Fake Drugs

Jawad Abdullah's office is a window into Baltimore's thriving illicit drug trade. Literally. In front of his desk on the 10th floor of Baltimore police headquarters on East Fayette Street, a row of eight-foot windows frames the drug-riddled streets of East Baltimore. Abdullah carefully drops white powder found just 11 blocks away into tubes to test them for cocaine and heroin. "See the bright blue color?" Abdullah asks, pointing to a small dish in which he has combined the powder with a chemical.

A Baltimore man was sentenced to six years in federal prison yesterday for ordering the killing of an 11-year-old girl who had testified at his murder trial, ending a case that came to epitomize the city's struggle with witness intimidation. DeAndre Whitehead, 20, appeared before U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake and sat feet from members of the family he had attempted to silence. "He took the best thing to happen to me besides my child," said Patricia Peterson, wife of the man prosecutors had charged Whitehead with killing and mother of the young witness.

Harford County sheriff's deputies and Maryland State Police report: Aberdeen Christian Soto-Perez, 25, of the 200 block of Plaza Court, was arrested on a bench warrant Friday in a case in which he was charged with second-degree assault. Melissa A. Crilley, 41, of the 400 block of Baltimore Street, was charged Thursday with marijuana possession. Alma Castillo-Deescobar, 32, who has addresses in the 1000 block of Warwick Drive and the 700 block of Benjamin Quarter Place in Baltimore, was arrested on a bench warrant Thursday in a case in which she was charged with theft less than $100.

Budget*HB650 (Budget); Passed House, 110-19; Senate, 40-7; $11.6billion budget, ties $65 million in local education assistance to tax increaseDixon- NoElliott-NoLaMotte-YesMatthews-NoHaines-YesSmelser-Yes*HB707 (Taxes); Passed House, 93-36; Senate, 27-20; raises $90.1 million in taxes on cigarettes, food sales and capital gains to restore local education cuts, provide other reliefDixon -NoElliott- NoLaMotte- NoMatthews - NoHaines- NoSmelser - No*HB1206 (Capital gains*); Passed House, 91-40; killed by Senate Budget and Taxation Committee; raises $37 million by reducing tax breaks on capital gains to restore local aid cutsDixon-Exc.

The 16-year-old arrested in Wednesday's fatal shooting near a city school was charged in another slaying two years ago and is an admitted drug dealer who purportedly earned $1,400 a week selling crack cocaine, court records show.Just halfway through his teen-age years, Kevin Stanley is well acquainted with the legal system, having dropped out of school in the seventh grade to pursue life on the streets of East Baltimore.Psychiatrists were so worried about the youngster, who has an IQ of 64, that they described him as having no remorse for his crimes and wrote in a report two years ago that "there seems to be a great potential for him to continue committing serious offenses."

Four years ago, when Timothy Fagan was 16 and struggling to recover from a nine-hour operation that had replaced his liver and left him severely anemic, doctors prescribed a weekly injectable drug called Epogen to boost his red blood cell count. It nearly killed him. "Several hours after each injection, my son woke up screaming in pain," Fagan's father told a congressional committee last November. "Tim was doubled over crying, screaming, `Help me,' and I didn't know what to do." His doctors, too, were dumbfounded -- until the pharmacy called eight weeks later.

Baltimore CitySHOOTING: Eastern District -- A man was shot and seriously wounded as he walked in the 1600 block of Normal Ave. Homicide Detective Earl Kratsch said Anthony Gillette, 23, was near his home around 2 a.m. today when one of two occupants of a passing burgundy four-door Oldsmobile fired a shot at him. The bullet hit him in the abdomen and exited through the lower back. Detective Kratsch said Mr. Gillette was taken by ambulance to Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he was listed in serious but stable condition today.