Pleading Guilty

A Randallstown woman who had tried to arrange her husband's murder went free this week after pleading guilty in the conspiracy. Her sentence came five months after the man she persuaded to help her was sentenced to 18 months in prison."

Lawyers for a veteran Baltimore police officer charged with killing his fiancee and then engaging in an hours-long standoff with fellow officers said Thursday that they want to explore whether he suffered from combat-related stress. The comments came after a brief hearing in which Officer James W. Smith, 49, pleaded not guilty, surrounded by a larger-than-normal complement of security staff in the courtroom of Judge Steven Sfekas. Smith was visibly upset, with defense attorney Linda Ramirez comforting him as the charges of first-degree murder and a handgun violation were read aloud.

Eight members of a drug ring that sold up to $20,000 worth of heroin a week from an East Baltimore housing project pleaded guilty yesterday to conspiracy charges.The four men and four women who pleaded guilty in Baltimore Circuit Court to conspiracy to distribute heroin and cocaine were among more than 80 charged in the 18-month investigation of alleged kingpin Reginald L. "Reds" Green, prosecutors said.That investigation led to charges in a $6.5 million-a-week heroin ring blamed for the interstate distribution of the potent opiate substitute fentanyl, which has been linked to 27 Maryland deaths.

A Port Deposit man pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal charges of possessing child pornography. According to the plea agreement, on January 30, 2011, police seized a laptop computer, desktop computer, camera, hard drive and other digital media from Michael Dean Ragan Jr., 30, during a search in an unrelated counterfeit currency investigation, according to a news release from the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office. Ragan later pleaded guilty to state counterfeit charges. A subsequent forensic examination of the items seized during the search found approximately 335 images and 17 videos of minors, including prepubescent minors, engaged in sexually explicit conduct, including acts of sadism, masochism of other depictions of violence.

A key player in a group that police say put about 50 pounds of marijuana a month into the Baltimore-Washington area pleaded guilty yesterday to drug charges in Howard Circuit Court.Police charged 28 people, mostly from Howard County, with participating in the ring that was broken in March after investigators used a wiretap to record telephone calls to and from an Elkridge apartment.Yesterday, one of the tenants of the apartment -- 23-year-old Timothy R. Simons -- pleaded guilty to distribution of cocaine and conspiracy to distribute marijuana before Judge Raymond Kane Jr.Assistant State's Attorney Mary Murphy said Simons sold $390 worth of cocaine to an undercover police investigator at Michael's Pub in Columbia's Kings Contrivance village on Aug. 2, 1994.

A 19-year-old Stevensville man was sentenced to three years in prison yesterday after pleading guilty to theft and reckless endangerment in Carroll County Circuit Court.Jeffrey James Taylor was one of three teen-agers charged in April with bursting into the Carrolltown Veterinary Hospital and forcing an employee to place 15 bottles of Ketamine in a bag. Court records said the youths used a toy Uzi gun to frighten employees.Ketamine, a sleep-inducing drug commonly used as an anesthetic, can be converted from liquid to a powder form and snorted or smoked.

In a surprise move and against his defense attorney's advice, a Baltimore man accused of killing an Elkridge woman in 1998 pleaded guilty yesterday to her murder in Howard County Circuit Court. Ardale D. Tickles, 20, said he was sure he wanted to plead guilty to first-degree murder in the slaying of Sara J. Williamson Raras, a 35-year-old mother, in November 1998. The trial was scheduled to begin yesterday with jury selection. "I'm entering a plea of guilty because I'm remorseful for what I did," Tickles said.

A 20-year-old woman was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty yesterday to stabbing and bludgeoning her mother to death in their Hampstead townhouse in March.The sentence was met with loud protests and hysterical sobbing from a half-dozen members of the family of Doris A. Ziemski, the 52-year-old victim.Kristi Lynn Ziemski will be eligible for parole on the first-degree murder conviction in 15 years, said Carroll County Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns Jr., referring to a law that took effect Oct. 1."

Jerrard M. Bazemore, who months ago was a starter on Milford Mill Academy's football team, stood at the front of a packed Baltimore County courtroom yesterday and quietly admitted that he had shot and killed 18-year-old Charles H. Sharp III, a Landsdowne High School and ROTC graduate who wanted to join the Air Force. With dozens of his school friends sitting behind him, the stocky, baby-faced Bazemore, also 18, listened as Baltimore County Circuit Judge Lawrence R. Daniels outlined the rights he would forfeit by pleading guilty to second-degree murder and the use of a handgun in the commission of a violent crime.

