False Statement

THE SENATOR-ELECT from the state's 44th Legislative District stood out in front of City Hall, surrounded by the usual suspects.Del. Clarence Mitchell IV was there to reiterate what he had said in a news release: Police Commissioner Thomas Frazier should resign or be fired. It was one day after this paper revealed that Frazier had testified that there was a disparity in the number of black officers fired for disciplinary reasons."We have bodies upon bodies of African-American officers who have been terminated," Mitchell said.

A female private involved in the sexual misconduct scandal at Aberdeen Proving Ground said yesterday that Army investigators pressured her into falsely claiming she had sex with a drill sergeant -- and that she now faces a court-martial for recanting.Pvt. Toni Moreland, 21, of St. Louis says she faces prosecution for signing a false statement alleging she had consensual sex with an instructor at the Ordnance Center and School. She says officials forced her to make the statement while investigating allegations that the sergeant had raped her."

Mark Milton Feinberg, who presided over a once-thriving mortgage business in Columbia, was convicted in U.S. District Court in Baltimore yesterday of five fraud counts in connection with a $5 million scheme to keep his fiscally troubled company afloat.Feinberg, 47, stared in disbelief at the jurors as they stood in the fifth-floor courtroom to confirm their verdicts, reached after a two-week trial and a little more than eight hours of deliberations over three days.With his family and friends sobbing in the first-row of the courtroom, the former president of Consumer First Mortgage Inc. turned to his wife, shrugged his shoulders and gave her a kiss.

The president of the once-bustling Consumer First Mortgage Inc. in Columbia went on trial in federal court yesterday, facing charges that he swindled two banks out of more than $5 million in an elaborate fraud scheme.Prosecutors told jurors in U.S. District Court in Baltimore that Mark Milton Feinberg, 47, concocted the alleged scheme to cover up nearly $2 million in losses his mortgage company had suffered."He intentionally sought to get over on these banks," assistant U.S. attorney Barbara S. Sale said during opening statements yesterday.

A former Baltimore trucking executive who showered Maryland politicians with allegedly tainted campaign contributions had little to say yesterday when he appeared in federal court to face a flurry of criminal charges.Brian H. Davis, 40, denied that he defrauded banks and other lenders out of nearly $1.7 million and lied to the Internal Revenue Service."Do you understand the charges that have been placed against you?" a clerk asked Davis as he stood in U.S. Magistrate Judge Clarence E. Goetz's courtroom in Baltimore, where he was arraigned on 17 counts of bank fraud, wire fraud and making a false statement to the IRS."

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker Newt Gingrich, under investigation for allegedly giving false information to the House ethics committee, did make an erroneous statement, but it was his lawyer's fault, Rep. John Linder of Georgia, a close Gingrich ally, said yesterday.Seizing on Linder's admission, Rep. Peter T. King, a New York Republican, said the speaker owed his party and Congress a thorough explanation of the matter before asking them to vote for him for speaker again on Jan. 7."Misleading the Congress or submitting false information is very, very, serious," King said.

A Westminster woman was convicted yesterday of lying to police about being sexually assaulted by an acquaintance with whom she was later found to be sexually involved.Deena Lynn Shifflett, 30, of the first block of Bishop St., was found guilty of one count of making a false statement to a police officer in the incident.Ms. Shifflett told Westminster City Police Detective Michael A. Augerinos on Oct. 1, 1992, that she had been attacked by a male acquaintance as she walked along Bell Alley toward Thomas Lane.

A Columbia man has been placed on two years' probation for making a false statement to police to avoid testifying in the assault trial of Mickey Bowie.The case attracted countywide attention after Mickey Bowie's twin brother was found hanged from a high school baseball field backstop. The brothers, who had been charged with assault and resisting arrest at a party in January 1990 at the Jessup Red Roof Inn, claimed police beat them during the arrest.Family and friends of the brothers claimed that Carl Jonathan Bowie's death was suspicious, but an investigation determined it was suicide.

Two former executives of Nurad Inc. have been sentenced to federal prison terms for concealing defects in antennas the company made for radar-jamming devices on Air Force F-16 fighter planes.At a hearing late yesterday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, Judge Walter E. Black Jr. sentenced David W. Rider, 50, of the 1800 block of Cosner Road in Forest Hill, to three years in prison and Bruce B. Kopp, 35, of the 2900 block of Salem Road in Woodlawn, to eight months in prison.Rider is Nurad's former vice president and director of engineering.

A story in some editions of yesterday's Evening Sun incorrectly reported that Keith W. McCormick Jr. had been convicted of interstate transportation of a firearm and making a false statement to obtain a firearm. McCormick is awaiting trial on those charges. The Evening Sun regrets the error.A federal jury in Baltimore has convicted Keith W. McCormick Jr. of kidnapping and four other felonies connected to the abduction and rape of a Goucher College student last July.The jury deliberated only 2 1/2 hours in U.S. District Court yesterday before convicting McCormick, 34, of Edgewood, of interstate transportation of a stolen vehicle, use of a dangerous weapon in a violent crime, interstate transportation of a firearm and making a false statement to obtain a firearm, in addition to the kidnapping charge.

