Hit Man

Ah, that ever nettlesome First Amendment, what with its stipulation that forbids the government from making any law that prohibits free speech. Just what are the limits of free speech, anyway?The debate will rage on virtually forever. Judges can't even agree. A gaggle of idiots in Boulder, Colo., known as Paladin Press published a book called "Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors." The book is what it says: a treatise on how to efficiently commit homicide.One Lawrence T. Horn then hired one James E. Perry to murder Horn's ex-wife, his 8-year-old quadriplegic son and the boy's nurse.

A gang leader who ordered a hit on a member of his own gang whom he suspected of being gay was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without parole. Timothy E. Rawlings Jr., 24, a former quarterback at Parkville High School and the father of a 3-year-old boy, showed no emotion as Baltimore County Circuit Judge Robert N. Dugan told him that the killing of Steven Parrish, for the sole reason that the victim showed signs of being homosexual, was "senseless, brutal, unprovoked, cold-blooded, premeditated murder.

Giovanni Rivieri "stalked" his ex-girlfriend and her current lover for more than a year before trying to hire a hit man to kill the man and assault the woman, a Harford County prosecutor has said."

A 34-year-old Baltimore pastor who worked with the developmentally disabled pleaded guilty Friday to his role in a conspiracy to kill a blind man in hopes of collecting $1.4 million in life insurance. Kevin Pushia faces life in prison in the death of Lemuel Wallace, who was found shot in the head in a Leakin Park bathroom in February 2009. Prosecutor Robin Wherley said Pushia confessed to taking out multiple life insurance policies in Wallace's name, then paying a hit man $50,000 to kill him. That money came from the treasury of a small East Baltimore church where Pushia was a pastor.

Ruthann Aron hopped from pay phone to pay phone during the weekend before her arrest, negotiating a deal with a supposed contract killer. The tapes played at her retrial yesterday also showed she worried that her plan to have her husband and another man killed would be found out.It was 11: 10 a.m. on June 7, 1997, when Aron, a prominent developer, and the "hit man," undercover Detective Terry Ryan, first spoke. She was talking from a coin phone in the entry of a Sears store at White Oak shopping center.

A federal judge yesterday sentenced Solothal "Itchy Man" Thomas, the West Baltimore hit man who was often accused but rarely convicted in state courts, to life in prison plus 10 years. Judge Catherine C. Blake was legally required to impose the life sentence after Thomas was convicted over the summer after a jury trial. Thomas' co-defendant, 30-year-old Edward Countess, received the same sentence. Thomas, 30, had been charged with killing two people and attempting to kill a dozen more as part of his work as an "enforcer" for a large drug organization.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center issued another warning about the hit man e-mail scheme that first surfaced a couple years ago and, more recently, earlier this year. The center said it continues to receive thousands of reports on the hit man e-mail, but it warns that the content has evolved since late 2006. The two new versions of the scheme started appearing in July. One e-mail instructed recipients to contact a designated telephone number, and the other e-mail claimed the recipient or a "loved one" would be kidnapped unless a ransom was paid.

A former Marine told police he was depressed at the prospect of spending his life in prison when he approached a man he thought was a hired killer about slaying two potential witnesses.Prosecutors played the tape of a police confession to accompany the testimony of Cpl. Lee Lachman before a Howard Circuit Court jury in the trial of James Alexander Page Jr., 27, of Greenbelt.Page, whose Marine enlistment expired while awaiting trial, is charged with two counts each of solicitation to commit murder and obstruction of justice.

A Columbia man was convicted yesterday of trying to resolve a heated divorce and custody battle by hiring a hit man in an attempt to kill his wife.Mark Cordero, 43, wearing a suit and leg irons in Howard County Circuit Court, admits to the crime, his attorney said, but pleaded not guilty because of technical flaws in the case.Cordero, a former computer engineer for International Business Machines Corp., was found guilty by Judge Raymond J. Kane Jr.Prosecutors said Cordero could face up to life in prison when he is sentenced March 31, although state guidelines recommend a sentence of four to nine years for solicitation of murder.

The argument soon to be under way in a Maryland courtroom: Can a book publisher be an accomplice to murder for printing a "how-to" murder manual?Such a book, titled "Hit Man: A technical manual for independent contractors," may be on trial in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt because a hired killer named James Perry supposedly used it as a step-by-step guide to carry out a notorious triple murder in Maryland."

A 28-year-old man who police say was feuding with neighbors in North Baltimore fired several shots at them and a police officer early Saturday. A Northern District officer returned fire, striking the man in the hand and ending the brief shootout. Detective Donny Moses, a Baltimore police spokesman, said the shooting occurred shortly after 3 a.m. when the officer, driving his patrol car in the 2000 block of Girard Ave. in Woodberry, came upon a man firing at neighbors with a .25-caliber pistol.

