Years In Prison

A 25-year-old Gambrills man was sentenced Tuesday to eight years in prison for possession of child pornography, including images depicting "sadistic and violent conduct" toward children, according to prosecutors. Robert Jay Hudson II, who pleaded guilty to the charge in July, will also have to serve 40 years of supervised release after his incarceration and be registered as a sex offender wherever he lives, works or attends school, the office of Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said.

A former postal worker admitted Friday that she stole mail and the money inside those envelopes at a Linthicum postal facility, victimizing more than 250 people, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Baltimore. Dorothy Jean Gibson, 56, of Windsor Mill, who worked for the U.S. Postal Service for 13 years, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to theft of mail by a postal employee, officials said. When sentenced Jan. 11, Gibson could receive a maximum sentence of five years in prison plus three years of supervised release, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

An Ellicott City woman pleaded guilty to wire fraud Wednesday for misusing more than $1.5 million in mortgage closing funds, federal prosecutors announced. Harriet M. Taylor, 56, faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine for comingling mortgage lenders' money that should have been in escrow accounts with the operating accounts of two Columbia title insurance companies, according to a statement from Maryland's U.S. Attorney's Office. Taylor co-owned and managed the companies, Regal Title Co. LLC and Loyalty Title Co. LLC, the statement said.

A Baltimore man pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud because he and others secured mortgages for six homes in Upper Fells Point with fraudulent information, prosecutors announced. Kenneth Koehler, 42, and his co-conspirators caused losses of more than $1 million to mortgage lenders because all six homes they purchased subsequently went into foreclosure, according to a statement from the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office. Four of the homes were on South Chapel Street, one home was in the 200 block of South Castle Street and another was in the 2200 block of Gough Street, according to Koehler's plea agreement.

George Huguely V received a 23-year sentence Thursday for the murder of Yeardley Love, the Cockeysville native and University of Virginia lacrosse player whose death in May 2010 put drinking and domestic violence in college towns, even one as genteel and historic as this one, under a harsh spotlight. Huguely, 24, will receive credit for the two years and three months he has already served and, with good behavior, could reduce the remaining time by as much as 15 percent. With Virginia a no-parole state, he could be in his early 40s when released.

A 50-year-old Washington man was sentenced to more than three years in prison Wednesday for his role in a 2010 bank fraud scheme that led to almost $1.4 million being siphoned from a Baltimore Housing Authority account, prosecutors said. Keith Eugene Daughtry was also ordered to pay restitution of $1,399,700 in addition to his 41-month prison sentence and five years of supervised release, according to the office of U.S. AttorneyRod J. Rosenstein. Daughtry pleaded guilty in February to allowing his fellow conspirators to use his identity to set up a company that hid the stolen money, and to spending some of the money himself, prosecutors said.

Barry H. Landau, the once-esteemed collector of presidential memorabilia, was sentenced seven years in federal prison Wednesday for stealing thousands of historic documents from archives and libraries in Baltimore and up the East Coast. The 64-year-old was also ordered to pay roughly $46,000 in restitution. No sentencing date is yet set for his 25-year-old accomplice, Jason James Savedoff, who, like Landau, has pleaded guilty to theft of major artwork and conspiracy charges. More than 10,000 “objects of cultural heritage” worth more than $1 million - including letters signed by George Washington, John Hancock, John Adams, Karl Marx, Marie Antoinette and Napoleon Bonaparte - were recovered from Landau's Manhattan apartment, according to court records.

Eliyahu Werdesheim avoided a prison sentence Wednesday for the 2010 attack of a black teenager in Northwest Baltimore, in a case that heightened community divides. Werdesheim, a former member of an Orthodox Jewish citizens' watch group, was sentenced to three years' probation by Baltimore Circuit Judge Pamela J. White for second-degree assault and false imprisonment. Werdesheim, now 24, had faced up to 10 years in prison for the Nov. 19, 2010 assault on Corey Ausby, who was then 15 years old. Much of the two-hour hearing was devoted to remarks by nine Werdesheim supporters, including Baltimore business leaders, a rabbi and one of his college professors.

A 35-year-old Pikesville man was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison Tuesday for conspiring to deal drugs and to commit a string of armed robberies at fast food chains and a Dollar Tree store, the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office announced. Brian Johnson, 35, and others robbed two McDonald's and a Wendy's in Baltimore County in December 2009 and a Burger King and Dollar Tree store in the city that month, netting about $1,280, according to prosecutors. Johnson also admitted conspiring to distribute heroin, cocaine, crack and marijuana in the city from 1996 to 2009.