Probation

Advertisements praising Maryland's new gun control law will appear on Baltimore-area televisions soon after the measure is signed Thursday - the first volley in a two-pronged effort to defend the legislation and the politicians who voted for it. The gun control advocates behind the ads want to bolster support among Maryland voters in case there's a referendum next year. But they also want to counter a campaign to oust lawmakers who backed the bill in the General Assembly. "We know that the other side will be attacking the legislators who voted for it, and we want people to know those legislators were doing the right thing to save lives in Maryland," said Vincent DeMarco, president of Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence.

Baltimore County Councilman Todd Huff was sentenced Tuesday to two years of supervised probation after pleading guilty to driving under the influence. Baltimore County Circuit Judge Timothy Martin also gave Huff a one-year suspended jail sentence. He ordered Huff not to drink alcohol during his probation, and to submit to random urine tests as part of the state's Drinking Driver Monitor Program. He also ordered Huff to complete a 26-week alcohol treatment program that the councilman has already started.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Tears ran down Lionel Tate's cheeks when the 14-year-old left a Broward County courtroom in handcuffs as the youngest American ever sentenced to life in prison. Five years later, after two squandered chances at freedom, Tate calmly walked out of the same courtroom after being sentenced yesterday to 30 years in prison for violating his probation for the murder of first-grader Tiffany Eunick. The 19-year-old briefly covered his face as his sentence was handed down, but there were no tears this time after listening to a judge's strong words.

Detectives in Aberdeen received a tip they hoped would be their big break: A prisoner seeking leniency said he knew the man who abducted the mother of Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr. But nearly nine months after the bizarre kidnapping, no suspect has been identified and police still don't know of a motive in the case, in which Violet R. Ripken was taken from her home by an unknown assailant and safely returned nearly 24 hours later. Michael Wayne Molitor claimed last year to know what happened and gave police a name; in return, police helped persuade a judge to grant him bail after a string of drug offenses.

A 38-year-old city man, who shot into a crowd two decades ago killing two people, was sentenced to 10 years in prison Tuesday for violating probation  by assaulting an officer and again brandishing a firearm in public, the Baltimore State's Attorney's Office announced. Ronald Brady Jr. was released from prison in May of 2011, after serving nearly 19 years for murder and illegal handgun use. On Christmas, he was arrested again for pointing a gun at a group of people outside a northeast Baltimore bar then scuffling with police, who recovered the firearm and drugs from him, prosecutors said.

Former Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon could face the loss of her city pension — and possibly prison time — after being charged with a probation violation connected to a plea deal she struck on perjury and theft allegations. Dixon was $13,640 behind on payments toward a $45,000 charitable donation she agreed to make as part of the deal, according to records maintained by the state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. The new legal trouble threatens to derail what some had speculated was a nascent political comeback by the former mayor.

The commission that awards accreditation to higher education institutions has placed Baltimore City Community College on probation because of concerns about the school's ability to evaluate student learning. The Middle States Commission on Higher Education last month announced that it will review the school's accreditation after questions were raised over the "assessment of student learning" which "demonstrates that, at graduation, or other appropriate points, the institution's students have knowledge, skills, and competencies consistent with institutional and appropriate higher education goals," according to the commission's website.

An Anne Arundel County high school teacher was sentenced Wednesday to three years of supervised probation after pleading guilty to a fourth-degree sex offense involving a 17-year-old student. Kristyn N. Breeds, 29, who was a special education teacher and indoor track coach at Northeast High School in Pasadena, admitted to a sexual relationship that began in the spring of 2009 and ended in December, prosecutors said. The Severna Park woman was removed from the classroom on Jan. 4 and charged 10 days later with three counts of a fourth-degree sex offense.

An elderly Pennsylvania woman was sentenced this week to two years of probation and community service in the hit-and-run death of an 11-year-old boy from Baltimore last year. Fern Ness, 79, pleaded guilty Wednesday to a misdemeanor charge in the Memorial Day weekend death of Derek Johnson II in York County, Pa. Investigators said the boy was thrown more than 60 feet after Ness hit him as he was riding his bicycle near Jacobus. Prosecutors said Derek slid into Ness' path while trying to stop his bike at an intersection.

The teenager charged in the daylight abduction of a man from in front of his Guilford home this week is on probation for robbing a woman at knifepoint in the same North Baltimore neighborhood in 2008, a crime for which he served just one year in prison, according to court records. On June 18, a Circuit Court judge agreed to a deal struck between a prosecutor and a public defender in which John Couplin pleaded guilty to one count of robbery with a deadly weapon and a sentence of 10 years in prison.

