Federal Officials

A former private security company executive pleaded guilty yesterday to lying to federal officials who were investigating a bribery scheme designed to illegally secure $130 million in government contracts. Richard S. Hudec, 44, of Naples, Fla., admitted in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt that he concealed relevant information from federal contracting officials about his criminal background, which includes four felony convictions. In October, the former owner of the company, Michael B. Holiday, 50, of Silver Spring, pleaded guilty to bribery and tax evasion in connection with rigging three federal government contracts awarded to his Montgomery County company for private security guards at federal buildings in California and Maryland.

A federal grand jury indicted 18 alleged gang members on racketeering charges, including a detainee at a state-managed detention center, news that could draw more scrutiny to Maryland's beleaguered correctional system. Federal officials say the members of the Bloods, most of them operating out of Howard County, broke into houses, stole money and other items, and sold drugs, including oxycodone, ecstasy and marijuana. Eighteen Bloods members were charged with racketeering, and three others not in the gang were charged with selling drugs, federal officials said.

Homeowners can have their Tropical Storm Isabel insurance claims reviewed by federal officials Wednesday in Queen Anne's County and Thursday in Edgewater. During the meetings, National Flood Insurance Program claims specialists will gather information and documentation from property owners to compare with case files from private insurance companies. The specialists may also order a reinspection of the damaged property. Claims specialists will summarize their findings in written statements.

A tour bus company with headquarters in Maryland has been shut down by federal safety officials after an investigation determined its drivers and vehicles pose an imminent hazard to public safety. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Wednesday ordered Washington DC Party Shuttle, which also does business as Onboard DC Tours, to immediately cease all operations for "egregious" violations that demonstrated "blatant disregard for motor coach passenger safety. " The bus company has offices at National Harbor in Prince George's County and operates primarily as a tour bus service in the Washington metropolitan area, New York City and Las Vegas.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court moved into a politically sensitive case yesterday, agreeing to decide a legal question raised by a former prison inmate who tried to make public during the 1988 election campaign his accusation that he sold marijuana to Dan Quayle in the 1970s.The former inmate, Brett C. Kimberlin, released from federal prison early last year, has claimed in a lawsuit that he was unconstitutionally silenced by two Justice Department officials in the Reagan administration. He tried to speak out against Mr. Quayle in the closing stages of the 1988 campaign, when Mr. Quayle, then a senator from Indiana, was seeking the vice presidency on George Bush's presidential ticket.

Federal officials have arrested a relative of the two suspects indicted in the beheading of three children in Northwest Baltimore in May, according to law enforcement officials. Victor Espinoza, the father of one of the suspects and the brother of the other, is being held at the Dorchester County Detention Center, officials there said. A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to discuss Espinoza's situation, including why he was arrested, saying the agency does not talk about cases that may affect other investigations.

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration is proposing to scale back inspections of many nursing homes that care for elderly people under Medicaid and Medicare.The Department of Health and Human Services outlined the proposed changes in documents sent recently to federal and state health officials.Government data show that more than two-thirds of nursing homes are not fully complying with federal standards.Federal officials said the proposed changes would allow them to concentrate on homes with serious problems.

State and federal officials involved in drug control efforts promised yesterday to work to cut drug abuse among youths and adult criminal offenders in Maryland by 20 percent over the next eight years.The promise was the centerpiece of a first-in-the-nation partnership agreement signed by Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.The agreement -- which includes no specific promises of additional federal money -- will allow state and federal officials to work together more closely, Townsend said, and will reduce red tape that can hinder drug-fighting efforts.

Federal officials say a two-year inquiry has found evidence that the makers of the mirror for the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope hid important clues to the flaw that has crippled the most complex and costly scientific instrument ever put into space.The makers of the 8-foot mirror deny any wrongdoing, saying the government was fully informed of all data for judging whether the telescope's main light-gathering mirror had imperfections.But federal officials say NASA's inspector general has uncovered evidence suggesting that the contractor may be liable for damages.

WASHINGTON -- The proposed merger of Bell Atlantic Corp. and the nation's largest cable-television company faces government inquiries that could keep the deal under a legal cloud for years -- with no guarantee of official approval.Within hours of yesterday's announcement of the huge corporate union -- valued at $30 billion or more -- federal officials were questioning the impact on consumers and competitors. One key legislator criticized the deal as a "double whammy" for consumers."This will test the mettle of the Clinton administration in a very early and dramatic way," said Andrew Schwartzman, a communications industry legal analyst and head of the Media Access Project.

