Guilty Plea

WASHINGTON -- Seeking to salvage his reputation and quell the media storm stirred by his guilty plea to disorderly conduct charges, Sen. Larry E. Craig of Idaho yesterday denied making a sexual advance to an undercover officer in a men's room. "I am not gay and never have been," the Republican lawmaker declared at a Boise news conference with his wife, Suzanne, at his side. But even as he denied wrongdoing, Senate GOP leaders called for an ethics investigation. His case sent shock waves through Republican circles here and in his home state.

A 20-year-old Reisterstown man with no previous criminal record was sentenced yesterday to 100 years in prison for the killings of a teenager and his uncle in what authorities described as a botched attempt to steal drugs and money from the victims' apartment. Karl Maurice "Six" Sowers had interrupted his trial in March, deciding on the third day of testimony to enter a guilty plea to first-degree murder. In exchange, prosecutors withdrew the notice of their intention to seek a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Anne S. Darrin, a former Columbia village manager, pleaded guilty yesterday to stealing about $65,000 in village funds during a four-year period to pay for personal expenses, ranging from cellular phone bills to aprons for a family-owned restaurant.The embezzlement, which officials put at more than $120,000, focused intense attention on village finances and deepened a rift between the 10 villages and the Columbia Association, which provides much of their funding. The case also highlighted how much the Dorsey's Search Village Board relied on its once-trusted manager.

A 28-year-old Sykesville man pleaded guilty Friday in Carroll County Circuit Court in a scheme to steal about $2,600 from people who ordered Beanie Babies from him on the Internet last year -- keeping their money without supplying the popular stuffed toys.Glen Howard Brown of the 5900 block of Dale Court acknowledged stealing amounts ranging from $125 to $400 from 13 families between Feb. 2 and May 1 in 1998 by posting an advertisement with his computer.Fourteen charges were dropped in return for his guilty plea.

The last of three people accused of a retaliation murder pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiring to kill a Baltimore teen-ager because he feared that if he was convicted, the Anne Arundel County circuit judge would give him the same sentence, life plus 18 years, that his brother got.Under a plea agreement, Judge Eugene M. Lerner cannot sentence Kenneth L. Blake, 33, of the 4100 block of Hague Ave. in Baltimore to more than 15 years in prison."

A Westminster man pleaded guilty yesterday to auto manslaughter and, in return for his promise to testify against two co-defendants, will serve no more than three years in jail.Mark E. Eppig, 22, of Westminster was found guilty by Carroll Circuit Judge Francis M. Arnold. The judge set sentencing for Nov. 20.In a statement of facts, prosecutor David P. Daggett said witnesses, including a Baltimore County police officer, would have testified that Eppig and two men were racing east on Route 140 near Finksburg when the fatal accident occurred June 1.He said the officer was not able to keep up with Eppig's Nissan and two sports cars -- driven by Frederick H. Hensen Jr., 21, of Westminster and Scott D. Broadfoot Sr., 25, of Parkville -- along the divided highway, but came upon the crash scene seconds later.

A computer analyst pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday to devising a plan to steal $16.8 million from his employer and vanish with the fortune, intending to live the rest of his life under a new identity.Scott Michael Posnanski, 30, of Lake-in-the-Hills, Ill., hatched some of the ideas for the scheme at a downtown Baltimore pub where he and an accomplice met to iron out details, according to court papers. They planned to wire the stolen millions to a bank in Eastern Europe.Posnanski pleaded guilty to bank fraud in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.

WASHINGTON -- Lawyers for Monica Lewinsky have been told that she must agree to plead guilty to some offense to reach an agreement with Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who is investigating her relationship with President Clinton, said a person with knowledge of the investigation.Lewinsky's new legal team is pressing Starr to grant her full immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony, in which the former White House intern would acknowledge a sexual relationship with the president, said the person, who insisted on anonymity.

After having his First Amendment defense derailed by a federal judge's ruling last week, a free-lance journalist pleaded guilty yesterday to trafficking child pornography on the Internet.But in a strange nuance in an already-unusual case, federal prosecutors allowed Lawrence Matthews to make his plea "conditional," meaning he still has the right to appeal the conviction. Typically, defendants waive that right when they plead guilty.Attorneys for Matthews, who claims he transmitted the sexually explicit pictures as part of an investigative story he was working on, said the guilty plea in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt represents a legal tactic paving the way for an appeal.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The sudden end to the Unabomber case with the guilty plea entered by Theodore J. Kaczynski threatens to leave many questions hanging that otherwise might have been answered during a trial.With Kaczynski agreeing to a life sentence in prison without the possibility of release in exchange for his guilty plea to three bombing murders and the maiming of two other people, a full airing of the mountain of evidence assembled by the FBI will not occur.Some partial answers might be provided when the Justice Department files its sentencing memorandum before U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr. sentences Kaczynski May 15."

