Indictment

Six military veterans from Maryland pleaded guilty to fraud charges this week in a scheme to obtain federal military benefits and state tax breaks with faked documentation claiming they were exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, according to the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office. The veterans allegedly paid thousands of dollars in cash to David Clark, the former deputy chief of veterans claims in the state Department of Veterans Affairs Office, in exchange for $1.4 million in fraudulent benefits and tax breaks, prosecutors said.

Federal and local authorities have charged more than two dozen people this week after an investigation into drug trafficking and related crimes in Anne Arundel County and Annapolis. Federal indictments were returned Tuesday against eight people from a probe into an alleged drug ring, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Baltimore. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives led law enforcement officers in serving federal search warrants at 10 locations and seven vehicles, some of them homes and vehicles of the federal defendants, the federal prosecutor's office said.

W.R. Grace & Co. and seven current and former executives were indicted yesterday by a federal grand jury on charges of knowingly exposing residents of a small Montana town to asbestos that has made at least 1,200 of them sick, according to the U.S. Justice Department. The Columbia-based company could face hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and the executives could be sentenced to five to 70 years in prison if convicted of all charges in the 10-count indictment, which was handed up in Missoula, Mont.

Points to Del. Dereck Davis for the question of the day at the General Assembly's hearing on the pervasive corruption at the state-run Baltimore City Detention Center. Corrections secretary Gary Maynard had just made an extensive presentation about the various successes of his term and the steps he has taken since federal prosecutors brought indictments against 13 guards and 12 inmates at the BCDC. If you have known since 2009 that the Black Guerrilla Family gang was a major problem in that facility, Mr. Davis asked, why didn't you take any of these steps before?

A few weeks ago, Democrat John Edwards, former North Carolina senator and vice presidential candidate, was indicted on six counts of campaign fund fraud. The story was page 11 in The Sun. In the Friday, June 17, 2011 edition of The Sun, the couple who pled guilty to bribing the Democratic P.G. County executive was a one paragraph page 4 item. In the same edition, coverage of the resignation of Democratic House of Representative member Anthony Weiner for a sex scandal got page 8 coverage.

A federal grand jury accused a Democratic former state senator from Baltimore County yesterday of accepting bribes from a local construction company president vying for millions of dollars worth of state contracts. The long-expected indictment against Thomas L. Bromwell, his wife, Mary Pat, and former Poole and Kent Co. President W. David Stoffregen outlines a complex scheme of payoffs and contract fraud that abused a system intended to help companies run by women or minorities. Over five years, the Bromwells were paid almost $300,000 by Stoffregen in the form of free home construction work and a salary to Mary Pat Bromwell for a no-show job at a "front" company posing as a female-owned subcontractor, according to the indictment.

Allegations that a cabal of Black Guerrilla Family gang members effectively took over the Baltimore City Detention Center have prompted a rare out-of-session legislative hearing on the state's prison system. The House Judiciary Committee scheduled a May 8 public inquiry into the matter, according to committee members and staff.  The House Appropriations Committee, which oversees funding for the prison system, has been invited to attend the 1 p.m. meeting.  A federal indictment unsealed Tuesday alleged the BGF gang, under the leadership of inmate Tavon White, established a lucrative smuggling operation that involved corrupt female corrections officers.

While some college students consider fake IDs a rite of passage, the Maryland U.S. attorney underscored their illegality Thursday, announcing federal charges against a scholarship winner accused of making and selling phony driver's licenses from his College Park dorm for a few months in 2009. Theodore Stephen Michaels — a straight-A, triple major at the University of Maryland who goes by "Teddy" — could face decades in prison if he's convicted of the 16 counts returned against him. His attorney, Steven D. Kupferberg, said that Michaels, arrested Wednesday, will likely plead not guilty during his arraignment, which hasn't been scheduled.

Federal prosecutors have taken on the case of a Baltimore City firefighter accused of running a prostitution ring, alleging that he lured women to the city to work for him from as far away as Texas and South Dakota. Prosecutors say Jamar Simmons, 30, and his partner, Franklin Roosevelt Coit, 34, had been bringing women into Maryland since 2009. In March 2012, Simmons found a woman online, identified in the indictment only as C.F., and with Coit arranged for her to be brought from South Dakota to work as a prostitute, prosecutors allege.

Two longtime political operatives who worked last year on Republican former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s gubernatorial return campaign were indicted today for ordering what the state prosecutor called deceptive robocalls intended to suppress votes on the night of the election. Julius Henson and Paul Schurick each face three counts of conspiracy to violate Maryland election laws, one count of attempting to influence a voter's decision and one count of failing to provide an authority line (on campaign material)

The Baltimore school system said Thursday that it will review all contracts awarded by a former chief information technology officer after school officials in Dallas said he could face a federal indictment stemming from his tenure in the Atlanta public school system. Jerome Oberlton was forced to resign as chief of staff in the Dallas Independent School District this week after informing Superintendent Mike Miles that he was the target of a federal investigation, according to a statement from the Dallas school district.

