Reckless Endangerment

Marta Bradley and Alan Bruce Chmurny had been work friends for nearly two years - lunching together, shopping for a dog - when he placed a mock performance evaluation in her mailbox at Oceanix Biosciences Corp. in Hanover. Among the comments that concerned her most in the February 1997 document, Chmurny had written, "Caught her friend's life with a caring heart when everything he had found was taken away in an instant. To this day she has not let it fall and break," Bradley said yesterday during the first day of testimony in Chmurny's trial on charges of assault, reckless endangerment and malicious destruction.

A Baltimore mother pleaded guilty yesterday in Circuit Court to reckless endangerment for chaining her 15-year-old daughter to a bed in June. Tia Whitehead, 34, could receive up to five years in prison when she is sentenced. Whitehead's boyfriend, Samuel Pounds, 30, is scheduled for trial in the same case Dec. 1. He faces charges of child abuse, reckless endangerment and false imprisonment. Police said the couple chained Kenya Lincoln to her bed for 60 hours without food or water because of bad marks on her report card.

A 20-year-old Elkridge man accused of killing an 18-year-old Long Reach High School senior during a surprise birthday party at the Courtyard By Marriott hotel in Columbia was indicted yesterday on murder and assault charges. A Howard County grand jury returned a 14-count indictment charging Shamal I. Chapman of the 6700 block of Old Waterloo Road with one count each of first-degree murder and handgun use, two counts of attempted first-degree murder, three counts of first-degree assault and seven counts of reckless endangerment.

A 19-year-old Stevensville man was sentenced to three years in prison yesterday after pleading guilty to theft and reckless endangerment in Carroll County Circuit Court.Jeffrey James Taylor was one of three teen-agers charged in April with bursting into the Carrolltown Veterinary Hospital and forcing an employee to place 15 bottles of Ketamine in a bag. Court records said the youths used a toy Uzi gun to frighten employees.Ketamine, a sleep-inducing drug commonly used as an anesthetic, can be converted from liquid to a powder form and snorted or smoked.

Lawyers for two Talbot County women convicted of reckless endangerment after their babies were born with cocaine in their systems argued before Maryland's highest court yesterday that using criminal law to regulate the conduct of pregnant women is unconstitutional and potentially harmful to both mother and child. The state held in both cases that the women, Kelly Lynn Cruz and Regina Kilmon, had violated Maryland's reckless endangerment statute, and that the prosecutions were a tool for protecting children.

A 30-year-old Westminster woman was sentenced to 10 years in prison for setting fire to her apartment in Taneytown, causing $257,000 in damage to the building. Carroll Circuit Judge Michael M. Galloway found Tammy Spellman of the 100 block of E. Main St. guilty of three counts of first-degree arson and one count of reckless endangerment in connection with the fire at 40 E. Baltimore St. on Aug. 1, 1998. "The callous disregard for the people living in this building is just mind-boggling," Galloway said.

A 21-year-old man has been sentenced to five years in jail for a racially motivated attack in Highlandtown last year. Daniel Porter was sentenced to 15 years, with all but five suspended, for the July attack on Herbert E. Jennings, a black man who was walking with his white girlfriend. City Circuit Court Judge Robert I.H. Hammerman also sentenced Porter to four years for reckless endangerment and three years for racial harassment, to be served concurrently with the assault sentence. Jennings was severely injured when he was chased into the path of a truck.

A Frederick County man pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment and carrying a handgun in the commission of a felony yesterday for his role in a Jan. 8 drive-by shooting in Mount Airy.Carroll Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. sentenced Stephen Wayne Knight, 34, of Lawson's Trailer Park in New Market, to 18 months in the county jail. He will be allowed to spend his days on work release.A Carroll County grand jury returned indictments in January against Knight and David William Doolittle, 29, of the 16000 block of Moss Meadow Way in Mount Airy.

Mount Airy gun dealer Amir H. Tabassi was found guilty by a jury last night of keeping loaded weapons in his home within arm's reach of a sleeping 12-year-old girl. Jurors deliberated three hours after a three-day trial in Carroll County Circuit Court before returning the verdict against Tabassi, 55 -- convicting him on most of the charges lodged by state police after officers with a search warrant seized 111 weapons and firearm accessories at his home Aug. 5. State police testified during the trial that they found unsecured weapons on a bed and in closets, dresser drawers and a duffel bag. Tabassi had been charged with 11 counts of allowing a child access to loaded firearms, one count of reckless endangerment and one count of carrying a weapon in a vehicle -- all misdemeanors.

A pharmacist accused of accidentally drugging three newborns with morphine at Anne Arundel Medical Center in January was placed on probation but avoided a criminal conviction yesterday in Anne Arundel Circuit Court.Susan E. Kron, 46, was given probation before judgment and ordered by Judge Raymond G. Thieme Jr. to serve 30 days of unsupervised probation.She was found guilty of practicing pharmacy without a license, ++ but the conviction will be stricken from the court record after she completes probation, Assistant State's Attorney Michael Bergeson said.