Pleading Guilty

Baltimore police on Monday charged a 37-year-old man in connection to a police-involved shooting over the weekend that left two wounded. Police said Theodore Smith, who lives on the 500 block of Rossiter Ave. in the Wiinston-Govans neighborhood, fought with an officer who was trying to clear a crowd outside a Homeland neighborhood take-out business early Sunday. The officer moved to disperse the crowd that had gathered in the 5400 block of York Road when he got into a physical struggle with Smith, who refused to show identification, police Det. Jeremy Silbert said.

Two Baltimore police officers pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges leveled against them in connection with an alleged assault during an arrest. Sgt. Marinos N. Gialamas, 40, and Officer Anthony Williams, 37, are accused of assaulting Antoine Douglas Green at the home of Williams's girlfriend in October, 2011 while Green was in custody. Last April, prosecutors dropped drug, assault and burglary charges filed against Green in connection with his arrest. The two officers entered their pleas in a brief hearing at Baltimore City Circuit Court and are scheduled for trial in March.

The Carroll County Sheriff's Department's former head of criminal investigations pleaded guilty Tuesday morning to a misdemeanor charge of misconduct in office, and has been sentenced to a suspended one-year jail term, three years of probation, a fine and community service. Nicholas Plazio, who resigned as a major in the Sheriff's Department last week after the charge was brought by the Maryland state prosecutor, entered the plea in Circuit Court before Judge Michael Galloway. Plazio was accused of giving false statements to the county State's Attorney and the court last year and in 2011 in connection with his role in the investigation of a homicide that took place in Hampstead in 2010.

Catonsville developer Steve W. Whalen Jr. pleaded guilty Thursday in Baltimore County Circuit Court to five counts of election-law violations for illegally funneling money to a county councilman's campaign and exceeding political contribution limits. Whalen, 62, was fined $53,000 in a plea agreement worked out by his attorneys and state prosecutors. He already has paid $5,000 in civil fines related to the case, his lawyer said. Each count had carried a potential of one year in prison.

An Ellicott City man was arrested Friday in connection with a string of Christmastime burglaries, Howard County police said. Kenneth William Vollmerhausen, 28, of the 8500 block of High Ridge Road, had been on probation after pleading guilty on Dec. 4 to a Carroll County first-degree burglary when he allegedly broke into several Howard County homes between Dec. 17 and Thursday and stole jewelry, police said. Vollmerhausen is awaiting trial after having been indicted in Howard County Circuit Court for two first-degree burglaries last April.

An Upper Marlboro mortgage broker has admitted to inflating her clients' incomes so that they would qualify for larger mortgage loans - a scheme that caused lenders to lose more than $1.3 million, officials said. Licensed mortgage broker and the owner of the Newgate Mortgage company, Shola Risikat Balogun, pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with a plot she led to make money off loan origination fees, commissions and other premiums, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office for Maryland.

A Middle River woman was sentenced Thursday in Baltimore County Circuit Court for her role in the death of a Dundalk man whose body turned up in April after he had been missing for months. Carollyn Robin Duschl, 29, who pleaded guilty as in accessory 57-year-old Jeffrey Jennings' death, received five years in prison — with half of it suspended — followed by five years of supervised probation. John Joseph Leschefsky, 27, also of Middle River, was convicted of second degree murder in Jennings death.

A traveling hospital worker accused of stealing pain-killing drugs, contaminating syringes and infecting dozens of patients with hepatitis C pleaded not guilty to the charges in New Hampshire federal court Monday. David Kwiatkowski, 33, who was trained in Michigan as a radiologic technologist before beginning his work as a hired temporary worker in hospitals across the country — including four in Maryland — has been described as a "serial infector" by prosecutors and an addict by investigators.

A Baltimore man admitted Thursday that he killed his half-brother after he and his father found out that his half-brother was romantically involved with the mother of his 7-year-old son, Anne Arundel County prosecutors said, Cornelius Keith Johnson, 25, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court. He fatally shot Andrew "Drew" Johnson — the two had the same mother — on Nov. 13, 2011, in the parking lot of Mo's Seafood, a Glen Burnie restaurant. According to prosecutors, he no longer had a romantic relationship with Ashley Smith, with whom he had a 7-year-old son. However, Smith and Drew Johnson had secretly become romantically involved last fall, prosecutors said.

A Churchville man will spend up to 14 months in jail after pleading guilty Monday to a drinking and driving offense and one count of possession of marijuana in connection with a December 2011 traffic accident in northern Harford County that killed a Pennsylvania man. Charles Robert Creaney, 23, of the 2900 block of Northern Dancer Drive, pleaded guilty in Harford County Circuit Court in Bel Air to one count of negligent homicide by motor vehicle while...