Kidnapping

Two men were given life sentences Tuesday for their roles in the May 2010 kidnapping and rape of a woman who was stranded in downtown Baltimore and seeking help, prosecutors said. Jerome Lee, 29, and Jamal Richards, 28, were convicted by Baltimore juries in November. On May 22, 2010, the men were driving when they saw a woman on North Eutaw Street seeking assistance and they offered to drive her home, according to a statement from the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office.

Two men were given life sentences Tuesday for their roles in the May 2010 kidnapping and rape of a woman who was stranded in downtown Baltimore and seeking help, prosecutors said. Jerome Lee, 29, and Jamal Richards, 28, were convicted by Baltimore juries in November. On May 22, 2010, the men were driving when they saw a woman on North Eutaw Street seeking assistance and they offered to drive her home, according to a statement from the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office.

The suspect in the slaying of an 11-year-old Salisbury girl found dead Christmas Day was indicted Monday on charges of kidnapping, child abduction and burglary, according to online court records. Thomas J. Leggs Jr. will face additional charges, authorities have said. A medical examiner has determined that Sarah Haley Foxwell's death was a homicide. Her body was found Christmas Day. Leggs, 30, has convictions for sex offenses in Maryland and Delaware. - Associated Press

Three members of the Black Guerilla Family gang were sentenced to life in prison Wednesday for the 2009 robbery, kidnapping and murder of Qonta Waddell, a convicted drug dealer who was hogtied and removed, screaming, from his mother's home in Southwest Baltimore as she watched. Peter "Petey" Miller, Derrell "Snags" Johnson and William "Jim Dog" Rhodes were each convicted of conspiracy, murder, kidnapping, robbery and weapons crimes. Miller, 20, was sentenced to life plus 60 years.

A 21-year old North Laurel man is in the Howard County Detention Center, held on $350,000 bail and facing charges that he robbed two different people at knifepoint in the same shopping center on the same day, including one incident that involved a kidnapping and carjacking. Nortel Maurice Clayton, who lived with his family in the 9500 block Canterbury Riding, also in North Laurel, was arrested Wednesday night while seeking treatment for a minor injury at the Prince George's County Hospital Center, according to county police.

Authorities are seeking at least two other potential victims of the man charged with kidnapping an 11-year-old Salisbury girl whose body was found on Christmas Day, the Wicomico County state's attorney said. "I have reason to believe there are other victims out there who have not come forward before," said State's Attorney Davis Ruark, adding that authorities have received information about potential adult victims. Thomas J. Leggs Jr, 30, is being held without bond in the disappearance of Sarah Haley Foxwell, his former girlfriend's niece, who was seen leaving her bedroom with him last week, according to court documents.

A teenage girl was kidnapped by four men in Woodlawn, driven to an unfamiliar location and sexually assaulted on Nov. 1, police said. At about 3 p.m. that day, the 15-year-old was walking in the 1800 block of Woodlawn Drive when men in a teal, four-door sedan approached, according to a statement Wednesday from the Baltimore County Police Department. Two of the men were wearing ski masks, police said. One of the unmasked men began talking to the victim, displayed a handgun and then forced her into the car, according to police.

The release of the last known living Western hostages held in Lebanon ends a crisis in relations between the West and Lebanon, Syria and Iran that has been going on since 1984. Their kidnapping was state-sponsored terrorism.Germany made some concessions in the treatment of two convicted terrorists in German prisons to buy their freedom, but so long as the concessions are reasonable, that price is not too high.Of 92 Western hostages seized while going about their daily business in Lebanon from 1984 to 1991, eight are known dead and three presumed dead.

The three Baltimore police officers accused of dumping a West Baltimore teen in a Howard County park last year with no shoes or a cell phone turned themselves in Wednesday and were being held as of late afternoon on six-figure bails. Tyrone Francis, 29, Gregory Hellen, 30, and Milton G. Smith III, 32, were indicted by a city grand jury on charges of kidnapping, false imprisonment, second-degree assault and misconduct in office Tuesday. On May 4, 2009, a teen said the officers pulled him into a police van and drove him into Patapsco State Park in Ellicott City, snapping his cell phone and leaving him there without shoes.

A Crofton man faces up to 30 years in prison after admitting yesterday that he kidnapped a county police officer while being driven to jail in August 1990.Harold Dean Rogers Jr., 29, of the 1900 block of Cambridge Drive, pleaded guilty in county Circuit Court to kidnapping, robbery and battery in connection with the Aug. 28, 1990, abduction of Officer Janice J. Schwartz.In return for the guilty pleas, any sentences Rogers receives will run concurrently, said Assistant State's Attorney Ronald M. Naditch.

A teenage girl was kidnapped by four men in Woodlawn, driven to an unfamiliar location and sexually assaulted on Nov. 1, police said. At about 3 p.m. that day, the 15-year-old was walking in the 1800 block of Woodlawn Drive when men in a teal, four-door sedan approached, according to a statement Wednesday from the Baltimore County Police Department. Two of the men were wearing ski masks, police said. One of the unmasked men began talking to the victim, displayed a handgun and then forced her into the car, according to police.

