Indictment

A former city police officer and his wife were released under federal supervision yesterday after they were charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud for filing false reports in connection with fraudulent insurance claims, said a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office. Michael B. Nelson, 26, surrendered to federal authorities yesterday, and his wife, Tierra Spencer Nelson, 23, was arrested at their home Wednesday, said Marcy Murphy, the spokeswoman. The couple, both of whom live in the 5100 block of The Alameda, are charged in indictments with submitting a false auto theft report and a false burglary report to their insurance company to receive at least $10,000 in insurance claims.

A band of three Baltimore residents bought more than $500,000 worth of imported cars and other luxury goods by using personal information culled from stolen mortgage application files, according to a federal court indictment handed up yesterday. A federal grand jury charged Nekia Ishawn Hunter, 28, Lavon Caldwell, 25, and Faye Marie Jones, 51, with conspiring to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. Separately, another co-conspirator mentioned in the indictment -- Christopher Carson, 39 of Baltimore -- was charged individually through a criminal complaint with identity theft.

It's been months of upheaval for tech company SafeNet Inc.: government inquiries about stock option manipulation, the resignations of top officers, an ownership change and - this week - the indictment of its former president. Yet in many respects, the Harford County company says, business has never been better. The information encryption and security firm, which went private in April amid the fallout from the stock option probe, said it has broken records for revenue and profit in the past two quarters despite the disruptions.

WASHINGTON -- A federal grand jury in New Mexico indicted a nuclear weapons engineer yesterday on 59 counts of illegally removing highly classified design, construction and testing data from the Los Alamos weapons laboratory where he was employed.The indictment charged that the engineer, Wen Ho Lee, had violated the Atomic Energy Act and Foreign Espionage Act, assembling collections of 19 computer files containing some of the country's most closely held nuclear weapons secrets.Lee was arrested yesterday afternoon at his home outside Los Alamos by FBI agents.

NEW YORK -- On a September afternoon more than eight years ago, Vincent Bickelman was found dead, shot six times while on the lawn in front of his Bath Beach home, in what police described at the time as a mysterious killing.But law enforcement officials said yesterday they believe that Bickelman made a fatal mistake a month earlier when he burglarized the Brooklyn home of Jill Spero, the daughter of a man the authorities say later became the leader of the Bonanno crime family.On Friday, her father, Anthony Spero, 70, was charged with conspiracy to commit murder in the killing of Bickelman, who the police believe had taken jewelry and other valuables from Jill Spero's home.

WASHINGTON -- A deputy to independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr revealed yesterday that he drew up potential criminal charges against Hillary Rodham Clinton more than two years ago but said the indictment was not pursued.The comments by W. Hickman Ewing Jr., a leading prosecutor in the Whitewater investigation, was dramatic confirmation of a long-rumored plan in Starr's office to charge the first lady.But his brief remarks in a Little Rock, Ark., courtroom left unanswered how close she came to being charged, what the charges might have been and why the idea was dropped.

Linda R. Tripp, whose secretive recording of conversations with a former White House intern led to the impeachment of the president, was indicted yesterday by a Howard County grand jury on charges of illegally taping telephone calls.Of the three central figures in the scandal -- President Clinton, Monica Lewinsky and Tripp -- only Tripp has been charged with a crime.Tripp's lawyers immediately denounced the indictment, calling it a political prosecution, and many other people wished the case would end soon.

George F. Herrmann Jr. died in April 1995. But more than a year after his death, his widow, a Pasadena woman, applied for a mortgage life insurance policy on him and tried to collect $93,000 on it nearly two years later, the Attorney General's Office has alleged.In a three-count indictment this week, an Anne Arundel County grand jury charged Elizabeth Ann Branum Herrmann, 43, of the 300 block Nature Walk Lane, with insurance fraud and attempted theft, accusing her of submitting a claim on the policy using fraudulent documentation to say he died in April 1998.

EVERY once in a while, I get amazed. Gerry Evans, the millionaire lobbyist, amazes me. Here's a guy who can probably walk into a Mercedes dealer in the next hour and buy a brand-new car off the showroom floor. I'll bet there's a constant supply of Godiva Chocolates in a dish in his office. I'll bet he uses $5 cigars to light up $8 cigars. He can probably get courtside seats for any Terps game. He makes plenty of money as a white-collar action hero in Annapolis; at $1 million last year, he was the highest-paid lobbyist in the state.

WASHINGTON -- After years of appearing front and center in the role of President Clinton's chief nemesis and inquisitor, independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr has receded to the sidelines as the case against presidential wrongdoing moves to the Senate.But he has made it clear that he is not going away.Like a trick candle that flares again and again, Starr continues to assert his authority, press his case and remind the White House of his ongoing inquiry and the threat it poses. His operation is expected to outlive the impeachment proceedings, and possibly even the Clinton presidency.

