Paralegal

Baltimore State's Attorney Stuart O. Simms has named Donald R. Todd as chief of the community services division of the office.Mr. Todd, with the state's attorney's office since 1984, was head of the Victim Witness Unit, a community services division program. He replaces Kenneth J. Strong, who was community services chief from 1983 to December 1991 and who recently joined the Department of Public Works.Succeeding Mr. Todd as chief of the Victim Witness Unit is Pamela Widgeon, a former reporter with the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper who joined the state's attorney's office in 1984 as a paralegal.

Evangelia de Hitta Natividad, 62, Morgan State professorEvangelia de Hitta Natividad, a professor of Spanish at Morgan State University, died Thursday of a stroke at Good Samaritan Hospital. The Northeast Baltimore resident was 62.Ms. de Hitta Natividad had been a member of the faculty since 1970 and earlier had taught for a year in city public schools.From 1963 to 1969, she taught Spanish at the University of Santo Thomas in the Philippines.Raised in the Philippines and a 1958 graduate of the University of the Philippines, she also studied at the University of Maryland and had been a resident of Baltimore since 1969.

Freddie Mac has instructed its mortgage servicers to stop referring foreclosure cases to Shapiro & Burson, the Virginia law firm accused of improper handling of more than 1,000 deeds for Maryland homes in foreclosure, the mortgage giant said this week. Prosecutors in Prince George's County began investigating the firm in March after a paralegal formerly employed there filed a complaint alleging that deeds and foreclosure paperwork contained fraudulent signatures. Freddie Mac, one of the two huge mortgage companies that buys loans and mortgage securities, removed Shapiro & Burson from its Maryland designated-counsel list during an update this week.

Prosecutors have launched an investigation into a complaint that more than 1,000 deeds for homes foreclosed upon in Maryland were improperly executed — the latest development suggesting widespread problems in the way foreclosures have been handled in the state. The complaint, filed last week by a paralegal formerly employed by the Shapiro & Burson law firm, lays out allegations that attorneys who were supposed to be signing deeds and key foreclosure paperwork for Maryland properties instead instructed others to falsify their signatures on the documents.

Dorothy Jeannette Brimer, a Social Security Administration management assistant, died Sunday of congestive heart failure at Northwest Hospital Center in Randallstown. She was 67 and lived in Reisterstown.She joined Social Security at the Woodlawn headquarters in 1980 and retired in 1996.The former Dorothy Jeannette Briney, who was born in Bloomfield, Mo., received a bachelor's degree from Stephens College in Columbia, Mo., and master's degrees in history and education from the University of Missouri in Columbia.

On March 30, 2003, CHARLOTTE MAY MINTON, 65, passed away at her home in Snohomish, Washington. Born on January 4, 1938 in Maryland, to Thomas and Ruth Gifford, she graduated High School and two years of college in Maryland. Her occupations while in Baltimore included working as a paralegal and was an employee of the state of Maryland until moving to Monroe Washington. She is survived by her children, Ernest Minton, Rhonda Tipton, Lori Reynolds, Lisa Felmar, Brenda Klipp, Arthur Minton, and Vincent McElhose; 13 grandchildren, 2 great-grandchildren, 2 sisters Sonya Hunn, and Dawn Dorsey.

The following students earned degrees in August from Kaplan University, in Chicago: Jacqueline Bell , of Laurel, earned a bachelor's degree in legal studies; Renee White-Scott , of Laurel, earned a bachelor's degree in legal studies; Patrick Zimmerman , of Savage, earned a Bachelor of Science in information technology; Joaquin Euraque , of Jessup, earned a bachelor's degree in business administration; ...

Abingdon woman in Miss Md. competition Keia Brown of Abingdon, Miss Northern Maryland 2008, will compete for the Miss Maryland title in the Miss America Organization Wednesday through Saturday in Hagerstown. The 22-year-old won the regional title in March. She will take her platform, "Enough is Enough: Cyber Safe Our Youth," to the state competition. Her talent portion of the contest is a lyrical dance to American Idol Fantasia Barrino's I Believe. She graduated last month from Marymount University in Arlington, Va., with a bachelor of arts degree in fashion merchandising.

The Maryland Board of Physicians, which has faced scrutiny in recent months because of its backlog of cases and other problems, is getting a new leader, state health officials said Wednesday. Carole J. Catalfo will begin work as the executive director Feb. 21, according to Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. "Carole Catalfo is the right person at the right time for the Board of Physicians," Sharfstein said. "She brings both deep experience in regulatory compliance and professional oversight and a fresh perspective on the challenges facing the board.

As a child, Terry Landau used to look over her mother's shoulder as she did the daily crossword puzzle in the New York Herald Tribune. By age 15, she was hooked. Today, Landau still does daily puzzles, but quite differently from the way her mother did. Every night about 10, the 52-year-old paralegal logs on to the Internet from her Manhattan apartment to do the next day's puzzle on The New York Times Web site. Using crossword puzzle software, she types her answers into the black-and-white grid on the screen.