Convicted hit man James Dinkins fired a string of slurs at a federal prosecutor Tuesday morning, calling the man a "bootlicker" and warning him to "stay away" from the defense side. The outburst came shortly before the jury entered the federal courtroom for the sentencing phase of Dinkins' trial, which will determine whether he and co-defendant Melvin Gilbert live or die. Both East Baltimore men were found guilty last week of murdering three men, including two witnesses, and running a drug conspiracy.

The defense attorney for a Baltimore pastor accused of hiring a hit man to kill a blind and mentally disabled man for life insurance money said at least two other disabled people whose policies listed the suspect as a beneficiary had died, though their deaths were the result of natural causes and the policies had been canceled before their deaths. The attorney made his remarks shortly after Kevin Jerome Pushia, 32, was ordered held without bond in a court appearance Tuesday. Pushia, of the 4500 block of Parkside Place, has been charged with nine counts, including first-degree murder, in the death of Lemuel Wallace, who lived in a Pikesville group home affiliated with the Arc of Baltimore.

With Carl Lackl's family quietly sobbing 20 feet away, 17-year-old Johnathan Cornish sat in the witness box and vacantly described how he killed the Rosedale man as part of a Baltimore Bloods gang mission. He had never met Lackl. He couldn't even remember his victim's hair color. But he shot Lackl three times at point-blank range in 2007 because he was asked to "kill somebody who was telling on [a] homeboy." The testimony, which Cornish exchanged for a plea deal, came Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore in a case against Patrick Albert Byers Jr. and Frank Keith Goodman.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center issued another warning about the hit man e-mail scheme that first surfaced a couple years ago and, more recently, earlier this year. The center said it continues to receive thousands of reports on the hit man e-mail, but it warns that the content has evolved since late 2006. The two new versions of the scheme started appearing in July. One e-mail instructed recipients to contact a designated telephone number, and the other e-mail claimed the recipient or a "loved one" would be kidnapped unless a ransom was paid.

A man who was shot Sunday after police say he ran down a state trooper in Cecil County remained in critical condition last night at Maryland Shock Trauma Center. Scott L. Perry, 49, of the first block of Wenark Drive in Newark, Del., had been flown to Shock Trauma on Sunday night after the shooting. Police say Perry was driving a 1990 GMC pickup truck in the area of Middle Road and Blue Ball Road near Elkton about 6:45 p.m. Sunday when he refused to stop for Trooper 1st Class Robert S. Nitz of the North East Barracks.

A former Marine -- desperate to beat rape charges -- offered a police officer posing as a hit man $3,000 to murder two potential witnesses, prosecutors say.But the man's lawyer argues that his client was "enticed" by a police informant interested in relaxing his own pending criminal charges.Those were the two arguments heard by a Howard Circuit Court jury yesterday in the trial of James Alexander Page Jr., a 27-year-old Greenbelt man charged with two counts each of solicitation to commit murder and obstruction of justice.

Mark Cordero was convicted yesterday of trying to resolve a heated divorce and custody battle by hiring a hit man in an attempt to kill his wife.The former IBM computer engineer, 43, wearing a suit and leg irons in Howard County Circuit Court, admits to the crime, his attorney said, but pleaded not guilty because of technical flaws in the case.Cordero was found guilty by Judge Raymond J. Kane Jr.Prosecutors said Cordero, a Columbia resident, could face up to life in prison when he is sentenced March 31, although state guidelines recommend four to nine years for solicitation of murder.

A federal judge yesterday sentenced Solothal "Itchy Man" Thomas, the West Baltimore hit man who was often accused but rarely convicted in state courts, to life in prison plus 10 years. Judge Catherine C. Blake was legally required to impose the life sentence after Thomas was convicted over the summer after a jury trial. Thomas' co-defendant, 30-year-old Edward Countess, received the same sentence. Thomas, 30, had been charged with killing two people and attempting to kill a dozen more as part of his work as an "enforcer" for a large drug organization.

Blood Relation Eric Konigsberg HarperCollins / 280 pages We are mesmerized by our psychopaths, and, if we are honest, we envy them a little. Unlike the rest of us, they are utterly unconflicted about getting what they want, so they don't stand in their own way. They don't sabotage themselves with guilt. They don't trip themselves up obsessing about piddly little concerns, such as other people's right to have a pulse. A psychopath can kill without compunction, and then eat a sandwich next to the body.