Prison Sentence

A former Glen Burnie High School English teacher faces the possibility of spending up to 10 years in prison after entered pleas Friday to charges that he had sexual encounters with female students, said a spokeswoman for Anne Arundel County prosecutors. Jeffrey Robert Sears Jr., 30, of Glen Burnie, was charged in December with having sexual activity over two years with three students who were ages 15 and 16 – including intercourse in his classroom, car and bedroom, with a sexual encounter with one girl in a school stairwell.

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 Gwynn Oak man was given a suspended three-year sentence on Friday for a hit-and-run accident that injured two Johns Hopkins University students in May, prosecutors said. Thomas D. Green, 37, was impaired by alcohol when he struck students Benjamin Zucker and Rachel Cohen just east of Hopkins' Homewood campus last spring, according to a statement Friday from the Office of Baltimore's State's Attorney. Green, of the 1300 block of Vida Drive in Gwynn Oak, hit the students on May 7 near the intersection of St. Paul and 33rd Streets.

Penalties for possessing small amounts of marijuana in Maryland — less than 10 grams — will drop in October, when a new law goes into effect reducing the maximum prison term to 90 days from one year and cutting the potential fine in half, to $500 from $1000. Baltimore State's Attorney Gregg Bernstein backed the bill, which was signed into law Wednesday, as a way to reduce the number of cases clogging the city's circuit courts. "To continue making Baltimore safer, we must focus our limited resources on the strategic investigation and aggressive prosecution of violent offenders," Bernstein said in a statement.

Philip Berrigan is the great enduring figure of resistance to his admirers, who gather at his trials like a vast extended family. He is the non-patriarchal patriarch of a clan whose totem might be the dove of peace. A kind of shudder ripples through his supporters in the courtroom when Judge James T. Smith sentences Berrigan to 30 months in prison with the crisp dispatch with which he imposes a life sentence on a murderer. Berrigan is 76 years old, so you ask Elizabeth McAlister, his wife of 31 years, if she's ever thought he might die in jail, perhaps alone.

A woman accused of helping oversee the prison-based Black Guerilla Family gang was sentenced to five years in federal prison, federal authorities announced Thursday. Kimberly McIntosh, 43, of Baltimore, enforced gang discipline, helped oversee drug trafficking, and hosted meetings of high-ranking members at her home, where leaders discussed drug-dealing, robberies and retaliation against rivals. Prosecutors allege she came up with a plan to have street commanders of the BGF raise $3,000 from lower-level members, with the funds transferred into a central "treasury.

Baltimore attorney Stanley Needleman was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison as prosecutors made new accusations that he cashed checks from drug dealers at liquor stores and posted bail for a client. Needleman, whose law career spanned more than three decades, pleaded guilty in September to tax evasion and currency structuring charges, months after agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration raided his downtown law office and Pikesville home and found $1.15 million in unreported income inside two safes.

I believe the five-year prison sentence imposed on 19-year-old Teonna Brown, who savagely attacked Chrissy Lee Polis at a Rosedale McDonald's, was too light ("A just sentence," Sept. 15). What's worse is that if Ms. Brown had made such an attack on a non-transgender person, the sentence would have been even lighter. Do we really need two levels of justice? Kenneth F. Waters, Ocean Pines

A Baltimore social worker was given a suspended prison sentence Wednesday for her role in a protest at the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Columbia.Maureen Kehoe Ostensen, 33, was given a 90-day prison sentence after being found guilty in Howard District Court of trespassing.Judge James Vaughan suspended the sentence but ordered Ms. Ostensen to complete one year of unsupervised probation and pay court costs of $50.But Ms. Ostensen refused to pay the court costs, so Judge Vaughan ordered her to serve five days in jail.

A Harford County man convicted of crack and cocaine distribution was linked to the shooting death of a confidential drug informant during a sentencing hearing yesterday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore. Gary B. Williams Jr., 28, of Abingdon was convicted on three counts of drug distribution in December. The key witness in the drug case was Robin Lee Welshons, an informant who was cooperating with federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents by making recorded telephone calls and buying drugs from Williams in 2005, court records showed.

A former Glen Burnie High School English teacher faces the possibility of spending up to 10 years in prison after entered pleas Friday to charges that he had sexual encounters with female students, said a spokeswoman for Anne Arundel County prosecutors. Jeffrey Robert Sears Jr., 30, of Glen Burnie, was charged in December with having sexual activity over two years with three students who were ages 15 and 16 – including intercourse in his classroom, car and bedroom, with a sexual encounter with one girl in a school stairwell.

