Westminster Man

Man charged in robbery try A Westminster man was arrested yesterday in connection with the attempted robbery of a woman outside Carroll Hospital Center on Nov. 7, state police said. Jarod Arthur Holtschneider, 25, of the 200 block of Sophia Ave. was taken before a Carroll County District Court commissioner and released after being charged with attempted robbery. State police are investigating whether other suspects might have been involved in the assault of the 62-year-old woman, who was attacked from behind by a man who tried to steal her purse as she fell outside the hospital's emergency department.

A 55-year-old Westminster man fell from a tree while fishing yesterday morning at Liberty Reservoir and apparently drowned, authorities reported. State police divers recovered the body of Juan Candido Gonzalez Sanchez of the 100 block of Center St. about 8:45 p.m. The man had slipped off a large limb and fallen into 7-foot-deep water near the Deer Park Road bridge on the Baltimore County side of the reservoir about 7:30 a.m., county police said....

A 54-year-old Westminster man has pleaded guilty in Carroll County Circuit Court to theft schemes and security fraud involving phony documents from Pepsi Cola and the NFL that persuaded three groups of victims to invest money with him, according to court records and prosecutors. Benjamin Harrison Higgs III of the 900 block of Burning Tree Court pleaded guilty to four of 42 counts filed against him in June: three counts of felony-theft scheme and one count of fraudulently offering a security - involving people from Maryland and other states - according to the court file and a statement of facts by Senior Assistant State's Attorney Melissa O. Hockensmith.

A 48-year-old Westminster man was convicted and sentenced to a five-year prison term yesterday in Carroll County Circuit Court on a charge of child abuse in the death of his fiancee's 14-month-old daughter on Thanksgiving Day 2003. Anthony P. Flakes has been in jail since his arrest and will receive credit for time served. He was incarcerated first in Carroll County and later in Howard County because of reported death threats he had received. As part of a plea agreement, a statement of facts was read by Deputy State's Attorney David P. Daggett.

A 41-year-old Westminster-area man was jailed yesterday on charges that he led police on a chase from Baltimore City, through Baltimore County and into Carroll. The driver sped and left the road - at one point heading the wrong way on Route 140 - before he drove through a yard and hit a tree, according to state police and charging documents. Anthony Ray Atwell of the 1400 block of Brehm Road has been charged with three criminal offenses: malicious destruction of property, possession of an illegal drug and possession of drug paraphernalia, which included suspected crack cocaine and a glass smoking pipe, according to the charging documents.

After Carroll County prosecutors dropped first-degree murder charges against Godfrey G. Miller III earlier this month, a lawyer for the Westminster man, who had spent nine months in jail, confronted the city's mayor and council at their meeting Monday night and demanded $200,000 in compensation for his client. Miller's attorney, Clarke F. Ahlers of Columbia, said the city's flawed police investigation violated Miller's civil rights by failing to reveal evidence that could have cleared his client months ago. In a letter to Westminster Mayor Kevin E. Dayhoff on Oct. 6, Ahlers said Miller, a mentally disabled 20-year-old, was railroaded into a confession by Westminster police and other investigators.

The Carroll County state's attorney dropped murder charges yesterday against a young mentally disabled man, pointing to recently obtained evidence that cast suspicion on several other people in the fatal beating of a man at a Westminster rooming house in December. Godfrey G. Miller III was released from the Carroll County Detention Center yesterday after prosecutor Jerry F. Barnes entered a motion saying that he does not intend to pursue first-degree murder and related charges against Miller.

Defense attorneys for a Westminster man charged with murder accused investigating officers yesterday of withholding evidence that could have cleared their client, including police reports about a local inmate who allegedly admitted eight months ago to participating in the slaying. In a memorandum filed yesterday in Carroll County Circuit Court, attorneys for Godfrey G. Miller III, 20, of the 200 block of E. Main St., accused Westminster police of failing to reveal evidence of other suspects in the bludgeoning death of Richard Atkins Jr., 30, whose body was found Dec. 29. Clarence W. Beall, deputy state's attorney for Carroll County, said yesterday morning in a hearing that an investigation is being conducted by state troopers, who will review the new evidence and the actions of local police.

Westminster police officers testified yesterday during a court hearing that the only evidence they have linking a young Westminster man to a killing last year is a confession obtained after a polygraph test. During a Carroll County Circuit Court hearing in which the defense attorney sought to suppress the alleged confession, two Westminster police officers testified during cross-examination that they did not find any physical evidence of the defendant's presence at the apartment where Richard Paul Atkins Jr., 30, was found bludgeoned to death Dec. 29. Godfrey G. Miller III, of the 200 block of E. Main St., was charged in January with first-degree murder.

Westminster man stabbed on Main St.; suspect arrested A Westminster man was hospitalized, and another was charged with assault early yesterday after an argument on Main Street at Railroad Avenue resulted in a stabbing, Westminster police said. Officer David Reifsnider was on patrol about 1 a.m. when he was flagged down by a group of people in the first block of E. Main St., police said. The group had just left a nearby restaurant, and after a comment was made about a woman, one of the men was stabbed in the left side with a serrated folding knife.