Second Trial

When five law enforcement officers turned up on Walter Abbott's doorstep in Parkville barely two hours after he sent what prosecutors said was a threatening email to Gov. Martin O'Malley, his face turned ashen. It was as though he had seen a ghost, Sgt. Adam Stachurski, a member of the state police's Criminal Intelligence Section, told a jury in Baltimore County Circuit Court. "His hands went to his face, kind of in dismay. " Walter Abbott, a 47-year-old construction worker, stood trial Tuesday for the second time on charges of making a threat of bodily injury to a public official, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison.

The second trial for a Baltimore City police officer accused of illegally taping a conversation with a judge has been postponed until August. Prosecutors say Sgt. Carlos M. Vila, 46, violated Maryland's wiretap laws when he recorded a conversation between himself and District Court Judge Joan B. Gordon as they sparred over the urgency of a warrant application in a shooting investigation. But Vila's attorney, Catherine Flynn, argued that he only intended to record himself and captured the judge's voice by accident.

Carroll County prosecutors can pursue a second prosecution -- the first ended in a mistrial -- against a Westminster man accused of sexually abusing his 17-year-old stepson, a county judge ruled Tuesday.In denying the man's request for dismissal of the charges, Circuit Judge Raymond E. Beck Sr. paved the way for a second trial.The man's lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Samuel Truette, had argued for the dismissal during a hearing June 22.The lawyer said Assistant State's Attorney Christy McFaul, the prosecutor, "calculated to subvert the process of the first trial" to produce a mistrial.

It took jurors only about an hour Wednesday to find brothers Travers and Tremayne Johnson not guilty of setting a pit bull on fire — a fraction of the 20 hours jurors spent in the twins' first trial, unable to agree on a verdict. Family members were overjoyed. But the not guilty verdicts on the four charges against each brother were bittersweet for the Johnsons and their relatives, who have maintained throughout the trials that the twins are innocent. "That they defamed someone's character at such a young age is very troubling," said Camille Mills, a cousin of the defendants who joined their mother and siblings in court.

An Anne Arundel Circuit Court judge yesterday postponed the second trial of Scotland Williams, who could face the death penalty in the 1994 slayings of two lawyers in their home near Annapolis.Williams, 34, of Arnold was convicted of killing Jose Trias, 49, and Julie Gilbert, 48, prominent Washington lawyers who were found shot to death in their weekend home overlooking the Severn River in May 1994. Williams won a new trial last year when the Court of Appeals ruled that prejudicial evidence was used against him.Williams was scheduled to be tried May 27 in Howard County, where the trial was moved because of pretrial publicity.

Scotland E. Williams' second trial in the slaying of two lawyers in their weekend home near Annapolis will begin Nov. 3.Anne Arundel Circuit Court Judge Pamela L. North scheduled the trial yesterday after a day of legal sparring by defense and prosecution lawyers over what evidence the state should be required to provide to Williams for his defense.North told the lawyers to set aside 17 days for the trial, which has been moved to Howard County Circuit Court at the request of the defense.Williams, 34, of the 800 block of Bradford Ave. in Arnold, is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Jose E. Trias, 49, and Julie Noel Gilbert, 48, who were found shot to death May 16, 1994, in the bedroom of their weekend home at Winchester on the Severn.

A 20-year-old woman accused of burning her daughter in a bathtub filled with scalding water and bleach in 1997 was arrested yesterday for allegedly failing to comply with a plea agreement that would have spared her a second trial on child-abuse charges.The trial of Mary V. Cabassa of Severn is scheduled for late next month.She was to be sentenced yesterday by Howard Circuit Judge Lenore R. Gelfman under a plea agreement reached with prosecutors.Cabassa had pleaded guilty in February to charges of child abuse and second-degree assault, and prosecutors were going to recommend that Cabassa spend 18 months in jail while attending parent classes and undergoing psychological counseling.

A $2.2 million award to a cancer victim who smoked cigarettes with asbestos filters might be reduced depending on the outcome of a new trial. In April 1999, a Baltimore jury awarded more than $2 million to Charles M.P. Connor who was diagnosed with mesothelioma, which is specifically linked to asbestos. Connor received the diagnosis in 1997, more than 35 years after he had stopped smoking. Connor smoked Kent cigarettes, whose "Micronite" filters used to include asbestos, ostensibly to rid the cigarettes of the poisons of nicotine.

Troy White, one of four men charged in the killing of police Sgt. Bruce A. Prothero, will face a jury of eight women and four men when his trial begins next week in Baltimore County Circuit Court. Prosecutors and lawyers for White completed jury selection before Judge John G. Turnbull II yesterday. Turnbull asked jurors to return Monday for the start of the trial, which is expected to run two days. White is the second of four defendants to be tried in the slaying. Donald Antonio White, 19, who is unrelated, was convicted last month of first-degree felony murder, armed robbery and a handgun violation and is to be sentenced Sept.

