Prison Term

NEW YORK - Speaking in a light-bathed room where her media company holds meetings and photo shoots, Martha Stewart said yesterday that she would voluntarily begin serving her five-month prison term because she wanted to put the "nightmare" of her stock scandal behind her. "I suppose the best word to use for this very harsh and difficult decision is finality," Stewart, 63, told reporters gathered for a news conference at the Chelsea offices of the company...

The last of three white men accused of attacking a black fisherman in 2009 was given an 85-year prison sentence Wednesday, with all but 10 years suspended. Zachary D. Watson, 19, averted a trial by pleading guilty to four charges — armed carjacking, robbery with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit assault and committing a hate crime — with the understanding that he would receive a limited term of incarceration. But Baltimore Circuit Judge Lynn K. Stewart sternly warned Watson that she would make sure he serves the remaining 75 years of the sentence if he commits any offenses during a five-year probationary period after his release.

Perry Roark, the co-founder and "supreme commander" of notorious prison gang Dead Man Inc., pleaded guilty to federal racketeering and related murder and drug charges this week, accepting a life sentence as part of the deal. Some of the charges would have made him eligible for the death penalty. The 43-year-old, who was rearraigned in U.S. District Court in Baltimore during an unpublicized hearing Thursday, has been incarcerated since he came of age. State prison is what he knows and where he built DMI into a militarized group of organized killers and enforcers who trade lives for heroin, a gang expert said.

Roan S. Faulkner, a Pentecostal bishop who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a parishioner after she had come to him for advice on a family matter, was given a suspended 18-month prison sentence Wednesday in Baltimore County Circuit Court. During the investigation into his conduct with the 43-year-old parishioner, three other women associated with Faulkner's New Life Pentecostal Ministries in Catonsville told authorities that the bishop had made physical advances toward them, although none of those acts rose to the level of the attack on the parishioner, whom he forced to perform a sexual act and tried to rape, according to prosecutors.

Donnie Andrews' life is one that David Simon and Ed Burns would have had to invent if he hadn't already lived it. "I am the real Omar," Andrews tells me by way of introduction, referring to how he was the inspiration for the ruthless yet moral stickup man in the Simon and Burns HBO series "The Wire. " Omar Little didn't make it through "The Wire's" five-season arc. He was shot to death in the final season — as was a member of his crew, Donnie, who was played by Andrews himself in a bit part.

An Anne Arundel County judge who four years ago shortened the 15-year prison term of a man who had sexually assaulted two girls, ages 5 and 9, ordered the man this week to serve the remaining years of the prison term. Karl L. Johnson, 25, of Severna Park pleaded guilty Monday to violating his probation, according to court records. He was convicted this year in District Court in connection with two domestic cases, a spokeswoman for the state's attorney's office said. Prosecutors criticized Circuit Judge Ronald A. Silkworth in 1999 for releasing Johnson early from prison, where he was serving seven years of a 15-year sentence for rape and battery, and placing him on home detention.

Officer David Reeping was sentenced Tuesday to eight months in federal prison for his role in a kickback scheme that ensnared more than 60 officers over two years, according to trial testimony, and led to 16 criminal convictions within the Baltimore Police Department, along with numerous suspensions. Reeping was the first to be federally sentenced in the scandal, which involved officers illegally referring the owners of broken-down and damaged vehicles to a Rosedale body shop in exchange for cash.

Three members of a Maryland family — a father and two of his children — were federally indicted this week on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud for allegedly overbilling the National Security Agency by nearly $1.5 million. William Turley, 70, of Annapolis; Donald Turley, 53, of Owings Mills; and Christina Turley Knott, 50, of Edgewater are all charged with the conspiracy, which carries a maximum 20-year prison term. The scheme involved inflating the hours their employees worked for the NSA, according to the indictment.

A West Baltimore man captured on video attacking a police officer on New Year's Eve was convicted of second-degree assault last month in a rare bit of swift justice in the city. Manuel Imel, 40, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, with all but one year of the term suspended, for tackling an officer who was in the middle of arresting a second man. A recording of the incident was widely viewed online at WorldStarHipHop.com. It shows two officers trying to handcuff a man in the street as a crowd watches, apparently upset.

The second of two men accused in a road rage shooting on Interstate 95 last year has been convicted of gun and drug charges related to the incident, but acquitted of more serious assault charges. A Howard County jury took three hours Tuesday to find James C. Soresi, 29, of Oxon Hill, not guilty of first-degree assault, second-degree assault, reckless endangerment and felony handgun use - charges that could have resulted in a lengthy prison term. The jury found Soresi guilty of transporting a handgun in a vehicle and possession of marijuana; the two charges combined carry a maximum penalty of four years in prison, prosecutors said.