Pleading Guilty

Six military veterans from Maryland pleaded guilty to fraud charges this week in a scheme to obtain federal military benefits and state tax breaks with faked documentation claiming they were exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, according to the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office. The veterans allegedly paid thousands of dollars in cash to David Clark, the former deputy chief of veterans claims in the state Department of Veterans Affairs Office, in exchange for $1.4 million in fraudulent benefits and tax breaks, prosecutors said.

A 34-year-old Florida man pleaded guilty late Wednesday to illegally selling night vision goggles and other military style gear online to an undercover federal agent in Baltimore pretending to be an overseas buyer — a charge that could land him in prison for 20 years. Anthony J. Torresi, of Coral Gables, did not have the required U.S. Department of State license to sell the items when he posted them on eBay and then arranged to sell them to a buyer who he believed was in New Zealand, according to the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office of Rod J. Rosenstein.

An Owings Mills man admitted yesterday that his classic suburban lifestyle - a brick house with a red minivan in the driveway, barbecues in the backyard and pick-up basketball games on the cul-de-sac - masked a scandalous secret: his membership in a violent Northeast Baltimore drug gang that distributed thousands of pounds of cocaine and heroin. Chet Pajardo, whom neighbors once described as a typical family man, pleaded guilty in federal court in Baltimore yesterday to his involvement in a criminal organization whose members participated in the underground Stop Snitching DVD and have been accused in four killings.

With a full math and science scholarship to the Johns Hopkins University and accolades for his writing, Howard County's Mohammad Hassan Khalid seemed ready to continue the American dream his father embarked on years ago when he brought the family from Pakistan. But instead, on Friday the 18-year-old Khalid became one of the youngest people ever convicted in federal court of conspiracy to aid terrorists. He could receive up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine at his sentencing, which has not been scheduled.

A 45-year-old Atlanta woman admitted Wednesday that she used a downtown Baltimore hotel room to inject exotic dancers with commercial-grade silicone, commonly used in furniture polish, to enlarge their buttocks, according to federal prosecutors. As part of her guilty plea in Baltimore's U.S. District Court, Kimberly D. Smedley conceded that she earned more than $200,000 giving silicone shots to women for eight years in cities around the country, using glue and cotton balls to prevent leakage.

A 25-year old Elkton woman pleaded guilty Thursday in Baltimore's U.S. District Court to conspiring to launder more than $400,000 in heroin proceeds, trading the drug funds for clean cash at Las Vegas casinos and other people's winning state lottery tickets. Joy Edison, who was originally indicted in August on drug charges alongside Steven Blackwell and Tahirah Carter, has also agreed to forfeit at least a half-dozen Baltimore properties she bought using drug money. Sentencing is set for Aug. 12. Carter pleaded guilty last fall to conspiring to deal heroin, according to online court records and is scheduled for sentencing next month.

A former volunteer firefighter who worked with youths at the Lansdowne department pleaded guilty Monday to sexually abusing a teenage boy he mentored in a training program at the station. Anthony Maurice Cottle, 23, who appeared Monday in Baltimore County Circuit Court, also faces federal charges. Cottle, a resident of Owings Mills, was also a paid firefighter with the Baltimore County Fire Department. He has been suspended without pay from that department since being charged in October.

A former professional basketball player pleaded guilty Tuesday in the pistol whipping of his girlfriend's brother after a dispute at a cookout in Arnold. Oliver J. Miller, 41, a former NBA player, pleaded guilty in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court to first-degree assault and carrying a handgun, allegations that stemmed from a family argument at a cookout in April. Deputy State's Attorney Thomas J. Fleckenstein said that Miller followed Jason Worley from the cookout, and was seen whacking Worley in the head and face with a handgun outside Worley's home before driving away.

Barry H. Landau, whom authorities call the mastermind behind a scheme to swipe American treasures from museums throughout the Mid-Atlantic, pleaded not guilty Thursday to federal theft and conspiracy charges that prosecutors now characterize as the country's "single largest" theft of its kind. The suspected victims and the number of items taken have tripled since the investigation began July 9 with an arrest by Baltimore police at the Maryland Historical Society, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Warwick said during the lengthy, multi-part hearing in the city's U.S. District Court.

Suspended Minnesota freshman Royce White pleaded guilty Wednesday to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct and theft for an October shoplifting incident and scuffle with a guard at the Mall of America. Defense attorney F. Clayton Tyler said after White's hearing in Hennepin County District Court that the disorderly conduct charge will be dropped if White stays out of trouble for a year. The judge fined him $300 on the petty misdemeanor theft charge. On a separate matter that didn't come up at the hearing, the attorney said White was not involved in the theft of a laptop computer from a University of Minnesota dorm room last month.