Jerome Oberlton, the former chief information officer for the Baltimore City school system whose office renovation and credit card expenditures came under fire in the months before he left his post to work in the Dallas school district, is expected to face a federal indictment, according to the Dallas Morning News. The Morning News reported this week that Oberlton resigned as chief of staff for the Dallas Independent School District, telling the district's Superintendent Mike Miles that he expected to face a federal indictment for activity he conducted when he worked for the Atlanta Public Schools.

The former security chief at the Baltimore City Detention Center is fighting her dismissal, her lawyer said Tuesday, arguing that she was used as a scapegoat in the wake of a federal corruption indictment that targeted corrections officers and inmates. Shavella Miles was treated as a "token to appease the public," said attorney Russell A. Neverdon Sr. He said Miles had been prevented from taking action against suspected gang members because of the ongoing federal investigation. No court case has been filed over her removal, but Neverdon said he has taken a first step of bringing a challenge before department administrators.

A 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old boyfriend arrested in the killing of her father in his Ellicott City home this month were indicted and charged as adults by a grand jury this week, according to court records. Morgan Arnold, a Mount Hebron High School freshman, now faces two counts of solicitation of murder for allegedly asking her boyfriend, Jason Bulmer, to kill her father, Dennis Lane, and Lane's fiancee, Denise Geiger, according to her indictment. Both Arnold and Bulmer, a Mount Hebron sophomore, are charged with first-degree murder in Lane's killing, and both are charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit murder for allegedly plotting the deaths of both Lane and Geiger, according to their indictments.

A grand jury on Thursday indicted the driver state police said was high on drugs when his car sped into downtown, striking and killing a pedestrian before it overturned outside City Hall. Johnny Johnson, 43, faces nine counts, including vehicular homicide and homicide by vehicle while under the influence of a controlled dangerous substance, in the April 9 death of city finance employee Matthew Hersl. The indictment mirrors many of the charges the Maryland State Police filed on the warrant they used to arrest Johnson on April 15. Test results showed drugs were in Johnson's system at the time of the crash, while investigators found cocaine and heroin in his car, police said.

Months before a federal indictment detailed allegations of corruption at the Baltimore City Detention Center, the smuggling and sexual improprieties at the core of that case had already been outlined in an inmate's lawsuit. Calvin Hemphill, in a handwritten civil complaint filed in federal court in July, alleged that fellow inmate Tavon White was a gang leader who held a startling degree of jailhouse power. Cellphones - illegal in the jail - were readily available to White, he held control over the jail's "working man" program, and he was able to come and go from his cell as he pleased, according to the court papers.

A federal grand jury has indicted a 69-year-old Easton man on charges of production and possession of child pornography. The indictment was returned against Paul Henry Brown last month. In an appearance before a federal judge on March 2, Brown was ordered held pending trial and state charges were dismissed. In a statement released by his office, Rod J. Rosenstein, the U.S. attorney for Maryland, said Brown was alleged to have sexually exploited minors to produce pornography.

Like many homeowners facing a teetering economy, Suzanne Hall decided to refinance her Cockeysville home. She wanted out of her adjustable-rate mortgage, so she locked in a conventional, 30-year fixed loan with PNC Bank. Her interest rate was to drop from 6.5 percent to 5 1/8 percent, translating into a $150 a month savings on her payments. Maple Leaf Title took $379,258.17 from PNC Bank and was supposed to pay off Hall's old loan through MetLife. But the money never reached its destination, federal prosecutors said, and instead was pocketed by the Towson-based title company.

A federal grand jury indicted 18 alleged gang members on racketeering charges, including a detainee at a state-managed detention center, news that could draw more scrutiny to Maryland's beleaguered correctional system. Federal officials say the members of the Bloods, most of them operating out of Howard County, broke into houses, stole money and other items, and sold drugs, including oxycodone, ecstasy and marijuana. Eighteen Bloods members were charged with racketeering, and three others not in the gang were charged with selling drugs, federal officials said.

Six military veterans from Maryland pleaded guilty to fraud charges this week in a scheme to obtain federal military benefits and state tax breaks with faked documentation claiming they were exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, according to the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office. The veterans allegedly paid thousands of dollars in cash to David Clark, the former deputy chief of veterans claims in the state Department of Veterans Affairs Office, in exchange for $1.4 million in fraudulent benefits and tax breaks, prosecutors said.