Unsupervised Probation

Baltimore police executing a search warrant seized a semiautomatic rifle and arrested a felon who was using a valid driver's license with a fake name, police said. The Police Department's computer crimes division, investigating child pornography, conducted the search about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at a home in the 4900 block of Greencrest Road in the Frankford neighborhood, police said. Inside, officers recovered a Hi-Point 9 mm rifle and "various digital media," police said. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said child pornography was not recovered.

I read with interest your article about Catonsville developer Steve Whalen Jr., who pleaded guilty to five counts of election-law violations for illegally funneling money to a Baltimore County councilman's reelection campaign ("Builder admits illegal gifts," Jan. 4). Prosecutors said Mr. Whalen exceeded the $10,000 limit on total contributions over a four-year election cycle, all in an apparent attempt to help certain politicians get elected. Yet Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson reportedly gave over $100 million to Super PACs working to defeat President Obama and get the Republican candidate elected.

Opening testimony in the murder trial of a 74-year-old North Baltimore woman whose body was found in a Hampstead cornfield is expected tobegin tomorrow in Carroll Circuit Court.Abras Morrison, the first of two defendants to stand trial, faces first-degree murder and kidnapping charges.Morrison, of the 6000 block of Lanette Road near Rosedale in Baltimore County, is in Baltimore City Jail on $1 million bond, as is hisfriend, Troy Dominic Shellington, of the 3600 block of Cottage Avenue.Both men were charged in August with the murder and kidnapping of Margaret Cullen, whose beaten, stabbed and decomposed body was found near a cornfield along Route 30.In recent suppression hearings, confessions from both men were ruled admissible for their trials.

Sometimes, it just doesn't pay to help out a friend in trouble.Cary Duane Garland had driven across the street to pull his buddy's car out of a snowbank on March 17, the night he was arrested for driving while intoxicated. Court records show his blood alcohol content was a 0.14 percent."He had not planned to drive and did not perceive himself as having driven," said Mr. Garland's attorney, Jeffrey H. Gray, during the Carroll County Circuit Court case yesterday."While he was technically in violation of the law, he was not in violation of the spirit."

A 30-year-old British citizen living in Owings Mills admitted yesterday that he traveled to Taneytown to have sexual relations with two 13-year-old girls in a rendezvous arranged through the Internet - with an undercover sheriff's deputy playing the part of the nonexistent teen-agers. Richard D. Burton of the 4600 block of Embassy Circle pleaded guilty in Carroll County Circuit Court to an attempted third-degree sexual offense and use of a computer to solicit sex with a minor. He was sentenced to the two months he had served at the Carroll County Detention Center, where he had been held on $250,000 bail since his arrest June 4 on six charges.

A Mount Airy man was given probation before judgment yesterday after being convicted of exposing himself to a woman shopping at the Twin Arch Shopping Center.Robert Alan Gemmill, 26, of the 200 block of Hanover Street, pleaded not guilty to a statement of facts, but was found guilty and given one year of unsupervised probation by Circuit Court Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. Mr. Gemmill also was ordered to perform 60 hours of community service.According to court records, Mr. Gemmill was stopped in the parking lot of the shopping center shortly before 5:30 p.m. Nov. 23 when a trooper received a call from the Maryland State Police Westminster Barracks that a woman had reported an incident of indecent exposure.

Westminster's proposed budget for next year, introduced last night at the Common Council meeting, includes no increases in water, sewer or property tax rates.The spending plan projects similar revenues and expenditures -- about $14.9 million -- for the fiscal year that begins July 1."I've always been critical of the budget, but this year I feel really good about it," said Councilman Stephen R. Chapin Sr., who announced yesterday that he will not seek a third term in the next election. "I think [finance chairman]

SALISBURY - A city councilwoman and the mayor's daughter closed a fractious chapter in Eastern Shore politics yesterday, agreeing to settle assault charges they had filed against each other after a scuffle outside a government office building. Catherine S. Tilghman, 22, the daughter of Mayor Barrie Parsons Tilghman, pleaded guilty in Wicomico County District Court to disorderly conduct. She was sentenced to 18 months of unsupervised probation. Second-degree assault charges against Councilwoman Rachel S. Polk, who lost her bid for re-election in the primary election Sept.

A national accreditation agency has taken Anne Arundel Medical Center off probation after an incident in which three newborns accidentally were given morphine in the critical-care nursery.The Joint Commission on Accreditation, a private, nonprofit group that certifies most U.S. hospitals, made a surprise inspection of the hospital two weeks ago and restored the hospital's accreditation Thursday."We received the highest ratings you could possibly get," said hospital spokeswoman Carolyn Shenk.

A Sykesville man went against the advice of his lawyer and pleaded guilty yesterday to stealing a gold necklace from a man sitting on a wall near the Westminster city playground in September.Marlowe Rudolph Woodyard, 20, of the 7200 block of Springfield Ave., was convicted of the theft.Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. suspended the 18-month sentence to the Department of Corrections he had given Woodyard, and placed the man on three years' unsupervised probation.Assistant State's Attorney Kathryn Brewer Poole, who will be working in Carroll for six weeks, agreed to drop the remaining assault and robbery charges.