A 36-year-old man from a tiny, unincorporated town in Western Maryland with two prior convictions for sexually abusing children has been sentenced to more than three decades in prison for advertising child pornography on the Internet. Matthew Sluss, of Rawlings, in Allegany County, will be on supervised release for the rest of his life once he serves his 33 year federal prison sentence, according to the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office. "Two prior convictions for sexually abusing children did not deter Matthew Sluss from using the Internet to contact other pedophiles and produce child pornography," Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said in a statement.

A Gwynn Oak man was given a suspended three-year sentence on Friday for a hit-and-run accident that injured two Johns Hopkins University students in May, prosecutors said. Thomas D. Green, 37, was impaired by alcohol when he struck students Benjamin Zucker and Rachel Cohen just east of Hopkins' Homewood campus last spring, according to a statement Friday from the Office of Baltimore's State's Attorney. Green, of the 1300 block of Vida Drive in Gwynn Oak, hit the students on May 7 near the intersection of St. Paul and 33rd Streets.

A truck driver who killed a Stevenson University professor and seriously injured her two sons in a 2010 crash on the Ohio Turnpike was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison. Douglas Bouch, 49, of Greenville, Pa., pleaded guilty in county court to aggravated vehicular homicide in the death of Susan Slattery, 47, who was returning to Cockeysville with her sons after visiting relatives. Police say Bouch fell asleep and his triple-tractor trailer smashed into Slattery's car and careened into five other vehicles just outside Cleveland.

A woman accused of helping oversee the prison-based Black Guerilla Family gang was sentenced to five years in federal prison, federal authorities announced Thursday. Kimberly McIntosh, 43, of Baltimore, enforced gang discipline, helped oversee drug trafficking, and hosted meetings of high-ranking members at her home, where leaders discussed drug-dealing, robberies and retaliation against rivals. Prosecutors allege she came up with a plan to have street commanders of the BGF raise $3,000 from lower-level members, with the funds transferred into a central "treasury.

A former Glen Burnie man now serving a 50-year prison sentence for a Montgomery County robbery has been charged in the 2006 slaying of a former federal officer in an Odenton parking lot. William Lloyd McDonald, 31, was indicted on charges of first-degree murder, armed robbery and related weapons counts in the death of Benjamin Howard Curtis III. McDonald could receive up to life in prison if convicted. The Dec. 16 indictment was unsealed when handed to him Monday in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court.

Howard Bedford is a 73-year-old blind man on a fixed income. Eunice Douglas is a single mother of two living on her handicapped daughter's disability allowance. Sharon Epps is a nurse's aide supporting three children on $8 an hour. They don't know each other, but federal documents allege that they're linked in a most unfortunate way. Court papers say they and others were fleeced of part of their life savings by Deborah Kolodner, one of Maryland's most notorious and relentless swindlers, whose reputed appetite for wealth has again put federal agents on her trail.

A federal judge in Baltimore yesterday sentenced an Afghan national living in Maryland to almost two years in prison for filing false documents in his immigration case. U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis sentenced Nabi Nabil, 30, of Brandywine to 22 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for conspiracy to obstruct proceedings before a United States agency. Nabil is subject to deportation proceedings after he serves his prison sentence, prosecutors said. According to his guilty plea, Nabil applied for status as a permanent resident but lied about his marital status.

Baltimore attorney Stanley Needleman was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison as prosecutors made new accusations that he cashed checks from drug dealers at liquor stores and posted bail for a client. Needleman, whose law career spanned more than three decades, pleaded guilty in September to tax evasion and currency structuring charges, months after agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration raided his downtown law office and Pikesville home and found $1.15 million in unreported income inside two safes.

On behalf of the U.S. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association, I want to express my sympathies to the officers who were injured in the accident caused by William Leapley's actions back in January ("Man gets 12 years in prison," Oct. 9). Their lives have been changed forever. The officers mentioned in the article in The Sun are, however, not the only victims in this occurrence. Mr. Leapley himself is a victim - of both the public mental health system and the judicial system. Given his multiple physical and psychological disabilities, it is difficult to understand how he could be considered competent to stand trial, much less how serving 12 years in prison would help him. Involuntary commitment represents an abject failure of the public mental health system to provide the assistance that is an essential part of our nation's commitment to a social safety net. Given access to appropriate treatments and support systems, individuals recovering from mental illnesses are able to successfully live and work in the community.