The odd and tragic case of Mark Castillo took another erratic turn Wednesday, when the 43-year-old father abruptly pleaded guilty to drowning his three young children in a city hotel bathtub, carefully timing their submersion with a stopwatch. Castillo's unexpected guilty plea to the murders, which he calculated to punish his estranged wife, came after lawyers and court officials spent a week choosing a jury for his trial. Baltimore Circuit Judge Wanda K. Heard found Castillo, who arrived in court in sweats and a T-shirt instead of his customary suit, mentally capable of entering the plea and sentenced him to three consecutive life terms without possibility of parole.

John Paterakis Sr., the baker and well-connected developer who bankrolled Harbor East, pleaded guilty Friday afternoon to two misdemeanor campaign finance violations and will pay $26,000 in fines and be barred from donating to Baltimore politicians until his probation ends in January 2012. Paterakis had been indicted on charges that he exceeded the allowable donations limits by contributing $6,000 toward a re-election poll commissioned by City Councilwoman Helen L. Holton. A major political and business power broker, Paterakis usually stays behind the scenes and on Friday declined Circuit Judge Dennis M. Sweeney's offer to address the court.

A 16-year-old boy who has admitted that he took part in the firebombing of a Piney Orchard townhouse that was intended as retaliation for the homicide of a Crofton teenager was sentenced Friday to serve the remainder of the summer in juvenile detention. Anne Arundel County Juvenile Court Master Cynthia Ferris ordered the boy, whom The Baltimore Sun is not naming because he is a juvenile, held at the Western Maryland Children's Center until Aug. 20. The judge, who also ordered the boy to pay $1,800 in victims' restitution, said she took into account the boy's cooperation with prosecutors and the two months he has already served in detention.

WASHINGTON -Former Orioles shortstop Miguel Tejada issued a tearful apology at a news conference in Houston yesterday, hours after he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of misleading Congress regarding his knowledge of steroid use in major league baseball. "I made a mistake, and now I know how serious a mistake I made," Tejada said, according to the Houston Chronicle. "I take responsibility, and I'm very sorry for what happened." Tejada took no questions during the news conference at Minute Maid Park.

Pakistan confirms arrest in India attacks NEW DELHI : A senior Pakistani official confirmed yesterday the arrest of the suspected mastermind behind November's terrorist attacks in Mumbai as Indian authorities publicly identified all the known assailants as young men from Pakistan. After a day of contradictory news reports and official silence, Pakistani Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar acknowledged that Zaki ur-Rehman Lakhvi had "been picked up" during a raid on an alleged militant camp in the Pakistani-controlled portion of Kashmir.

Two men dead in shootings Two men were fatally shot in separate incidents late Monday and early yesterday in different parts of Baltimore, according to city police. Police yesterday had not identified a man who was found shortly after midnight yesterday in a parked Toyota sedan in the 1100 block of Abbott Court at the Latrobe Homes public housing complex in East Baltimore. He had a gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead at Johns Hopkins Hospital at 12:35 a.m. Earlier in the evening, police officers found a wounded man in the 500 block of S. Smallwood St. The man, whose identity was not known, had been shot at least once in the head.

Three Baltimore-area men have pleaded guilty in separate cases to child pornography charges, Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein announced yesterday. Roy Edward Hoover Jr., 37, of Baltimore was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Baltimore to 10 years in prison for sexual exploitation of a minor to produce child pornography. According to his guilty plea, Hoover sexually assaulted a girl in his care for nearly three years, beginning in September 2004, when she was 14. Hoover took digital photographs of the assaults and downloaded them to his computer, according to Rosenstein's office.

A 17-year-old pleaded guilty yesterday to being an accessory after the fact in the stabbing death of a 15-year-old girl whose body was found by her mother last summer in her Southwest Baltimore home. Lloyd Chase of the 2100 block of McHenry St. faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, prosecutors said. The victim, Christine Richardson, was killed July 10 in her home in the 300 block of S. Fulton Ave. She suffered multiple stab wounds and her throat was slashed after an argument, according to the city state's attorney's office.

Two teens sentenced in acid case Two teenagers accused of pouring industrial-strength drain cleaner on playground equipment in Middle River were ordered yesterday to serve a year of home detention and to complete 500 hours each of community service at Maryland Shock Trauma Center. The 17-year-old boys were also ordered to write a letter to the family of the toddler who was severely burned after going down a slide doused in the acid. "This is a crime that shocks the conscience," said prosecutor Robin S. Coffin.

Nearly eight years in prison apparently did little to change David McDowell Robinson. Robinson, an Ivy League graduate whose sterling academic resume belied his penchant for financial schemes, pleaded guilty in federal court in Baltimore yesterday to devising a large Ponzi scheme that lured more than 850 investors, including victims of Hurricane Katrina. Prosecutors said Robinson's scheme attracted get-rich-quick investors who lost more than $1.2 million. It was almost identical to the operation Robinson was convicted of running more than a decade ago, government lawyers said.