Rather than risk a second trial, Richard Wayne Brooks pleaded guilty yesterday and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the 1996 killing of a high-ranking member of the Pagans gang who was found dead in his Pasadena home. Brooks, 35, a heroin addict with a history of drug-related offenses, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and apologized for the crime. Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Pamela L. North agreed to the deal that gave Brooks a 20-year prison term with half of it suspended, plus five years probation.

A Dundalk man is not guilty of killing his 89-year-old neighbor, a Baltimore County judge ruled Wednesday after two days of testimony in a 2010 murder case. Michael W. Hester, who was charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing death of Eleanor Marie Haley, said he is eager to rebuild his life. He said he entered Haley's house and found her dead after seeing water coming from her back door. He then called 911. Prosecutors argued during the trial that he killed Haley and turned on the water - a lawn sprinkler - to explain his presence at her home in the 7200 block of York Drive.

A year ago, Gregg Bernstein was a week into his new role as Baltimore's state's attorney, having narrowly unseated the incumbent, who held the job for 15 years. He was a relative unknown, and so self-confident he sometimes bordered on cocky. His friends in private practice, which he left behind to take on the lesser-paying public post, worried he would hate it. On some level, so did he. The prosecutors' offices, split between two halves of the ancient circuit courthouse downtown, were crumbling and rat-infested.

A 34-year-old man charged with killing a well-known dentist in his Glen Burnie officewas convicted on Monday in a separate murder — the fatal shooting of a man in Baltimore over a $150 debt, according to the city state's attorney's office. A jury found Dante Jeter guilty of first-degree murder and two handgun violations. He is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 10 and faces a maximum penalty of life plus 23 years in prison. Prosecutors said Jeter and two other people went into an abandoned house to smoke marijuana on May 4, 2008.

Maryland's highest court overturned the convictions of two men who were found guilty of the murders of three children in a Northwest Baltimore apartment seven years ago, ruling Friday that the trial judge made mistakes that prevented the defendants from receiving a fair trial. In a 4-3 decision, the Court of Appeals said that Baltimore Circuit Judge David B. Mitchell had failed to disclose to attorneys the contents of five "substantive" notes from jurors in the course of the defendants' second trial in 2006.

Whatever the pressures of his city law practice, Robert Lazzaro could count on finding refuge at the end of the day at his home in Jacksonville, where the back deck offered quiet, a hot tub and a woodland view. That changed five years ago after an Exxon station less than a mile away leaked about 25,000 gallons of regular unleaded gasoline into the groundwater, contaminating dozens of wells and casting a shadow of fear over the small community in northern Baltimore County. "It's a constant worry, it's a constant stressor," said Lazzaro.

Whatever the pressures of his city law practice, Robert Lazzaro could count on finding refuge at the end of the day at his home in Jacksonville, where the back deck offered quiet, a hot tub and a woodland view. That changed five years ago after an Exxon station less than a mile away leaked about 25,000 gallons of regular unleaded gasoline into the groundwater, contaminating dozens of wells and casting a shadow of fear over the small community in northern Baltimore County. "It's a constant worry, it's a constant stressor," said Lazzaro.

A former Navy physicist standing trial for the second time on charges that he used the Internet to try to seduce a teen-age girl was convicted yesterday after a federal jury in Baltimore rejected the defendant's claim that he was engaged merely in an online sexual fantasy. Jurors also found George Paul Chambers, 46, guilty of possessing child pornography. Chambers originally stood trial in December 2002, becoming the first defendant in Maryland's federal courts to contest such charges with the argument that he was only role-playing when he exchanged sexually graphic e-mails and photographs with an undercover FBI agent who assumed the online identity of a 13-year-old cheerleader.

To Stanley Lyba, a second trial in the 1987 rape of an 18-year-old woman in a wooded area in Severna Park means a second chance for an acquittal. To the victim, a second trial means enduring another appearance on the witness stand.Lyba, who was granted a new trial after his February 1989 conviction was overturned last year, wore a black suit and, occasionally taking notes, appeared poised as his retrial began yesterday in county Circuit Court. The dark circles under the victim's eyes, on the other hand, gave her the look of a woman who had lost a lot of sleep contemplating her return to the courtroom.

Kenneth D. Perry, who was found guilty in February of killing two women 12 years ago in the presence of two children — one of them his infant son — was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole, plus 50 years. As he was led out of the courtroom, he grinned and began humming a tune. Judge Stuart R. Berger said that in his 13 years on the bench, he had not seen a more "horrific, callous and senseless act of violence," and called it "tragic and gratuitous. " The 45-year-old defendant, notorious for his contentiousness in court, had been convicted in the case once before, in 2001, and given the same sentence, but a judge later determined that a prosecutor had failed to turn over crucial materials to the defense.

A judge declared a mistrial Wednesday after a Baltimore County jury became deadlocked in the case of a construction worker accused of making a death threat against the governor. Walter C. Abbott, 47, who admitted sending Gov. Martin O'Malley a curse-filled email three years ago threatening to strangle him, maintained that it had merely been a ploy to draw attention to the cause of illegal immigration and that his words were protected by the First Amendment. It was Abbott's second trial on the charges.