State Prison

An Anne Arundel County grand jury indicted yesterday the two convicts accused of escaping last month from a state prison in Jessup and the former prison psychologist suspected of helping them.Elizabeth L. Feil, 43, of Annapolis was indicted on two counts each of being an accessory to escape after the fact and harboring an escaped prisoner. Convicted armed robber Byron L. Smoot, 38, with whom Feil is alleged to have had an affair and who was serving 29 years, was indicted on one count of escape.

The deadly shooting that claimed the lives of five women on Sunday has escalated into a violent, revenge-filled struggle over drugs as police linked a sixth body to the case and detectives found a suspect with his throat slashed.Police have in custody two of the four men wanted in the execution-style slayings of a grandmother, her daughter, granddaughter and two friends -- all found shot inside a Northeast Baltimore rowhouse.And as officers scour the streets in search of the two others, more revelations are surfacing in one of the city's worst mass killings.

An Anne Arundel County grand jury indicted yesterday the two convicts accused of escaping last month from a state prison in Jessup and the former prison psychologist suspected of helping them.Elizabeth L. Feil, 43, of Annapolis was indicted on two counts each of being an accessory to escape after the fact and harboring an escaped prisoner. Convicted armed robber Byron L. Smoot, 38, with whom Feil is alleged to have had an affair and who was serving 29 years, was indicted on one count of escape.

FRACKVILLE, Pa. -- In the 1950s, Charles Brayford's walk home from school took him past one of the humming textile mills in this tiny Schuylkill County borough. There, he'd see 40 or 50 men who, having lost their jobs when the coal mines closed, were waiting to pick up their wives.By the early '80s, most of the textile industry had vanished, too. Younger people either moved away or commuted long hours to work in Harrisburg or Allentown.Now that sad slide into hard times seems, in the mid-'90s, to be over.

A former high-ranking state health official who is serving 10 years in prison for burglarizing homes throughout suburban Baltimore is expected to testify against a Westminster man accused of a 1993 killing.John M. Staubitz Jr., once the second-highest ranking member of the state health department, is a witness for the prosecution in the murder trial of Roy Monroe Robertson that is to begin today in Carroll Circuit Court.While neither prosecutors nor Mr. Robertson's public defender would divulge what Staubitz might testify, sources said last week that the former health official and Mr. Robertson served time in the same jail in recent months.

A 55-year-old Westminster man was sentenced yesterday to three years in the Carroll County Detention Center for sexually assaulting his wife and videotaping the attack when she passed out after he got her drunk.The man's wife, daughter and minister asked Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. for leniency, saying they were convinced that the defendant has reformed and that he has been going to counseling with his wife.Judge Burns answered their pleas by saying he would not send the man to state prison. Instead, the man will serve his term on work release.

A former high-ranking state health official who is serving 10 years in prison for burglarizing homes throughout suburban Baltimore is expected to testify against a Westminster man accused of a 1993 killing.John M. Staubitz Jr., once the second-highest ranking member of the state health department, is a witness for the prosecution in the murder trial of Roy Monroe Robertson that is to begin today in Carroll Circuit Court.While neither prosecutors nor Mr. Robertson's public defender would divulge what Staubitz might testify, sources said last week that the former health official and Mr. Robertson served time in the same jail in recent months.

Terrence G. Johnson, convicted of killing a Prince George's County police officer in 1979, says state prison officials denied him parole in 1991 because they were overly concerned about the negative publicity that might accompany his release.Lawyers for the state Parole Commission say no one ever promised Johnson that he would be paroled before his mandatory release date, July 6, 1997.Now, a hearing before Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Warren B. Duckett Jr. could end tomorrow with a decision to release Johnson.

State taxpayers are shelling out $16 million to demolish the South Wing of the Maryland Penitentiary and replace it with a minimum security prison, when another plan would have cost $6 million less and preserved the century-old building in East Baltimore.State public safety chief Bishop L. Robinson is the chief proponent of razing the South Wing, which was closed in December 1991, a year after an inmate fell through a crumbling slate floor and landed on a tier. State prison officials insist the building must go because it does not meet "modern correctional standards."

The state prison system ended the year the way it started -- overcrowded, despite adding almost 1,700 new beds for prisoners.The state prison population grew by almost 100 each month in 1991, ending the year at 18,770."