The man recently promoted to be chief of the state Department of General Services Police had once been recommended for termination from the Baltimore Police Department after an administrative board found him guilty of perjury and making a false statement in a court document. A Circuit Court judge ruled that the police trial board held in 1999 had erred by not allowing Philip Palmere to present two character witnesses. The court ordered a new hearing into allegations that he reported seeing a man - whom he had arrested - toss a gun to the ground when he had actually found the weapon in an apartment.

A Democratic candidate for the House of Delegates said he has filed a civil complaint against his opponent, the Republican incumbent, alleging that he defaced one of the Democrat's campaign signs and made a false statement to police. Jack Sturgill, who is running against Del. Richard K. Impallaria in the 7th District, said a supporter had parked a truck - prominently displaying a Sturgill campaign sign - outside of Impallaria's home, where the Republican was holding a rally. Sturgill, a Glen Arm lawyer, claims that his supporters saw Impallaria affix one of his own signs to the truck.

A former state worker accused of having sex with the disabled clients he was supposed to be advising was sentenced in Baltimore's federal court yesterday for giving a false statement to investigators. U.S. District Judge Andre M. Davis sentenced Leroy Darnell Banks, 54, of Cambridge, to five months of home detention on electronic monitoring followed by two years of supervised release for tampering with a witness. Banks formerly supervised the work of mentally disabled clients at the Eastern Shore Sheltered Workshop, a state-operated agency, according to the statement of facts presented at his guilty plea Dec. 9. In 2003, several female clients alleged that Banks had sexually assaulted them, court papers say. The Dorchester County Sheriff's Office and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began investigating.

Faced with the following indictments, the vice president's chief of staff could receive as much as 30 years in prison and $1.25 million in fines, if convicted. COUNT 1 Obstruction of justice Knowingly deceived the grand jury about his role in disclosing Valerie Plame's CIA employment. COUNT 2 False Statement Lied to FBI agents about his conversation with NBC newsman Tim Russert. COUNT 3 False Statement Lied to the FBI about his conver-sation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.

A 15-year-old girl has been charged as a juvenile with making a false statement to police when she alleged last week that she had been raped on a trail near Old Mill High School in Millersville. Anne Arundel County Police spokesman Lt. Joseph E. Jordan said the teen, an Old Mill student, made the statement last Tuesday, alleging that a group of men raped her that morning on a wooded path near the school. She later recanted. Also last week, another Old Mill High student claimed she had been raped at the school but later admitted she hadn't been assaulted.

Howard County police arrested a man at Wilde Lake High School yesterday morning and accused him of threatening two teenagers with a handgun and bringing the gun onto the school parking lot as students were arriving for classes. Edward Brown, 62, of Jason Lane in Columbia was charged with first-degree assault and possession of a gun on school property, police said. Officers received a call about 7:10 a.m. from a person who heard a car alarm, looked out his window and saw a man with a gun get into a maroon Porsche on Jason Lane.

A Nottingham reader bought an older home in October. Before settlement, she had a home inspection and a walk-through done. No water problems were observed. Twelve days after settlement, the buyer saw water near a basement wall. She contacted the former owner, who told her that twice he had major incidents involving water in the basement, both of which he corrected. The owner said he had told the buyer and her real estate agent about the problems when they first viewed the home. The buyer said the owner never mentioned water problems.

Carroll man charged with falsely claiming terrorist poison plot A 38-year-old Carroll County man has been charged with lying to authorities about supposed terrorist activities by falsely claiming that his roommate planned to put rat poison in food at the market where he works, according the state police at the Westminster barracks. John William Tyler of the 700 block of Humbert Schoolhouse Road in northern Carroll County surrendered yesterday afternoon, after state and federal agencies had spent three days investigating what seemed to be a believable report, police said.

On Sept. 11, after the terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Maryland officials evacuated the State House complex in Annapolis and the World Trade Center in Baltimore because they had received what they thought was a credible tip that both could be attack targets. But it was all a hoax. Yesterday, the man who police say placed a prank call to the Maryland Emergency Management Agency was given probation before judgment by Baltimore Circuit Judge John M. Glynn, which means he won't have a criminal record if he abides by the terms of probation.

An Iranian-born businessman admitted yesterday that he tried to ship sophisticated scientific equipment from Maryland to Iran in violation of a U.S. trade embargo - a transaction that was ultimately blocked by an undercover sting operation. Mohammad R. Ehsan, 50, pleaded guilty in federal court in Baltimore to a charge of making a false statement to customs officials. His business, P&M Trading Inc., based in California, pleaded guilty to violating the trade restrictions. U.S. District Judge William M. Nickerson sentenced Ehsan to one year of probation and fined him $5,000.