False Statement

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 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.

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.

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.

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.