Maryland Attorney General

For many folks headed to Preakness, the focus of the afternoon isn't the race. It's the fashion — and we don't just mean hats. If you're in the grandstands, the Jockey Club area or Corporate Village, you'll want to dress the part. Betsy Dugan, owner of Bettina Collections in Cross Keys and former co-owner of Octavia in Pikesville, has been dressing women for Preakness for years. "This is the time ... to dress up," she said. If there's one rule of thumb, it's that ladies and gentlemen at Preakness should look like ...well, ladies and gentlemen.

WASHINGTON -- Congressional Republicans, including Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, stepped up their criticism of Labor Secretary nominee Tom Perez on Tuesday, amplifying their concerns a day before the former state official faces a Senate committee vote on his confirmation. Republicans convened a joint hearing of two House subcommittees to focus on a federal case Perez oversaw as assistant attorney general and head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Other lawmakers, including Harris, are pressing Perez to turn over his personal e-mails.

National Rifle Association President David Keene said Tuesday that the organization intends to challenge the constitutionality of Maryland's newly passed gun law, as a conservative group readied plans to try to overturn the law through voter referendum. Keene said during a radio interview the group will “absolutely” go to the courts. “We are already in court in New York and we will be in court and aiding those in Maryland - and I am myself a Maryland resident - who want to challenge the constitutionality of this and other provisions here in Maryland,” Keene said to the Washington, D.C., station WTOP.

National Rifle Association President David Keene said Tuesday that the organization intends to challenge the constitutionality of Maryland's newly passed gun law, as a conservative group readied plans to try to overturn the law through voter referendum. Keene said during a radio interview the group will “absolutely” go to the courts. “We are already in court in New York and we will be in court and aiding those in Maryland - and I am myself a Maryland resident - who want to challenge the constitutionality of this and other provisions here in Maryland,” Keene said to the Washington, D.C., station WTOP.

State officials have agreed to pay $700,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by the mother of a woman who was raped and killed in Colorado by a Maryland convict. The Maryland attorney general's office agreed to the settlement of the suit stemming from the February 1999 murder of 24-year-old Peyton Tuthill. She was raped and killed by Donta Paige, a convicted armed robber from Maryland whom a Prince George's County judge sent to a drug treatment program in Denver without notifying Colorado authorities.

Today, The Sun continues its endorsements for the Nov. 7 general election with races for Maryland attorney general and state's attorneys in Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties. With a staff of 500 and duties that range from providing legal counsel to state agencies to arguing criminal appeals, Maryland's attorney general should have a broad range of legal expertise and a proven administrative record. Douglas F. Gansler, who has served two terms as Montgomery County state's attorney and six years as an assistant U.S. attorney, fits the bill.

"How many of you guys know more about computers than your parents?" Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler asked a gathering of fourth-graders at Waverly Elementary School in Ellicott City. Nearly every hand shot up. Gansler, whose children are 10 and 12, sees firsthand that youngsters today spend a lot of time on computers. But the Internet, he said, is like Halloween - a lot of fun, but also a little scary. At Waverly, he introduced a statewide program intended to educate children about potential online dangers, including sexual predators and identity theft.

Fortified with takeout coffee and doughnuts, J. Joseph Curran Jr. dialed a 7 a.m. conference call from his home to help decide the course of the nation's biggest antitrust case in a generation. Some states, particularly Massachusetts, had already made known their distaste for the Justice Department's proposed settlement with Microsoft Corp., the software company found to have intimidated customers and competitors to build a monopoly in the personal computer market. But Curran, the Maryland attorney general, and several fellow state prosecutors felt the walls closing in on them: The clout of the federal government was gone, the uncertainty of gaining anything more by continuing to fight for two years or more was great and the judge in the case wanted a decision that morning or planned to resume the trial in March.

An Ellicott City pediatrician has been charged with providing $100,000 worth of medically unnecessary services to his patients and then billing the state Medicaid program, the Maryland attorney general's office said yesterday. Dr. Alfredo J. Herrera, 54, was charged Tuesday in Howard County Circuit Court with one count of Medicaid fraud, the attorney general's office said.