University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center said Friday that it has received a new Medicare provider agreement, allowing it to again seek reimbursement for treating patients on the federal government's health program. The Towson hospital has not billed Medicare patients since the University of Maryland Medical System voluntarily declined to keep St. Joseph's prior federal certification when it bought the hospital Dec. 1. St. Joseph officials now hope to recoup some of those losses.

Long lines that caused voters in Maryland and several other states to wait hours at polling places on Election Day are prompting a push for new laws to speed the process of casting a ballot. Lawmakers in Congress and the Maryland General Assembly say they are considering a broad range of ideas, such as increasing the number of early voting centers available in high-population jurisdictions and offering federal grants to states that find ways to streamline the voting process. Maryland election officials are investigating complaints about wait times in the Nov. 6 election, including reports that some people waited for hours despite lower-than-expected turnout.

With its dandelions, clover and discarded cigarette butts, the little "bioswale" in front of the Salvation Army community center in West Baltimore won't win any lawn-care prizes. But the shallow, weedy depression collects rainfall washing off an acre of litter-strewn pavement and filters out pollution that otherwise would foul the harbor. City officials and nonprofit leaders took federal environmental officials on a whirlwind tour Tuesday of Franklin Square to show them how they're trying to clean the ailing harbor by greening the blighted neighborhoods that drain into it. The keys to healthier waters, they explained, lie in improving the quality of life of the people who live by those waters.

Andrew York hopes to bring better health services to desperately poor Native Americans when he's done earning dual degrees in law and pharmacy from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. But he might not be able to afford that modest-paying career path if not for federal programs designed to forgive part of his $65,000 in college loans. York told his story at a UMB forum Tuesday to discuss federal plans for making college more affordable. The afternoon event featured U.S. Under Secretary of Education Martha J. Kanter, U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes and students and officials from the university.

State and local officials joined Shaun Donovan, the nation's top housing official, on a tour Friday of construction efforts that they hope will give residents of a blighted corner of West Baltimore affordable and environmentally minded housing. The development, which aims to renovate or build 111 low-income apartments by the end of this year, is in the Poppleton neighborhood, where boarded-up buildings sit alongside tidy, well-kept homes. The Department of Housing and Urban Development provided $1.5 million of federal stimulus funding to outfit apartments in the development with features that include double-pane windows, cabinets free of formaldehyde and energy-efficient appliances.

Federal officials won't reimburse Maryland's Department of Human Resources for nearly $10 million in foster care-related expenses that the state had expected to recoup, according to a legislative audit released Wednesday. The funds would have paid Maryland for in-home, "pre-placement" services, provided to children with the aim of preventing them from being removed to foster care placement. The U.S Department of Health and Human Services denied the claim because DHR did not have a process to document that the children it served were in imminent risk of entering foster care, the auditors stated in the report.

The City of Annapolis has filed suit against state and federal officials to block construction of the controversial new Severn River bridge at the U.S. Naval Academy.The papers, filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, asked a federal judge to hold a preliminary injunction hearing within 10 days.The suit claims that the new bridge would destroy the aesthetics of the Colonial Annapolis Historic District in violation of the National Historic Preservation Act.It also claims that attempts to build the new bridge violate numerous state and federal laws, and that the defendants failed to "adequately" consider such things as the historic and environmental impact in approving plans for it.The Schaefer administration plans to replace the current drawbridge on Md. 450, which was built in 1924, with a much higher structure that many residents sharply oppose.

Maryland's senators are seeking answers from federal law enforcement, homeland security and intelligence officials about any information-sharing and contacts with the Maryland State Police regarding a spying operation that mistakenly identified protesters as terrorists in state and federal databases. In a letter yesterday, Sens. Benjamin L. Cardin and Barbara A. Mikulski, both Democrats, noted that cooperation among federal, state and local agencies is "critical" to national security. Nonetheless, they wrote, participants in nonviolent demonstrations should not end up in terrorism databases.

The FBI says initial forensic tests have linked the three fiery packages sent to federal and Maryland government officials. Richard McFeely, special agent in charge of the Baltimore field office, said Tuesday that while investigators believed they were linked before, they have determined that the letters that smoked and popped when opened were manufactured in the same manner. Because the message inside the first two letters got out, McFeely says there were concerns that the third letter found a day later might be a copycat.

A Carroll County man pleaded guilty Monday to distributing child pornography after he attempted to provide more than 900,000 videos and images to an undercover federal officer, some of which documented toddlers being sexually abused by adults, the Maryland U.S. attorney's office announced Tuesday. Brian Furches, 37, of Manchester, entered the plea after he attempted to share the images with the officer on Nov. 27 last year, according to a release from the prosecutor's office. The undercover officer downloaded about 471 files of child pornography, a small fraction of the more than 2 million images and videos Furches had amassed since 1995, officials said.