Electronic Monitoring

A former TWA cargo worker who loaded planes carrying mail from Baltimore to Hawaii received a six-month sentence yesterday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore for possessing stolen mail. Peter Bamidele Adeyemi, 46, of Hyattsville, a former baggage handler at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Frederic N. Smalkin, who recommended that the term be served in a halfway house, prosecutors said. Adeyemi, also known as Peter James, pleaded guilty in May to possession of stolen mail.

A former credit union manager from Cumberland who extended risky loans to unqualified customers received a one-year, home-confinement sentence in federal court in Baltimore yesterday. U.S. District Judge William M. Nickerson sentenced Richard W. Shives, 50, to detention at home with electronic monitoring, to be followed by three years of supervised release, for making false statements to the National Credit Union Administration. Nickerson also ordered Shives to pay restitution of $250,000.

A Baltimore police officer facing federal drug charges remained in jail yesterday after prosecutors said he took steps to thwart the continuing investigation while in custody. Officer John H. Wilson, 27, was to have been released yesterday on an electronic monitoring system. But a federal judge delayed his release after authorities said that Wilson had attempted to intimidate witnesses and contacted co-conspirators about destroying evidence since his arrest Tuesday. U.S. Magistrate Judge Beth P. Gessner rescheduled Wilson's detention hearing for Monday.

Federal agents arrested one man yesterday and appealed for the public's help in catching the alleged ringleader of a gang believed to have broken into more than 30 automated teller machines in Maryland and Northern Virginia since 2003. Agents with the Baltimore field office of the FBI arrested Eric "Dukie" Thomas of Bowie in the ATM thefts, according to FBI spokeswoman Michelle Crnkovich. She did not specify what Thomas is charged with. The FBI issued a wanted poster identifying the alleged gang leader as Tracy Delong Fletcher, 29, believed to be a stepson of Thomas.

Ruthann Aron, the former U.S. Senate candidate who pleaded no contest to hiring a hit man in 1997 to kill her physician husband, was released from home detention yesterday, according to Montgomery County jail officials. The 57-year-old Potomac resident -- who was also charged with solicitation to commit murder against attorney Alfred Kahn -- had been on home detention since June, with an electronic monitoring device and various reporting requirements. Aron, who could not be reached for comment last night, pleaded no contest in a July 1998 trial that followed an earlier mistrial.

To reduce the population at the Baltimore City Detention Center, officials plan for the first time to release persons who are awaiting trial for non-violent crimes and supervise them through the state's electronic monitoring program.When the state agreed earlier this year to take over the Baltimore City Jail, it made sure it had the legal authority to electronically monitor pretrial inmates at their homes -- something the administration of Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke had tried unsuccessfully to do in the past -- to relieve overcrowding at the turn-of-the-century facility.

A federal judge in Baltimore yesterday ordered a suspected ATM thief to remain locked up after prosecutors in Maryland said they received new information that may link him to additional thefts. A fugitive for four months, Tracy D. Fletcher, 29, of Bowie fell back into authorities' hands last month after an off-duty officer in Tennessee recognized Fletcher at a Wal-Mart and arrested him. He is charged with conspiracy to commit bank robberies. Prosecutors told Magistrate Judge Paul W. Grimm yesterday that Fletcher should stay in jail in Baltimore because, among other things, Fletcher had cut off the electronic-monitoring bracelet used to restrict him after an earlier arrest.

GREENBELT - A second suspect in the arsons that caused $10 million in damage to a Charles County housing development was ordered released to home detention yesterday. Michael M. Everhart, 20, of Waldorf was told he must wear an electronic monitoring bracelet and will not be allowed to leave his parents' home without permission from authorities. The U.S. attorney's office, which is prosecuting the case, did not oppose Everhart's release to home detention during his appearance yesterday before Chief Magistrate Judge Jillyn K. Schulze in U.S. District Court.

A former Morgan State University employee charged with stealing $17,000 in payroll money was found guilty in Baltimore Circuit Court yesterday of felony theft and was sentenced to one year of electronic home monitoring, the state attorney general's office announced. Judge Stuart R. Berger also imposed a five-year suspended sentence on Demetrius Robinson, 28, of Scottsdale, Ariz., and ordered him to pay restitution to the university. Robinson, who was arrested in Scottsdale and waived extradition, also received five years' probation.

Saying abuse of such painkillers as OxyContin and Vicodin has become a problem as big as heroin and cocaine, Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. unveiled a set of proposals yesterday designed to attack the illegal trade in prescription drugs. Curran said he will press the General Assembly to enact an electronic prescription drug monitoring program, strengthen laws prohibiting illegal trafficking in the medications, regulate unlicensed pharmacy technicians, create education campaigns and increase training for law enforcement in how to deal with the problem.