, testifying as a government witness on the opening day of their narcotics conspiracy and weapons possession trial. At least a half-dozen people have reached plea agreements with the Maryland U.S. attorney's office, including Antoine Boston, who was alleged to have been a drug shop manager for Johnnie "JR" Butler and Calvin "Turkey" Wright. Boston testified Monday to certain heroin dealings with the defendants, whose attorneys worked to discredit him. Prosecutors contend Butler and Wright ran a violent and well-connected heroin operation on Baltimore's east side, able to sneak drugs into prison, get a heads-up about warrants from courthouse staff and skirt the gun-application process.

Say this much for Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III: He's willing to deliver on a bet. Bealefeld appeared on radio station 98 Rock on Tuesday morning to sing a karaoke version of Whitney Houston's "I'm Every Woman," honoring an agreement he made with the mayor's office after his all-male police team lost a marathon relay Saturday to an all-women's team headed by an official from City Hall. "Suddenly, every drug dealer in town is petrified," cracked host Mickey Cucchiella after Bealefeld cruised through his droll rendition of the song.

City drug dealer given 15 years for selling crack U.S. District Court Judge William D. Quarles Jr. sentenced Baltimore drug dealer Otis Rich, 34, yesterday to more than 15 years in federal prison for distributing more than 3.5 kilograms of crack between March 2006 and August 2008. His co-defendant, Devon Marshall, 37, of Abingdon pleaded guilty yesterday to the same charge on a larger scale. Marshall, who faces a mandatory minimum of 20 years in prison at his April sentencing, said he obtained cocaine from Mexico and helped distribute more than 150 kilograms throughout the city.

Robert Carroll Eichelberger - Robbie to his mother - started using drugs before he reached puberty. By age 12, he had run away from home. In his 20s, he was in and out of Washington County District Court on charges that included assault and burglary. In his 30s, he added credit-card theft and eluding police to his record. And at 35, he and his girlfriend were selling prescription drugs to high school students to support their own addictions. Last year, one of those teenagers died. "I know my saying 'I'm sorry' won't bring him back, but I am sorry.

An urban oasis is rising from the rubble of vacant rowhouses in East Baltimore. Cherry trees and dogwoods have been staked into new dirt. Beds of sedum, rose, sage and yarrow have been planted. Wood-chip walkways wind through lots neighbors once feared to enter. Hard against the old stone wall of Green Mount Cemetery, two new gardens are part of a movement by Oliver residents to reclaim their neighborhood. They got police to clear drug dealers from a courtyard, and neighbors now gather there for lunch.

A Harford County man convicted of drug distribution was sentenced to life in prison yesterday after he was linked to the death of a confidential informant in what a federal prosecutor described as "the brutal execution of a witness." U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles Jr. said yesterday that he was convinced by a preponderance of evidence that Gary B. "Fatboy" Williams Jr. "did indeed cause the death of Robin Welshons, and it was first-degree murder." Although he was never charged with the murder of Welshons, Williams, 28, was confronted with evidence and police testimony during his sentencing last week that he had orchestrated her killing.

Sealed off from the violence of East Baltimore by hydrangea bushes and a brick wall, the grotto at St. Frances Academy is a peaceful oasis for prayer and contemplation. At least, it used to be. Drug dealers in the academy's troubled neighborhood have invaded the school grounds, selling their product on the sidewalk in front of the Catholic high school and hiding their stashes in the grotto, next to the statue of the Virgin Mary. Teachers and students have seen the dealers shuttling between the street and the grotto during school hours.