The court records read like a scene out of Goodfellas: From their prison cells and with the help of corrections staff, authorities say, members of a violent gang were feasting on salmon and shrimp, sipping Grey Goose vodka and puffing fine cigars - all while directing drug deals, extorting protection money from other inmates and arranging attacks on witnesses and rival gang members. A seven-month investigation that included wiretaps on contraband prison cell phones led to the indictment on drug and weapons charges of 24 people - including four state prison officers - who authorities believe are leaders or associates of the Black Guerrilla Family prison gang, officials announced Thursday.

The state Board of Public Works has approved a $500,000 settlement for the family of an inmate killed in 2004 while officers attempted to subdue him using pepper spray at a Western Maryland prison. The family of Ifeanyi A. Iko had been seeking $28 million in a federal wrongful death lawsuit, which will now be dismissed. The settlement - thought to be one of the largest Maryland awards in a prisoner death or injury case - was approved at Wednesday's board meeting. Gary Adler, the Iko family's attorney, said the settlement also includes a condition that the prison system revisit policies related to Iko's death.

A 24-year-old Baltimore man died Wednesday night after correctional officers at Central Booking and Intake Center found him unconscious in a shower, state prison officials said. Thomas Moylan was transported to University of Maryland Medical Center about 6 p.m. and was pronounced dead later that evening, according to Mark A. Vernarelli, a state prison spokesman. Vernarelli said there was no sign of trauma or foul play. But the inmate's mother said her son called her Monday and complained that prison officials were not giving him proper medical treatment.

State prison officials said yesterday they have launched a criminal investigation into allegations that eight correctional officers assaulted several inmates at a maximum-security prison - the second case of possible abuse to emerge at a Western Maryland prison this month. The officers from the North Branch Correctional Institution in Cumberland have been placed on administrative leave and face possible termination, prison officials said yesterday. The Maryland State Police are leading a criminal inquiry into the case, prison authorities said.

Organized crime was once synonymous with the Mafia. Not anymore, and there's no better example of what law enforcement is up against today than the alleged criminal enterprise described in a federal indictment unsealed Monday in Baltimore. The membership of the Bloods' Tree Top Piru may differ by race, locale and ethnicity from La Cosa Nostra, but criminal activity, violence and murder are their shared pursuits. The indictment against 28 alleged Bloods members is a primer on gang culture, its origins and its prevalence in state prisons.

Ronald Lee Moore was freed from prison and walked out of the Baltimore City Correctional Center on a late November day, after serving time on assault and burglary convictions. But Moore was supposed to remain jailed, after having been linked through DNA to a 1999 sexual assault involving a cattle prod. He had been indicted last spring in Anne Arundel County on charges stemming from that assault, and a judge had ordered that he be held without bond. Police are searching for Moore, 40, a former crack addict who has been arrested more than a dozen times for theft, burglary and breaking and entering.

One visit to the Maryland House of Correction in Jessup in February and new Corrections Secretary Gary D. Maynard knew it shouldn't remain a maximum-security prison. But when a correctional officer was stabbed on March 2, Maynard concluded that the facility built in 1878 needed to be shut down immediately - and Gov. Martin O'Malley quickly agreed. State prison officials have been complaining about the poor conditions, unsafe design and deteriorating structure of the House of Correction for at least 50 years.

Maryland lost about $3.5 million during the past four years because state prison administrators didn't charge the federal government enough to cover the cost of housing federal prisoners, according to a legislative audit released yesterday. The daily reimbursement rate of $132 has remained unchanged since 1999 even though the cost to house federal inmates at the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center in Baltimore has risen to $162, auditors wrote. The audit suggested that state corrections officials renegotiate the federal contract each year to fully recover such costs.

The Baltimore branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has requested an emergency meeting with state prison officials after one man was recently stabbed to death at the city's adult jail and a recently disclosed report by the U.S. Department of Justice highlighted problems at the city's juvenile jail. Marvin L. "Doc" Cheatham Sr., president of the city NAACP chapter, said he requested a meeting with the secretaries of the state's Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, which oversees state prisons and Baltimore jails, and the Department of Juveniles Services, which oversees a juvenile jail in the city.

The recent stabbing death of correctional officer David McGuinn has brought renewed attention to Maryland's prison system - where violence among inmates and toward officers, lax security and staff shortages have produced what some have called a full-fledged crisis. Sun reporter Greg Garland's July 27 news story, "Prison violence leads to outrage," provided the kind of details that gave readers a full picture of how and why the killing at the Maryland House of Correction occurred. The article included the information that McGuinn - a "by-the-book officer" - was on an inmate "hit list."