NEWS
By Tricia Bishop | November 17, 2009
Two Baltimore sisters charged in the death of their paraplegic mother pleaded guilty to first-degree vulnerable adult abuse in Baltimore City Circuit Court on Monday. Tia Sewell, 27, and Sharon Jones, 26, face up to six years in prison under the plea agreement. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 28. Their mother was 40-year-old April Montford. Paramedics discovered Ford Feb. 29, 2008, after being called to her house in the 400 block of W. Franklin St. According to court records, police said Montford, who was paralyzed from a 1985 gunshot wound, was lying on bedsheets that had been unchanged for years.
NEWS
By Tricia Bishop | November 3, 2009
The third time was the proverbial charm for Jabreria Handy's defense attorneys, who secured permission Monday to transfer their client to juvenile court for sentencing, after a judge accepted her plea of guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the death of her 69-year-old grandmother. Another judge, Timothy J. Doory, denied the same plea agreement in August, saying it would have overruled yet a third judge's earlier determination that Handy, who is now a week shy of her 18th birthday, must be tried as an adult.
NEWS
By Andrea F. Siegel | July 29, 2009
A former Naval Academy professor entered a plea Tuesday morning to charges that he sexually molested an adolescent relative more than a decade ago. Patrick Ryan Harrison, 66, of Hot Springs Village, Ark., did not admit guilt but acknowledged to Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Michael Wachs that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him of second-degree sexual offense. A civilian professor, Harrison taught computer science at the Naval Academy from 1976 until his retirement in 2003, according to academy officials.
NEWS
By Tricia Bishop | June 24, 2009
A federal judge denied a Westminster woman's request to withdraw her guilty plea Tuesday and sentenced her to 10 years in prison for sex trafficking of a minor, a 17-year-old cousin whose sexual services she sold under the Internet heading "Available now." Deborah Gail Frock, who was previously convicted of trying to blackmail a state prosecutor, claimed that the government coerced her to take the plea agreement by outlining plans to file additional charges that carried a minimum 30-year sentence if she didn't accept the deal.
NEWS
By Don Markus | April 28, 2009
A man who led officers on a chase in Howard County last fall that sparked an investigation into accusations of police brutality pleaded guilty Monday to assault charges. Stephen Zombro, 41, pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree assault and two counts of malicious destruction of property for the Nov. 20 chase that began when officers attempted to serve a warrant on a theft charge. Zombro also must pay $2,500 in restitution for damage to police cruisers he hit with his pickup truck during the chase.
NEWS
By Walter Hamilton | March 7, 2009
NEW YORK -New York financier Bernard L. Madoff might be nearing a deal to plead guilty to one of the most egregious financial crimes in history. Prosecutors who have charged him with operating an alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme notified a federal judge yesterday that Madoff had agreed to forgo a grand jury hearing, a step that is typically a precursor to a plea agreement. "He's going to say under oath, 'I did it,' and that's a huge step in the process," predicted Steven D. Feldman, a criminal defense attorney at Herrick Feinstein in New York.
NEWS
By Jennifer McMenamin | October 29, 2008
When Nicholas W. Browning is sentenced in December for the fatal shootings of his parents and two younger brothers, the 16-year-old Cockeysville honors student with no prior criminal record will likely join a state prison population that includes hundreds of inmates serving time for crimes they committed as teenagers. He'll be fingerprinted, photographed and, in the language of the prison system, "classified." He could serve out his sentence - up to two consecutive life terms, according to the terms of the plea agreement reached Monday - among other maximum-security inmates convicted of murder, rape and other serious crimes, state corrections officials say. Or, if he is deemed in need of protection, he might spend as many as 23 hours a day in his cell.
NEWS
By Brent Jones | June 4, 2008
The owners of two Ocean City restaurants pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court in Baltimore to hiring illegal immigrants as below-minimum-wage employees and housing several of them at a nearby condominium, according to the Maryland U.S. attorney's office. Husband and wife Bo Hao Zhu, 33, and Siu Ping Cheng, 30, also pleaded guilty to evading taxes and owing the government nearly $7,000 after providing false information on employees' wages, the prosecutors said. Zhu and Cheng ran Miyako Sushi and Seafood Buffet and Panda China Buffet, both in the 12000 block of Ocean Gateway, according to the plea agreement.
NEWS
By Jennifer McMenamin | March 18, 2008
Since his death sentence was overturned, John A. Miller IV has accused his attorneys of coercion, deceit and of tricking him into pleading guilty to the murder of a 17-year-old girl. Most recently, he attacked the very foundation of the legal argument that won him the right to a new trial and the plea agreement that spared him a return to death row. Yesterday, a Baltimore County judge postponed Miller's sentencing again - but warned him against using complaints about his lawyers simply to delay the case.
NEWS
By Jeff Barker | March 15, 2008
Aaron McCown, a popular youth football coach with a criminal past, pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court to using a loaded pistol to intimidate a referee at a Pop Warner game in September in Montgomery County. McCown, 31, of Baltimore, who won a prestigious community service award from the Johns Hopkins University five years ago, could receive a maximum prison sentence of 10 years after signing a plea agreement with the Maryland U.S. attorney's office. He could end up with a shorter term than that, depending on how his case and background are evaluated by authorities before sentencing May 12, said officials involved in his case.