Ex-UM researcher whose fiancee died is indicted A Baltimore grand jury indicted a former University of Maryland School of Medicine researcher Monday on 14 drug-related counts. The most serious charges against Clinton B. McCracken, 32, include possessing with intent to distribute marijuana and two prescription narcotics. McCracken was charged by police after the Sept. 27 death of his 29-year-old fiancee, Carrie John, a fellow doctoral lab researcher at Maryland. McCracken told police she injected herself at their Ridgely's Delight rowhouse with a liquid containing the narcotic buprenorphine and went into respiratory distress, court documents said.

Baltimore man indicted in theft of architect credential A grand jury in Prince George's County has returned a four-count indictment against a 50-year-old Baltimore man who is accused of stealing a licensed architect's credential and practicing architecture without a license. The indictment charged Darren Dewitt Comedy with forgery, identity theft, theft and practicing architecture without a license, the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation said Wednesday. Investigators from the department's State Board of Architects discovered that Comedy had placed the seal of his former college instructor, a licensed architect, on plans submitted to the Prince George's permits office in February for a restaurant in Largo, the labor department said.

State prosecutors in the City Hall corruption cases defended their investigation of Baltimore's mayor, arguing they did not abuse the grand jury process when they issued three subpoenas this summer before dismissing their initial indictment of Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon. Deputy State Prosecutor Thomas "Mike" McDonough contends in court papers filed Friday that new investigative material brought to a Baltimore grand jury after Dixon's original indictment in January supported the second set of indictments that were brought against Dixon in July.

Mayor Sheila Dixon will go to trial Nov. 9 on charges of theft and perjury, and plans to enter a not-guilty plea, according to her lawyers. State prosecutors and defense attorneys for Dixon hammered out a new schedule for her case after a Baltimore grand jury handed up two new indictments against the mayor last week. At a court hearing Wednesday morning, prosecutors dropped the original indictment against Dixon, which like the new case stems from allegations that she stole gift cards intended for the needy and failed to report gifts she received on city ethics forms.

The Baltimore Sun is committed to providing fair and accurate coverage. Readers who have concerns or comments are encouraged to call us at 888-539-1280. A photo caption Sunday incorrectly stated where fashion designer Jonathan Winkles lives. Winkles grew up in Columbia and lives in Baltimore. An article Thursday about new charges against Mayor Sheila Dixon attributed to the indictment the source of the $4,000 that she handed her driver. The indictment does not state where Dixon obtained the money.

The furs are back. So's the Ritz in Colorado. The $3,200 weekend getaway to New York's Trump International. The $8,400 spending spree at Chicago's Armani, Coach and St. John Boutique. The state prosecutor's do-over indictment puts the bling back into the case against Mayor Sheila Dixon. But the new charges don't just restore the glitzy travel and Jimmy Choos that a Circuit Court judge tossed out on a technicality in May. It also gives us Dixon doing what big-city mayors do best: begging for cash.

Dozens of suspected gang members and drug dealers were arrested Thursday morning after local and federal authorities raided nearly 50 locations across Baltimore - including jail cells - and two sites in California, looking for cash, criminals, guns, heroin and cocaine. The arrests culminated a sweeping, 17-month investigation into Maryland gang activity, intensified by the June abduction and murder of alleged PDL Bloods leader Kenneth Cooper "Cash" Jones, which set off a wave of retaliatory killings last summer.

A federal grand jury indicted a Reisterstown couple on four counts of child sex trafficking, alleging that the pair recruited, housed and prostituted three minor teenage girls, in part by advertising sexual services on Craigslist. According to the indictment, Byron "B" Thompson, 25, and Lea "Eboni" Shawnay Bell, 28, told the girls to engage in commercial sex, giving them various prices for different acts, which were carried out in a rented room at a Baltimore County Days Inn. The defendants then allegedly took the girls to a truck stop in Jessup for the same purpose, but they were rescued by police before they could act. The indictment was returned Thursday and unsealed Monday, shortly before the defendants made their first appearance in Baltimore federal court.

State and federal authorities announced criminal indictments Monday in an alleged $70 million mortgage fraud scheme that ensnared more than 1,000 homeowners, most of them from Maryland. Assistant U.S. Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer said charges had been brought against four people in connection with the alleged Ponzi scheme, including Andrew H. Williams Jr., who was enjoined by Maryland authorities in 2007 when they froze his Metro Dream Homes operation. The victims of the alleged scheme were persuaded to invest $50,000 or more to refinance their homes or buy new ones under a program that promised to pay off their mortgages within five to seven years.

Mayor Sheila Dixon is not the only elected official to remain in office while under indictment. She is just the most recent one. A review of Maryland political history shows that City Council President Walter S. Orlinsky, Baltimore County Executive Dale Anderson and his colleague in Anne Arundel, Joseph W. Alton Jr., stayed on the job after being indicted by grand juries. Gov. Marvin Mandel transferred power to his lieutenant governor two years after his 1975 indictment, but only after suffering a small stroke; he never resigned.