YONKERS, N.Y. -- Concluding the latest chapter in a tortuous saga of family suffering, Malcolm Shabazz, the 12-year-old grandson of Malcolm X, pleaded guilty yesterday to the juvenile equivalent of second-degree manslaughter for starting a fire that killed his grandmother, Betty Shabazz.Malcolm's lawyers, Percy Sutton and David N. Dinkins, the former New York City mayor, said after a hearing in Family Court that, in consultation with the boy and his mother, Qubilah Shabazz, they had decided to accept a plea bargain to avoid an intimate description of Malcolm's troubled childhood in open court.

Kelley Currin recalled dancing with her longtime swimming coach, Rick Curl, as a teenage girl the night of his wedding some 30 years ago. She wore a pink dress, held on too long and whispered in his ear, "I hate you. " She told Montgomery County Circuit Judge Marielsa A. Bernard on Thursday how she fell in love with Curl, who was then 33, before her 13th birthday in the early 1980s. She recounted the details of their first kiss near a water fountain at Georgetown Preparatory School and the way years of sexual abuse altered the trajectory of her life.

A Baltimore teenager pleaded guilty to murder Monday as his trial was set to begin, following a failed attempt last week to have a confession withheld from jurors in the case. Markell Shelton Jones, 18, shot and killed Freddie Jones Jr. at the Yau Brothers Chinese carryout on Greenmount Avenue on Halloween 2011 during a bungled robbery attempt. The attack was captured on surveillance cameras and police released the footage to the press. After Markell Jones' family recognized him on television, his grandfather called police to have him taken into custody, according to testimony at a motions hearing last week.

A Baltimore County police officer pleaded guilty to misconduct and agreed to resign after admitting to filming himself numerous times engaging in sex acts and neglecting to respond to calls while on duty. Aaron Z. Pross, 29, who had been assigned to the Pikesville Precinct, took more than 120 images and 20 videos engaging in sexual acts with himself, including one where he masturbated inside his patrol car while reports of "possible guns involved," can be heard over a police radio, prosecutors said.

State Del. Donald H. Dwyer Jr. of Pasadena, who was involved in a powerboat crash last August that injured him and several others, will plead guilty Tuesday in Annapolis District Court to operating a boat while drunk — part of plea deal that his attorney said includes prosecutors not seeking a jail sentence. "I truly regret the incident of Aug. 22 of last year," said Dwyer, 55, at a Monday news conference in Glen Burnie. The collision of his boat with another vessel injured Dwyer — he suffered a broken foot and neck injuries — and six others, including four children, on the other boat.

Frank James MacArthur, the blogger known as the Baltimore Spectator, could go on trial in May after pleading not guilty Monday to gun and resisting-arrest charges that have kept him in jail for months. MacArthur is accused in connection with a December standoff as Baltimore police tried to arrest him on a probation violation charge. During the standoff, MacArthur protested his arrest on an online radio station and live-streamed his telephone discussions with a police negotiator over the Internet.

A former volunteer firefighter who worked with youth at the Lansdowne fire department pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to producing and possessing child pornography. Anthony Maurice Cottle, 23, of Owings Mills, faces a minimum sentence of 15 years in prison after engaging in sexually activity with two boys and filming the encounters. Authorities recovered more than 600 images of child pornography from Cottle's computer and cell phone, which included images of additional victims, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's office.

Two former Baltimore City government employees and three other women have been placed on probation after pleading guilty in a scheme to cash checks stolen from a city vault.Janet L. Zientak, 29, who resigned last month from the city's Public Works Department, received a two-year suspended sentence and was ordered to pay $12,892 in restitution to the city and an additional $6,130 to a Baltimore check cashing company, court records show. Ms. Zientak, who pleaded guilty to a felony theft charge, also was placed on five years' supervised probation during a hearing Friday in Baltimore Circuit Court.

A former Mount Airy man who pleaded guilty in August to two counts of selling cocaine to undercover police officers in Westminster was sentenced to 10 years without parole yesterday in Carroll County Circuit Court.Richard A. Tyler, 26, who now lives in Frederick, was arrested on similar charges in Frederick three days after pleading guilty Aug. 5 before Judge Luke K. Burns Jr., court records show.Burns also reinstated four-year terms on each of two drug-related convictions for which Tyler was placed on probation after receiving suspended sentences in 1993.

Ravens linebacker Rolando McClain, who was originally scheduled to be at the City of Decatur (Ala.) Municipal Court tomorrow, has pleaded guilty to a window tint violation stemming from his arrest in January following a traffic stop. In exchange, the city has dismissed the charge of providing false information to police during the arrest. McClain, who signed an expletive on the citation rather than his real name, thus resulting in the providing false information charge, made an online payment of $186 to settle the fine and court costs and any other fees associated with this case.