Unsupervised Probation

Guy Gordon Marsh walked out of a Carroll County Circuit courtroom last month with his arm around his wife, just minutes after a judge convicted him of beating her during an argument.When the couple got home, Marsh beat her again, prosecutors claimed yesterday in a motion to revoke his probation in a 1992 rape case."He's a dangerous and violent person," Assistant State's Attorney Kathi Hill said of Marsh, who was released from state prison in 1987 after serving 14 years on a 1973 murder conviction that was eventually overturned.

A Union Mills couple who pleaded guilty to growing marijuana on their farm were given probation before judgment yesterday, which means they could clear the conviction from their records.Saying he was impressed with their lack of a previous criminal record and apparent display of remorse, Carroll Circuit Judge Luke K. Burns Jr. offered the sentence to Randy Scott Leidy, 32, and his wife, Carole Jean Leidy, 30."I don't feel a jail sentence is necessary in this case," the judge said. "I don't believe we'll be seeing Mr. or Mrs. Leidy in this courtroom again."

Man guilty of assaultWESTMINSTER -- A 25-year-old man pleaded guilty yesterday to fondling a 14-year-old girl he met at Cranberry Mall in February.In pleading guilty to the fourth-degree sexual assault charge, Rodney Earl Miles was sentenced by Circuit Judge Raymond E. Beck Sr. to a year in the Department of Corrections. He will serve the sentence concurrently with unrelated convictions.According to a statement of facts read by the State's Attorney's Office, Miles met the girl -- whose identity is being withheld -- at the mall the night of Feb. 21. He asked her to accompany him to a party in Room 228 of the Days Inn on Cranberry Road.

Sentence due in theftWESTMINSTER -- A 19-year-old New Windsor man who in March was found guilty of stealing fishing equipment, a camera and binoculars from two boats in Westminster last May will be sentenced today in Carroll Circuit Court.David James Fowble Sr., of the 2700 block of Rowe Road, was found guilty of two felony theft charges during his March 25 trial. He pleaded not guilty to the two charges, which carry maximum sentences of 15 years each, but agreed to allow the court to consider only the state's statement of facts.

An attorney for a truck driver convicted of killing two state policetroopers when he drove his truck over their cruiser thinks the county state's attorney's effort to revoke the man's unsupervised probation is politically motivated.State's Attorney Joseph I. Cassilly has asked the court to strike a Nov. 27 order granting the driver, CarlD. Cates, unsupervised probation."I think it's nothing more than politically motivated," said Lester V. Jones, a Bel Air attorney representing Cates. "(Cassilly)

A Baltimore couple has pleaded guilty to gambling charges stemming from an illegal lottery prosecutors said was being run, in part, out of a Federal Hill church.Jerome Berry, 58, and his wife, Mary, 48, pleaded guilty yesterday to possession of illegal lottery paraphernalia and the use of Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church to sell lottery tickets.Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Elsbeth Levy Bothe gave each of the defendants, described by prosecutors as the lottery's ringleaders, probation before judgment.