Maryland Attorney General

The Maryland Attorney General's office is reviewing the planned sale of the former Fort Ritchie Army base in Western Maryland to a Columbia-based commercial developer, after community members raised concerns about the $5 million to $9 million transaction. PenMar Development Corp., a state agency created to redevelop the closed base in the mountains of Washington County, has a contract to sell the 637-acre property to Corporate Office Properties Trust. COPT, which plans 1.7 million square feet of office space and 673 homes, would pay the lower amount if the development generates the anticipated 1,500 jobs.

A Maryland predatory-lending law that limits how much banks can charge borrowers for paying off a mortgage early can't be applied to national banks that operate in the state under a ruling issued last week from a federal judge in Baltimore. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit brought by National City Corp., a Cleveland bank that does mortgage lending in Maryland through two subsidiaries, National City Mortgage and First Franklin Financial. The bank has collected about $4 million in prepayment penalties in Maryland over several years.

Monique Muir does more than just cut and color and braid hair. She listens. She hears the good from her clients. She hears the ugly. "We're like bartenders," said Muir, owner of Featuring You Salon in Woodlawn. "They tell us a lot of secrets. Clients, they confide in you and they tell you things a lot of times they don't tell others." The Maryland attorney general's office, in conjunction with the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence, is hoping to capitalize on the bond that women have with their hairdressers.

Saying an "agreed resolution" was preferable to more protracted litigation, a federal judge named a former Maryland attorney general and a former state legislator yesterday to help craft a settlement in a decadelong housing discrimination case. But if an agreement isn't reached, U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis said that he will hold hearings in July to decide a remedy for his finding this month that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development violated fair housing laws by failing to take a regional approach to the desegregation of public housing in Baltimore.

An Elkton homebuilder's license and registration have been revoked for failing to complete work, the Maryland attorney general's office said Thursday. Hutton Brothers Building and Improving of Elkton failed to pay $12,000 in claims covered by the Maryland Home Improvement Commission's Guaranty Fund, said Jeston Hamer, an assistant attorney general. As a result, the Elkton building and improvement company's license was suspended and the Consumer Protection Division of the attorney general's office revoked its registration.

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.

In his two decades with the Maryland attorney general's office, Gary E. Bair has played a key role in the legal maneuverings that sent Maryland prisoners from death row to the execution chamber. He even stood before the nation's highest court to oppose an argument meant to save a convicted killer's life. But Bair is stepping down as solicitor general this month to become partners with Fred Warren Bennett, a well-known capital defense attorney who represented two of the last three Maryland inmates put to death.

The state Senate gave preliminary passage to a bill yesterday that would make it a felony to counterfeit checks, letters of credit or other negotiable notes. In addition, the measure, which will be on the floor for a final vote this week, would allow a state's attorney or the Maryland attorney general to investigate and prosecute alleged misdemeanor or felony violations of the counterfeiting statute. A suspect could be prosecuted in any county in which any part of the crime occurred or where the victim lives or conducts business.

The U.S. Supreme Court dealt Maryland a decisive defeat yesterday in its 400-year fight with neighboring Virginia over control of the Potomac River - and, by extension, the future of the land along its banks. Although Maryland owns the Potomac, it does not own the water in it and can't impose restrictions on a Fairfax, Va., utility's use of that water, the court ruled in a 7-2 decision. In a blunt, 12-page opinion by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the court said Maryland had no right to regulate the Fairfax County Water Authority's construction of an intake pipe to supply water to 1.2 million customers.

UTAH GOV. Michael O. Leavitt won Senate confirmation to head the Environmental Protection Agency yesterday just in time to get slapped with a lawsuit by Maryland and 11 other states choking on EPA policies. That should be a powerful signal to Mr. Leavitt, who prides himself on being a conciliator, to redirect the agency so that such legal battles are unnecessary. But there is probably little he can do to reverse course on regulations finalized this week allowing aging, coal-fired utility plants and oil refineries in the Midwest to postpone installing modern pollution-control devices almost indefinitely.