Federal Agents

The alleged head of a gang that police say sold more than $5,000 worth of drugs daily in Baltimore's Reservoir Hill area was arrested last night.Agent Michael Campbell, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said authorities arrested Carl Michael Cannady, 28, of no fixed address, about 9 p.m. in a dwelling in the 5000 block of Dickey Hill Road in Southwest Baltimore.Campbell said Cannady had been sought since he was indicted on federal drug and weapons charges in September.

AUSTIN, Texas -- A figure in the mysterious disappearance of atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair was ordered held without bond yesterday after being arrested the day before on federal weapons charges.David R. Waters, 52, appeared before U.S. Magistrate Stephen Capelle after federal agents raided his Austin apartment and confiscated more than 100 rounds of ammunition."Federal firearms charges are being filed against Mr. Waters based on ammunition seized at his residence," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Gerald Carruth in Austin.

Christopher Wills, the man freed by a Baltimore judge because his trial on carjacking and armed robbery charges languished too long, denounced his rearrest on federal charges stemming from the same crime yesterday, calling it a "vengeful prosecution."In a telephone interview from the city jail, Wills said he was cleared of the state charges three months ago because prosecutors and judges violated his right to a "speedy trial" within Maryland's 180-day deadline."When I [win] because you violated my rights, don't try to persecute me unfairly," Wills said.

WASHINGTON -- With real-life police drama gaining wide popularity as television entertainment, the Supreme Court moved yesterday to consider the constitutionality of taking the news media along on police operations.The court agreed to hear "ride-along" cases from Maryland and Montana that test whether police or federal agents violate people's privacy rights when the officers allow news reporters and photographers to accompany them onto private property to document a search or an arrest.In the Maryland case, a Montgomery County couple was routed out of bed, he in undershorts, she in a nightgown, as federal marshals with guns drawn burst into their home in 1992 to look for their son, who was a fugitive.

Eleven suspected illegal immigrants who were digging ditches and fixing mulch beds in Columbia were arrested yesterday morning in Oakland Mills village by federal agents.Ten of the suspects were being questioned last night at the Baltimore office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, according to INS spokesman John Shallman.A Mexican juvenile was released last night into the custody of local family members, while another juvenile was being held at the INS office, Shallman said.Agents arrested 10 workers along Thunder Hill Road, south of Route 175, about 11 a.m., after receiving a tip about illegals in the area, Shallman said.

During the past five months, federal drug agents have been working with Baltimore police to shut down open-air drug markets on the city's east side, seizing 1,400 grams of cocaine, two vehicles and several weapons.Members of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Mobile Enforcement Team were honored for their work with Baltimore's Eastern District by Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier yesterday during a brief ceremony at police headquarters downtown. Eleven special agents and three of their supervisors traveled from Washington, where MET is based, to receive certificates of appreciation.

PHOENIX, Ariz. -- Memo to President William Jefferson Clinton, The White House, Washington, D.C.Dear Mr. President:It's time to stop lying to the American people.I'm sorry, but there's no polite way to say this. You've won a second term. You've been sworn in. You've got the job. There's no reason to continue the charade. Even those of us who ain't from Arkansas can tell the difference between Jack Daniels and moonshine.You should stand up and tell your fellow Americans exactly why you wanted to become president.

In one of the largest drug cases in Maryland history, a South Florida man who conspired to move more than a ton of cocaine worth $25 million through Baltimore was convicted of drug-conspiracy charges in federal court yesterday.After several hours of deliberations over two days, jurors found Luis Francisco Alba, 49, of Miami guilty of conspiring to distribute cocaine from South America in steel chemical drums to the Dundalk Marine Terminal and then a warehouse in East Baltimore.Alba faces a minimum 10-year prison term and a maximum of life without parole when he is sentenced Oct. 17 by U.S. District Judge Frederic N. Smalkin.

Federal agents didn't have to go far to round up another group of illegal immigrants yesterday: They found them working in the federal building in downtown Baltimore.The agents arrested a dozen immigrants removing asbestos from the Fallon Federal Building at Hopkins Plaza. All were certified by the state to remove asbestos, and all were carrying federal photo identification cards, giving them access to what is supposed to be a secure building."To find illegal immigrants working in a federal building is a bit of an irony," said Benedict J. Ferro, director of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Maryland.

Seventy of the 86 suspected illegal immigrants arrested Tuesday in a raid on a Kent County nursery will be voluntarily deported today, according to the Baltimore director of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, who yesterday defended the conduct of his agents during the operation.The 70 Mexican citizens will be flown on a government charter, due to leave Baltimore-Washington International Airport about 1 p.m., to Harlingen, Texas, where they will board a bus and be transported across the border, said Benedict J. Ferro, head of the INS office in Baltimore.

