Hantman

A 32-year-old Columbia man was sentenced to 18 years in prison yesterday in a case in which he pointed a loaded shotgun at a man in a parking lot last year but was interrupted by a Howard County police officer.Valentino M. Jackson of the 5400 block of Harper's Farm Road was convicted in May of first-degree assault, second-degree assault, reckless endangerment and possession of an unregistered shotgun. He was acquitted of carrying a deadly weapon with intent to injure.Assistant State's Attorney Sue-Ellen Hantman said she was pleased with the sentence from Circuit Judge James B. Dudley.

A top Howard County prosecutor abruptly resigned yesterday, saying she wanted to become a private attorney.Christine B. Gage was a team leader who was supervising two other attorneys in the county state's attorney's office. She has worked for the Howard office since 1991. Before that, she was a prosecutor in Baltimore County for six years."It was time for me to move on," Gage said. "I resigned today, and I'm leaving today."The news that Gage had resigned and was leaving so quickly shocked prosecutors and others in the courthouse.

A 14-year-old Anne Arundel girl admitted yesterday in Howard County Juvenile Court that she participated in an attempted carjacking.The girl could face up to seven years in juvenile detention for her role in the June incident. Held in custody since her arrest, the girl was released to her parents pending sentencing. As she walked out of the courtroom, she clasped her hands together as if in prayer, then hugged her parents. A sentencing date has not been set.In court, Assistant State's Attorney Sue Ellen Hantman said testimony would have shown that the girl and two others left an Ellicott City drug treatment center about 2 a.m. one day in June.

A juror who went out for lunch and never came back spent Monday and early yesterday in the Howard County Detention Center and was ordered to pay $240 by a circuit judge.On Monday, Judge James B. Dudley found that Deanna Gutierrez of east Columbia was in contempt of court. Gutierrez was released from the detention center about 9: 30 a.m. yesterday."By not returning, she caused not only an entire jury panel to waste a day [but] I had a victim of a very violent rape who had to work herself up to testify and she has to do that all over again," said Assistant State's Attorney Sue Ellen Hantman.

County Executive Charles I. Ecker and Democratic challenger Sue-Ellen Hantman plan to get off their political tiptoes soon with radically different campaign plans.Mr. Ecker will air two commercials on cable television beginning July 5.The commercials will run 168 times a week -- once every two hours on the Cable News Network channel and once every two hours on a channel yet to be announced, Mr. Ecker said.Mr. Ecker said he plans to air the commercials on a variety of cable channels, but is "not so sure" about running them on the teen-oriented Music Television channel.

A 27-year-old Marine convicted of fondling a Howard County teen-age recruit last spring was sentenced yesterday to probation before judgment, a disposition that will keep the guilty verdict off his record. Saying that the "positive" in Staff Sgt. Shawn E. Potwin "well outweighs the negative," Howard District Judge Sue-Ellen Hantman sentenced the former Marine recruiter and Glen Burnie resident to 18 months of supervised probation and ordered him to seek sexual harassment counseling. "You may have misinterpreted the actions of an outgoing, flirting teen-ager," Hantman said before imposing the sentence.

Charges that a prominent Prince George's County Circuit judge groped a policeman in an Annapolis Mall men's bathroom were sent into limbo in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court yesterday, two days after a district court judge refused to do the same thing with the charges.Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Eugene M. Lerner quickly placed the case of Larnzell Martin Jr. on the "stet" docket for one year, which inactivates the charges without a finding of guilt and falls just short of dismissing them.

Caught driving 92 mph on Interstate 95, John Swider won a no-points reprieve from Howard District Judge Sue-Ellen Hantman - only to learn that it would cost him 27 hours of community service. The 34-year-old scuba instructor from Washington tried to beg off, citing his long stays in Puerto Rico for work, but the judge wouldn't budge. "I want you to remember not to speed," she said, as she handed down the sentence last week. "It has to be painful." That philosophy has recently shaped the practices of Howard's newest District Court judge in minor traffic cases - and, in the process, swelled the ranks of volunteers available to government agencies and nonprofit groups in the region.

The two Democratic candidates hoping to unseat County Executive Charles I. Ecker this fall said yesterday that they are undaunted by the large amount of money he has raised.The $110,970 Mr. Ecker collected over the last nine months -- $218,652 overall in the four years since the last election -- is "about what I expected," said former Democratic Central Committee chairwoman Sue-Ellen Hantman.Ms. Hantman, who entered the executive race in late June, has raised $7,788 the last two months, including a $2,000 gift from her husband and a $100 contribution from her parents.

State Sen. Christopher J. McCabe considers himself something of a minimalist, as politicians go.The 42-year-old Ellicott City Republican says he's not eager to start programs or pass laws, the accomplishments that are traditionally the stuff of politics. He says he'd rather see government do less."What I primarily try to do down in Annapolis is be an advocate for families," says McCabe, a father of three. "Keeping the growth in size of state government in check is important to families because it means there's less pressure to raise taxes."