A Severn mother who, despite a poison center's admonition to get her son to a hospital immediately, waited until her child began having a seizure from sipping his father's methadone, was placed on three years' probation Friday. Kimberly Brooks, 28, feared a huge hospital bill and so waited to see if the condition of her five-year-old son, who had vomited, would improve - a decision that nearly cost the child his life last Sept. 4, Anne Arundel County prosecutor Sandra Howell told Circuit Court Judge Paul A. Hackner.

Former Mayor Sheila Dixon plans to kick off a local foundation's speaker series next month as she weighs a possible return to politics, having completed probation on the criminal conviction that forced her from office. "This is the year I'm going to decide," Dixon said of her desire to run for office again. "I'm not going to hide the fact that I enjoyed what I was doing during my 27 years in public office. " Dixon, who in 2009 was convicted of stealing gift cards intended for the poor, is scheduled to launch this year's Associated Black Charities speaker series April 16. The series, now it its fourth year, also will feature talks in subsequent months by former Legg Mason CEO Mark Fetting and Robert M. Bell, the chief judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals.

Carl Snowden, the former director of the Office of Civil Rights at the Maryland Attorney General's Office, reported to jail Friday morning to begin a 10-day sentence for violating probation on a drunk-driving conviction. Retired Judge Diane O. Leasure found March 11 that Snowden, 59, had violated probation in his 2010 drunken driving case in Anne Arundel County because he had been convicted last year of possession of marijuana in Baltimore City. She ordered him to begin his jail term on April 12, but Snowden received permission to begin Friday.

Does John Leopold have Sheila Dixon to blame? He'll have plenty of time — 30 days to be specific — to contemplate such a cosmic question, as the former Anne Arundel County executive serves out the surprise prison sentence he received Thursday for misconduct in office. The not-quite-hanging judge who found him guilty on two counts of misconduct and ordered him locked up was Dennis Sweeney, who in 2009 presided over the trial of another public official gone wrong: former Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon.

Carl O. Snowden, the former director of the Office of Civil Rights in the Maryland Attorney General's Office, has been ordered jailed for violating probation in an Anne Arundel County drunken driving case, according to court records. Snowden, 59, a longtime civil rights activist, was ordered Monday to spend 10 days in the Anne Arundel County jail, beginning April 12. Retired Judge Diane O. Leasure found that Snowden had violated probation in his 2010 drunken driving case because he had been convicted last year of possession of marijuana in Baltimore City, according to Henry P. Dove, chief trial counsel in the State's Attorney's Office in Talbot County.

Saying John R. Leopold committed "an arrogant abuse of power" by ordering police and other government workers to perform personal and political chores for him, prosecutors are asking a judge to fine the former Anne Arundel County executive $100,000 and sentence him to five years probation and 500 hours of community service. The recommendation by State Prosecutor Emmet C. Davitt comes in a document filed Monday in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court, where Leopold, 70, is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday by Judge Dennis M. Sweeney on two misdemeanor counts of misconduct in office.

The Middle States Commission on Higher Education removed Baltimore City Community College from probation on Friday after the college made progress in assessing student performance. If the college had not made changes, the Middle States Commission could have yanked the school's accreditation. Last July, Middle States said BCCC lacked any comprehensive method for assessing student achievement. The president, Carolane Williams, said in a statement that "the challenges from MSCHE have enabled BCCC to emerge as a stronger institution.

For the second time in eight years, Carl O. Snowden, current director of the civil rights office in the state attorney general's office, received probation before judgment for drunken driving, and questions have been raised illegalities. "I'm going to have to figure it out myself," said prosecutor Henry Dove. The Talbot County assistant state's attorney was assigned to the Anne Arundel County case because Snowden, a former Annapolis alderman and aide to the previous county executive, has long been involved in civil rights and politics in the county and had worked with the Anne Arundel prosecutor's office.

Former Maryland congressional candidate Wendy W. Rosen pleaded guilty Friday to voting illegally in two elections and will serve five years probation and pay a $5,000 fine. The 58-year-old Rosen, who won a Democratic primary last year to challenge Republican Rep. Andy Harris in Maryland's 1st Congressional District, cast ballots in 2006 and 2010 in Baltimore County even though her legal residence was in Florida. The revelation last September ended her run. The sentence is the result of a plea agreement with the Office of the State Prosector.

The final conspirator in the theft of large amounts of copper wire from Aberdeen Proving Ground was sentenced last week in Federal District Court in Baltimore. Steven Coale, 34, of North East, was sentenced to three years of supervised probation, including eight months to be spent on home detention, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Baltimore. During the Feb. 21 sentencing, Coale was also ordered by U.S. District Court Judge William D. Quarles Jr. to forfeit $56,000 he received from the theft scheme.