Minors

A grand jury in Carroll County has indicted a sex offender registered in Maryland and Pennsylvania on 20 counts of sexual offenses involving minors, according to a statement issued by the Maryland State's Attorney's Office. The grand jury registered the indictment against David Michael Blaker, a 31-year-old Taneytown resident currently incarcerated in Pennsylvania. The move is the culmination of a six-month investigation by the Carroll County Advocacy and Investigation Center, a division of the State's Attorney's Office.

Carroll County's liquor board fined five businesses yesterday for selling beer to minors.Cited were Freedom Liquors, Sykesville; the Spirit Shoppe, Sykesville; Nathan Henry's, Eldersburg; Finksburg Liquors, Finksburg; and K. C.'s Cafe, Sykesville.The violations occurred in March, April and May when a 20-year-old police cadet, accompanied by a board inspector, visited the businesses and attempted to purchase beer.The Spirit Shoppe was fined $500. The others also were fined $500 each, but the board suspended $250 of the fine in each case.

ORDERING a boutique wine, a bottle of scotch or a case of beer for delivery to your door is as easy as getting on the Internet. Or making a toll-free phone call or mailing in a catalog order.Trouble is, it's illegal. Increasing numbers of minors are buying prohibited alcohol from out-of-state suppliers. And states are losing perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in sales/excise taxes.Legislation in both Maryland's General Assembly and in Congress aim to tighten enforcement of state alcohol beverage laws, and to crack down on access of minors to the controlled product.

Two men, including one from Elkridge, have been arrested and charged with soliciting sex from minors on the Internet, authorities said yesterday. Richard J. Moore, 34, of the 6600 block of Cambria Terrace in Elkridge, and Wayne D. Sharer, 42, of the 7000 block of Bedrock Road in Alexandria, Va., were each charged Friday with one count of attempted second-degree sex offense, a count of attempted second-degree rape and one count of using a computer to...

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans pushed through legislation yesterday making it a federal crime to evade parental consent laws by taking minors across state lines for abortions. The 65-34 Senate vote - which came just a week after a bill on stem cell research divided several leading Republicans from their anti-abortion base - gave the party another plank for its "values" agenda. Building on parental consent requirements in many states, the vote marked another victory in the drive by abortion opponents to limit access to the procedure.

Parkville High School senior Ben Lau took Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. on a tour of the Internet yesterday -- and showed him the equivalent of a virtual liquor store.With a few clicks of a mouse, he led the Baltimore County Republican to a screen that would have permitted him to order cases of beer for home delivery with a credit card. The electronic form never asked whether Ben, 17, was of legal age to purchase alcohol."It took only 30 seconds to do the whole thing," Ehrlich said at a news conference in the high school's media center to publicize a bill he has proposed to protect minors -- and state alcohol tax revenues.

The vice unit of the Baltimore Police Department's Central District cited 22 city bars, liquor stores and restaurants for serving minors during a two-night operation that ended Friday.The initiative, called "Operation No ID, No Sale," was conducted in response to complaints from citizens, businesses and community groups that area bars and liquor stores were reportedly selling to people under the legal drinking age of 21, said Sgt. Craig Gentile of the vice unit.Police used two 20-year-old community service officers for the operation.

A 48-year-old Westminster man pleaded guilty yesterday to charges of sexual abuse and providing alcohol to minors after admitting that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl at his daughter's sleepover party, where he bought beer for members of a high school girls' varsity basketball team. Asking for a chance to rebuild his life, Randall S. Matthews tearfully told Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. in Carroll County Circuit Court that his bad judgment and weakness on Dec. 20, 2002, led to consequences that turned his world upside down, including damaging his relationship with his two teen-age children.

It would have been his first trip to the hometown area as a major-leaguer, but pitcher Denny Neagle of Gambrills won't be coming to Baltimore this weekend when the Minnesota Twins play the Baltimore Orioles.The West Division leaders close out their current homestand tonight against the Seattle Mariners and will leave for Baltimore withoutArundel High's Neagle."Unfortunately for Denny and others back there in Baltimore, he won't be making the trip with the Twins. He's going back to AAA Portland (Thursday)

Changing state law so that Howard County can suspend or revoke the sales licenses of merchants caught selling cigarettes to minors might sound like a simple idea, but getting it enacted by the General Assembly may be anything but.State Senate Minority Leader Martin G. Madden, a Howard Republican, has proposed the change based on the suggestion of Peg Browning, chairwoman of the Coalition for Smoke Free Howard County. He is promoting the idea as a pilot program affecting only Howard as a way of avoiding another statewide battle over smoking.