Undercover Agent

As sure as its nude dancers and drink specials drew steady customers, the Ritz Cabaret on South Broadway in Baltimore attracted trouble. A money-laundering scheme launched at the Fells Point nightclub landed three men, including owner Francis Lee, in federal court. A bar brawl cost two Drug Enforcement Administration officers their badges. Illegally hired Hungarian dancers faced deportation. Even the producers of an HBO drama filmed part of the series at the Ritz, only to learn that it was about to be seized by the government.

WASHINGTON - President Bush nominated Porter J. Goss, a seven-term Republican congressman from Florida and former undercover CIA agent, as the next director of central intelligence yesterday, filling a crucial vacancy atop the nation's beleaguered spy community at a time of heightened terror alerts. The choice of Goss, 65, immediately drew criticism from some congressional Democrats as a partisan move that risked mixing intelligence and politics. He was expected to undergo tough grilling during Senate confirmation hearings about his and Bush's willingness to reform the intelligence agencies, but there were few signs that Democrats would mount a strong effort to block the appointment.

* ''Class Action'' Gene Hackman and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio play father and daughter attorneys who find themselves working on opposite sides of a court case. A drama.* ''Guilty By Suspicion'' Robert De Niro plays a 1952 Hollywood movie director who is told he must appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee to ''clear'' himself of taint. A drama.* ''If Looks Could Kill'' Richard Greico plays a student who goes to Paris where he is mistaken for an undercover agent. Action, comedy.

Frank P. Balistrieri, the reputed head of Milwaukee's organized crime syndicate, died Sunday of a heart attack at the age of 74. A tavern owner, he was released from a federal prison in 1991 after serving sentences for extortion. He was convicted of two extortion charges in 1984 and sentenced to 13 years. The convictions resulted from a scheme to illegally take over a vending machine business run by an undercover agent for the FBI. In addition, he had pleaded guilty in 1985 to racketeering and conspiracy charges.

A Reisterstown pharmacist was sentenced Friday to six years in federal prison for selling 34,000 prescription painkillers to a drug dealer, the U.S. attorney's office for Maryland announced. Ketankumar Arvind Patel, 48, was also ordered to forfeit the $400,000 he was paid for the pills, which contained the powerful opioid oxycodone. Court records say that Patel, who lives in Eldersburg, told the dealer how to write phony prescriptions for OxyContin and Percocet, then filled them from his Medicine Shoppe pharmacy in the 11800 block of Reisterstown Road between 2007 and 2009.

A federal jury has convicted a man who helped a Baltimore lawyer in a conspiracy to launder money.Gregory Scroggins, 41, of Randallstown could receive five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced March 6 by U.S. District Judge Frederic N. Smalkin.Scroggins' co-defendant, lawyer Zell Margolis, pleaded guilty to the same charge last week. The two men conspired to help an undercover FBI agent -- who they thought was a Washington drug dealer -- launder the proceeds of his supposed drug dealings.

A federal judge sentenced a 33-year-old Caroline County man yesterday to more than five years in prison for distributing electronic images of child pornography. Daniel Provencal of Greensboro pleaded guilty Oct. 13 in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, admitting that he sent e-mails in 2005 to an undercover FBI agent with video files showing adults having sex with children. In January 2006, agents searched Provencal's home, seizing his personal computer. It contained at least 150 images of children engaging in sexually explicit activity with adults and other children.

A former $120,000-a-year computer programmer was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison yesterday for soliciting an undercover agent he believed was a child, receiving an unusually high sentence because he intended to film a minor in sexual poses with a digital camera, prosecutors said. Michael Perry, 52, of New York City received roughly five times the sentence he ordinarily would have for traveling across state lines to have sex with a minor. Perry was arrested Sept. 16 at a Columbia bookstore, where he went expecting to meet "Amy," a 14-year-old girl he met in America Online chat rooms.

A Baltimore man pleaded guilty yesterday to distributing child pornography over the Internet after federal authorities said they found on his computer about 5,000 images of children engaged in sex acts and six movies of children ages 1 and older, the U.S. attorney's office said. Charles Christopher Furth, 46, faces five to 20 years in prison followed by supervised probation for life when he is sentenced April 25, prosecutors said. At the time Furth was sending e-mails, authorities said he was living in 300 block of Eastway Court, in the Kernewood neighborhood north of Guilford in North Baltimore.