False Statement

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."

I am not a friend of Julius Henson. Most often, Mr. Henson and I have been political enemies. I have not seen him or spoken with him for several years. But I wish to express my view that what is happening to him is unjust and a threat to democracy. I received one of his robocalls on election night in 2010, and I found it offensive and reprehensible. The calls were misleading, and were clearly intended to suggest that people need not go out and vote. Nevertheless, it dangerous to our society, and particularly to minority communities, to begin criminalizing political statements, even those that are false and misleading.

Aberdeen Matthew Ashford, 25, of the first block of Liberty Street, was charged Friday with possessing marijuana, drug paraphernalia and a drug other than marijuana. Justin Michael Goins, 22, of the 700 block of Cronin Drive, was charged Monday with failing to appear in court for a case in which he was charged with driving on a suspended license and possessing a suspended license. Izell Eugene Osborne, 23, of the 400 block of Ruby Drive, was charged Monday with failing to appear in court for a case in which he was charged with theft below $100.

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.

Former Baltimore County Del. Lester V. Jones, indicted last fall on federal income tax evasion charges, has been reindicted on charges of making false statements on amended returns that he filed to correct errors on the originals.A grand jury returned a four-count "superseding indictment" yesterday against Jones that added two new false-statement charges and increased the amounts by which he is accused of having understated his income on his 1983 and 1984 tax returns.The new indictment, filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, says Jones originally claimed $51,318 in taxable income for 1983 and paid $15,879 in taxes on it. But his true taxable income was approximately $170,000, and he owed the government about $68,000 in taxes, the document says.

The former head of a Harford County aerospace manufacturer falsely inflated revenue figures in 1999, then cashed in hundreds of stock shares at artificially high prices, according to a federal indictment unsealed yesterday. Edward A. Kiley, former president of Alcore Inc., collected more than $33,000 in December 1999 from the sale of 2,500 shares of Alcore's former parent company, Advanced Technical Products Inc., the indictment said. In the months leading up to that sale, Kiley filed false financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission, inflating revenue for the second quarter of 1999 by $2.5 million and for the third quarter by $3.75 million, according to the indictment.

Baltimore police Lt. Robert R. Richards, who has had a stormy relationship with the department, has been found guilty of several infractions by a trial board and is awaiting word on whether he will be fired. A three-member board, composed of a Baltimore County lieutenant and a captain and lieutenant with the Maryland Transportation Authority Police, tried Richards on 14 charges this month. He was found guilty of nine, including making false statements and insubordination, said his attorney, Domenic Iamele.

The former vice presidEnt of American Therapeutics Inc. has pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to gain approval of a generic drug prescribed for children.Sanyasi R. Kalidindi, 39, of Piscataway, N.J., entered the plea yesterday to Judge John R. Hargrove in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.Prosecutor Raymond A. Bonner said Kalidindi and other American Therapeutics employees reported false manufacturing data to the FDA concerning the antibiotic erythromycin, and later fabricated documents to mislead FDA investigators who came to check the company's manufacturing records.

A former Vitarine Pharmaceuticals Inc. official has been charged with three federal false-statement counts tied to substitutions of name-brand drugs for Vitarine's generic products in tests required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.Steven Colton, Vitarine's former vice president and research-development director, was charged Wednesday in a criminal information document, which suggests that he has agreed to plead guilty.He is scheduled to appear May 13 before Judge John R. Hargrove in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, court officials said.

NEW YORK - In a case with broad implications for civil liberties and America's war on terrorism, an outspoken civil rights lawyer and two colleagues were convicted yesterday of conspiring to smuggle information to an imprisoned Egyptian cleric and helping him communicate incendiary messages to terrorists around the world. After 13 days of deliberations, a federal jury convicted attorney Lynne Stewart on charges of giving material support to international terrorists and making false statements to the U.S. government.