Federal authorities announced Thursday a racketeering indictment charging 35 alleged Bloods gang members with murder, kidnapping and other crimes from Western Maryland to the Eastern Shore — a move they said had "dismantled" the gang. Authorities say cells of the South Side Brims coordinated gang activity across the state and region, and court documents offer a tutorial on how modern criminal organizations operate, including posting photos and messages on Facebook, and uploading initiation videos on YouTube.

In my parallel universe - the one that still sustains me in hope, the one where fear is rarely a thought - the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are over and done, and the young man from Missouri who sat next to me on a plane would be more charitable about his parents, whom he called "hippies," because they oppose America's two current wars. He enlisted in the army while he was in college, and now he's on his way to Afghanistan, as soon as he finishes 10 days of training at Fort Meade.

A 25-year-old man charged in North Carolina with kidnapping and attempted rape who escaped Thursday afternoon from a cell in Annapolis District Court was arrested shortly before midnight, county police said. Officers with the Anne Arundel County police, Annapolis police, Maryland State police, and the county sheriff's office were involved in the search for Bonrick Lee Barksdale since his escape about noon, said Anne Arundel police Lt. Francis Tewey. Barksdale was apprehended before midnight near the intersection of Dewey Drive and Sumner Road in the Admiral Heights community, Tewey said in an email.

Yipe -- here's a disturbing story. Dog-nappings are up in a big way in 2011... more than 30 percent! According to this report in the Chicago Sun-Times, the American Kennel Club, which tracks dog kidnappings, is saying the crime has surged 32 percent this year. The organization says 224 animals have been nabbed already in 2011, compared with just 150 last year, the paper reports. Money -- not surprisingly -- seems to be the motivation. (No kidnappers apparently did it out of a deep-rooted desire to scoop poop in the park, pick up drool-soaked balls or to get help polishing off a box of Milk Bones.

When oil companies expand into desert areas of Africa, FrontierMedex Group helps them navigate the territory and provides medical care and security. The company also has helped rescue ships from pirates in the waters off Somalia and provides medical assistance for travelers in areas with poor health care systems. As protesters in Egypt rose up against President Hosni Mubarak, FrontierMedex Group evacuated 600 travelers, employees from multinational firms and others in the country.

Salvatore P. Spinnato, an admitted con man who fled the state last year to avoid abduction charges, was convicted yesterday in Baltimore County Circuit Court of kidnapping, assault and false imprisonment in an attack on his ex-wife's boyfriend.Judge Barbara Kerr Howe also convicted the 54-year-old Spinnato's accomplice, Homer Paul Shaffer, 31, of the same charges in the July 3, 1996, incident. She found both men not guilty of handgun charges.The judge's ruling came after a two-day trial in which Spinnato testified that he only meant to intimidate the victim the day he lured the man to a vacant house where an accomplice waited with an electrical stun gun.While Spinnato admitted he bought a stun device that gave off electric shocks and brought Lynn R. Hogg, 40, to the Arbutus house, he said, "There was not supposed to be an altercation.

A 21-year-old man charged with kidnapping a woman at gunpoint and impersonating a state police officer was released on $25,000 bond yesterday in Kent County.State police at Centreville alleged that the suspect, driving south on U.S. 301 in Kent County, tricked the driver of a car ahead of him to pull over near Chesterville Millington Road by flashing his headlights and blowing his horn about 2:30 a.m. Saturday.The suspect approached the car threatening Rebecca Guiswite, 29, of Townsend, Del., and the driver, Darnell Henry, 31, of Sassafras, with what turned out to be a pellet gun resembling a police-issue 9mm pistol.

A doctor's appointment brought Helen Jones out of her Allendale house earlier than usual Tuesday morning. While she waited on the porch for her ride, a man came out of a house across the street, got into a green car and drove away. "Then a little boy came out and looked around," Jones said. "I said, 'Wait a minute. I wonder if it was that little boy,' " she said, referring to 8-year-old Darrick Charles Brown, who was abducted Monday night, just a few blocks from Jones' house. A man in the distance scared the little boy back into the house, Jones said, but he came back out a short time later, just after 7 a.m., and began walking toward her. "When I saw the little boy, and I saw the green car, I said 'Wait a minute,'" said Jones, who realized that the little boy approaching was the one who had been kidnapped.

A Harford County judge sentenced a 22-year-old Edgewood man to 55 years in prison Tuesday for kidnapping and carjacking. Joshua Prince Freeman was convicted by a jury in the October 2009 kidnapping of Kara Smithson, 21, of Pylesville. Freeman and three accomplices, including a female juvenile who was known to the victim, lured Smithson to a location in the southern end of the county, according to Joseph I. Cassilly, Harford County State's Attorney. When Smithson met the group, she was carjacked, kidnapped and repeatedly struck and assaulted, while being driven around the Joppa area.