Federal agents this week raided the offices of Milton Tillman Jr., a leading Baltimore bail bondsman who has been a repeated target of federal and state law enforcement and was convicted years ago of tax evasion and bribery. A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein would confirm only that the federal agents raided 2332 E. Monument St., the headquarters of Tillman's 4 Aces bond company; 1101 North Point Blvd. and 1003 Greenmount Ave., both business addresses; and 3818 Kimble Road, which is in the same block where Tillman's son was wounded in a drug-related shooting.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A guard opened fire at a federal prison yesterday as federal agents tried to arrest him and five others in a sex-with-inmates scandal, sparking a gunfight that left him and an Orlando agent dead. Agents shot and killed Ralph Hill, 43, a guard for about 12 years at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee. William 'Buddy' Sentner, 44, a special agent with the Justice Department's inspector general office who worked in Coleman, died in the exchange of bullets.

Federal agents seized items from Social Security Administration headquarters in Woodlawn yesterday, apparently as part of an investigation of alleged fraud. About noon yesterday, about a half-dozen people - some of them with lettering on their clothing identifying them as federal agents - were seen taking what appeared to be numerous boxes from the lower east building at the Social Security Administration offices and loading them into an unmarked blue van. An agent at the scene would not comment.

Federal authorities and local police seized more than 150 kilograms of cocaine - valued at $4 million wholesale and as much as $40 million on the street - late Wednesday in the Baltimore area and have filed federal drug importation charges against a New York man, officials said yesterday. Law enforcement officials called the narcotics seizure one of the region's largest in recent years. "This is a huge arrest, this is a lot of drugs that are not going to reach the streets of our city," Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin P. Clark said at a news conference with federal authorities and other local law enforcement officials to announce the seizure.

WASHINGTON - Federal agents are planning to fan out across the country this week in an effort to recruit U.S. businesses in the war on terror, urging companies to notify the government of suspicious customers. Robert C. Bonner, commissioner of the Customs Service, said he had developed a list of about 100 items that authorities believe terrorists want to buy in the United States. Starting today, Bonner said, federal agents will visit the manufacturers, emphasize the need for vigilance and encourage them to inform the Customs Service at once if they are approached by anyone trying to buy these items for possibly illegal shipment abroad.

Investigations in the Sept. 11 terrorism and the anthrax attacks that followed have federal agents in Maryland stretched so thin that they say fewer federal crimes are being investigated - at least for now. Officials say many of the 200 FBI agents assigned to Maryland and Delaware have been working full time on terrorism since Sept. 11 and have been drawn off cases they usually investigate, which range from white-collar crime to child pornography. "When Sept. 11 first happened, pretty much everybody was working on terrorism.

Federal agents continued to search yesterday for a Jamaican man who apparently eluded authorities Wednesday after they surrounded a Randallstown home where he was seen, set up roadblocks and delayed school dismissals. Baltimore County police tactical officers were called to assist federal agents at the home in the 800 block of Falcon Ridge Drive, but left about 7 p.m. Wednesday when U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service officials said their help was no longer needed, said Bill Toohey, spokesman for the county police.

AUSTIN, Texas -- A figure in the mysterious disappearance of atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair was ordered held without bond yesterday after being arrested the day before on federal weapons charges.David R. Waters, 52, appeared before U.S. Magistrate Stephen Capelle after federal agents raided his Austin apartment and confiscated more than 100 rounds of ammunition."Federal firearms charges are being filed against Mr. Waters based on ammunition seized at his residence," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Gerald Carruth in Austin.

The alleged head of a gang that police say sold more than $5,000 worth of drugs daily in Baltimore's Reservoir Hill area was arrested last night.Agent Michael Campbell, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said authorities arrested Carl Michael Cannady, 28, of no fixed address, about 9 p.m. in a dwelling in the 5000 block of Dickey Hill Road in Southwest Baltimore.Campbell said Cannady had been sought since he was indicted on federal drug and weapons charges in September.

Christopher Wills, the man freed by a Baltimore judge because his trial on carjacking and armed robbery charges languished too long, denounced his rearrest on federal charges stemming from the same crime yesterday, calling it a "vengeful prosecution."In a telephone interview from the city jail, Wills said he was cleared of the state charges three months ago because prosecutors and judges violated his right to a "speedy trial" within Maryland's 180-day deadline."When I [win] because you violated my rights, don't try to persecute me unfairly," Wills said.