An article in yesterday's editions of The Sun said the Maryland Attorney General's office took action against Continental Food for deceptive practices in its direct food sales to home consumers. That operation has no connection to restaurant food distributor Continental Food Service Inc.Pub Date: 12/13/97

Carl Snowden, the former director of the Office of Civil Rights at the Maryland Attorney General's Office, reported to jail Friday morning to begin a 10-day sentence for violating probation on a drunk-driving conviction. Retired Judge Diane O. Leasure found March 11 that Snowden, 59, had violated probation in his 2010 drunken driving case in Anne Arundel County because he had been convicted last year of possession of marijuana in Baltimore City. She ordered him to begin his jail term on April 12, but Snowden received permission to begin Friday.

Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler has reached a settlement with California-based CleanWell Company and OhSo Clean Inc, the makers of a hand sanitizer that claimed it was "proven to kill 99.99 percent of germs that can make you sick. " Gansler's investigation revealed no actual proof that those statements were true. CleanWell must pay $100,000 in penalties and costs, and will no longer be allowed to assert that its hand sanitizer can prevent disease or infection. “Companies that make unsubstantiated claims about their products deceive consumers into spending their hard-earned money on something that may not live up to its billing,” Gansler said in a statement.

Longtime Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee chairman Brian Frosh may throw his hat into the Attorney General race in 2014, he confirmed to The Sun via text message. “I want to be attorney general," Frosh said in an interview. "If it looks like the stars are aligned, that's  what I'm going to do.” Frosh said that in the past two days, he's been calling friends and colleagues and "getting a great response. " In the "next few weeks," he will likely announce an exploratory committee.  It is widely believed that current Attorney General Doug Gansler will run for governor in 2014.

An unlicensed driveway paver working in the Annapolis area was ordered to pay nearly $500,000 in fines and restitution after the Maryland Attorney General's office found that he "preyed" on customers, charging them far more than he said he would. The attorney general's office said Friday that it has ordered Tommy Edward Clack, who also goes by Tommy Clark and Ed Clack, to repay at least $204,000 to customers. The office's consumer protection division also levied $284,000 in fines and ordered him to pay $5,000 in agency expenses.

The Maryland attorney general's office argued in a lengthy legal brief, filed in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, that a convicted child rapist serving four life terms should not be offered a second chance to take a plea deal years after the fact, despite a U.S. district court ruling demanding just that. "The district court erred," Assistant Attorney General Edward Kelley wrote in the 56-page document. He was referring to a finding that the constitutional rights of John Joseph Merzbacher, an English teacher at the South Baltimore Catholic Community middle school in the 1970s, were violated because his attorneys failed to inform him of a plea deal before his 1995 trial on child rape and sexual abuse charges.

Maryland's attorney general said Friday that the nearly $60 million from the national mortgage settlement that the state controls would be used to help people "victimized by the egregious conduct of the banks," in contrast with some states that intend to use their shares to plug budget holes. Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler also said his office is pursuing criminal investigations related to mortgage and foreclosure fraud, though he didn't say whether cases related to the "robo-signing" that prompted the settlement might be filed.

A Severn man has been convicted of pouring 100 gallons of waste oil into his neighbor's yard, according to the Maryland attorney general's office. Lino G. Razuri, 43, of the 500 block of Queenstown Road was accused of removing a 275-gallon oil tank from his property and dumping on his neighbor's land in the 600 block of Queenstown Road in January. He was found guilty Tuesday in Anne Arundel Circuit Court.

A pawnshop operator has been indicted by a Harford County grand jury on charges of illegally selling firearms, the Maryland attorney general's office announced yesterday. Alexander Sabinstev, who operates Star Pawn Brokers in Edgewood, is charged with two counts of illegal gun sales and three counts of selling firearms to those he had reason to believe were involved in "straw purchases" of weapons to be turned over to someone else, the attorney general's office said. The maximum penalty for each charge is five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

The owner of an Essex gym has been charged with collecting prohibited fees and misleading customers about their cancellation rights, according to the Maryland Attorney General's office. The AG's consumer protection division filed administrative charges against GRS Fitness LLC and its owner, Bernard P. Caplan, Jr. after the gym stopped offering services and charged improperly for services. According to the division, GRS Fitness entered into an agreement with Health Trek Creations LLC to take over a gym on Kelso Drive.

Lawsuits brought by government and private parties to address damage done to the environment became a necessary fact of life in this country long ago. In a perfect world, perhaps nobody would pollute — or at least those who did would immediately and appropriately be corrected by a government agency. But the real world sometimes requires court orders. It is in that context that Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler's recent decision to file notice of intent to sue Chesapeake Energy Corp.