Fraud

Con artist Rodney Getlan did not just take people's money - his actions caused them to lose their homes. That he stole the sanctuary of a roof and four walls may have led to Getlan's getting a much longer prison term. Baltimore County Circuit Judge Vicki Ballou-Watts sentenced Getlan to 35 years in prison this week, a sentence on par with punishment for some violent crimes. "Rodney got what he deserved," said Lauri Hartz, who attended the court proceeding as one of nearly 50 known victims of Getlan's scheme to divert mortgage payments to his own accounts.

An Owings Mills man was sentenced Monday to 35 years in prison for defrauding homeowners who sought his help with coordinating mortgage loan modifications, the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation said in a statement. Rodney Getlan, 45, pleaded guilty in September to nine counts of mortgage fraud. The state accused Getlan of promising homeowners that he would help them get loan modifications. Then, using fake documents, he was able to steal the monthly payments that the homeowners thought were going to their lenders, DLLR said.

A 25-year-old Baltimore man who pleaded guilty to murder-for-hire and witness-murder conspiracy charges this year in the 2011 killing of a 19-year-old associate was sentenced Monday to 35 years behind bars, plus five years of supervised release, according to the Maryland U.S. attorney's office. Tavon Dameon Davis ordered the hit on 19-year-old Isiah Callaway after Callaway was arrested trying to open fraudulent bank accounts in Baltimore County in December 2010, prosecutors said.

I'm writing in response to an opinion article in the Nov. 22 Laurel Leader by Gwendolyn Glenn titled "Voters' Determination on Election Day Overcomes Frustrations at the Polls. " I appreciate Ms. Glenn's opening statement regarding the importance of every single ballot being counted. Then she mentions that leading up to the election, laws were pushed to make it harder for people to vote in some states. I'm guessing Ms. Glenn is referring to attempts to have a law passed that requires voters to provide an ID. Some people do not support voter ID because they believe it is racially motivated.

Baltimore's Office of Human Services mismanaged a $9.5 million federal grant for helping the homeless by failing to oversee programs and awarding cash for services that may not have been eligible, auditors announced Thursday. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development audit found that city officials did not understand their responsibilities and did not develop a plan before rapidly awarding money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, President Barack Obama's signature 2009 stimulus plan.

A full-time engineering professor at Morgan State University was indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday in an alleged scheme to defraud the National Science Foundation of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant funding. Manoj Kumar Jha, 45, who oversees the university's transportation engineering graduate program, according to the university's website, allegedly fabricated an elaborate research proposal on behalf of a private company he founded and then applied for funding through the NSF's Small Business Technology Transfer program, according to the Maryland U.S. attorney's office.

A Baltimore man was sentenced Friday for his role in the death of a witness in a bank fraud investigation. Frank Marfo, 28, received life in prison after being convicted of murder, gun, and fraud conspiracy charges. The victim, 19-year-old Isaiah Callaway, had been accused of working for Marfo and his partner, Tavon Davis, 25, who had concocted a scheme to hire homeless men to steal rent checks and deposit them in fake bank accounts, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Callaway was arrested by Baltimore County Police opening one of the bank accounts and was later killed on Davis' orders, fearing Callaway would cooperate with the police, officials said.

A 41-year-old Washington woman was sentenced Thursday to three years in federal prison for her role in conspiring to steal $1.4 million from the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Maryland announced. In imposing his sentence, U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles, Jr. also ordered Tyeast "Peaches" Brown to serve four years of supervised release after her prison term and to pay the public housing agency at least $1.4 million in restitution. She earlier pleaded guilty.

The fraud scheme — hiring homeless people to steal rent checks and deposit them in fake bank accounts — made a million dollars for Tavon Davis before one of his associates was caught on the job. Panicked at the notion that his man might flip, he ordered Isiah Callaway killed. Davis thought he might go to jail for decades for fraud, according to court records, and Callaway, 19, was dead before Davis realized the penalty for operating the scheme would have been much less. Davis, who now faces a likely 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to murder-conspiracy charges, told a friend that his decision to order the killing made him the "schmuck of the year," according to court filings.

A Baltimore woman pleaded guilty Tuesday in connection with a scheme to steal more than $400,000 in Maryland unemployment benefits, the Maryland U.S. attorney's office said. Shekia Denise Edwards, 25, was one of three charged in the incident. Co-conspirators Kevin Bernard Smith and Sheila Denis Willis, also of Baltimore, had earlier pleaded guilty. According to their plea agreements, the women filed false unemployment insurance claims using Social Security numbers and other information belonging to Marylanders unconnected with the scheme.