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	<title>Citypaper Blogs &#187; The News Hole</title>
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	<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com</link>
	<description>City Paper&#039;s Blogs, Updated Daily</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sat, 18 May 2013 23:56:45 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Alleged BGF leader Tavon White wins transfer out of Maryland prison</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/alleged-bgf-leader-tavon-white-wins-transfer-out-of-maryland-prison/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/alleged-bgf-leader-tavon-white-wins-transfer-out-of-maryland-prison/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 May 2013 19:25:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Van Smith</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16625</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[After complaining in court about the conditions of his confinement in Maryland’s prison system, Tavon White, the lead defendant in the high-profile racketeering case against alleged members of the Black Guerrilla Family prison gang, today was granted his request to be transferred to federal custody by U.S. District judge Ellen Hollander. The reasons cited by the judge were the lack of opposition from prosecutors in White’s pending state and federal cases and “the allegations of corruption among the Division of Correction’s staff in at least one of its correctional institutions,” according to court documents.]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/alleged-bgf-leader-tavon-white-wins-transfer-out-of-maryland-prison/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>Feds sue to keep $61,000 in cash seized from home of former deputy mayor and state delegate Salima Siler Marriott</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/feds-sue-to-keep-61000-in-cash-seized-from-home-of-former-deputy-mayor-and-state-delegate-salima-siler-marriott/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/feds-sue-to-keep-61000-in-cash-seized-from-home-of-former-deputy-mayor-and-state-delegate-salima-siler-marriott/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 17 May 2013 19:18:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Van Smith</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16619</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Just before Christmas 2007, Baltimore deputy mayor for community and economic development Salima Siler Marriott (D), a former long-time state delegate, had to deal with the news that her son, Patrice Marriott, then 40 years old, had been indicted in federal court for being a felon in possession of a firearm. It was no doubt embarrassing, but it wasn’t the first time – as the charge indicated. Her son had a long record of felony drug arrests, including in other states, and while many of the charges had been dropped over the years, sometimes they stuck. Now Salima Marriott is out of public office, but her son is still causing her problems – including a police raid last November on her Park Heights house on Homer Ave., where Patrice Marriott also lived. Weeks earlier, according to court records, Patrice Marriott had been stopped by police while driving a car in the 2200 block of North Eutaw St., and the cops had found him in possession of about 160 grams of cocaine and nearly $1,800 in cash. He was arrested, but the investigation continued – including the execution of a search warrant on the Marriott home on Nov. 21. The raid [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>Misfortune mounts on ill-fated &#8220;party&#8221; ride</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/misfortune-mounts-on-ill-fated-party-ride/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/misfortune-mounts-on-ill-fated-party-ride/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 May 2013 18:50:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Van Smith</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16591</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Not like it really needs saying, but: Don’t take pills and drive, especially if you’re traveling with heroin and lots of cash and don’t have a job. To drive the point home, consider the case of 49-year-old Sandra Diane Rust and 50-year-old Samuel Cornelius Rust, III, a married couple from Pennsylvania. They were driving a 2006 Chevrolet Aveo on the Baltimore Beltway&#8217;s outer loop last Nov. 2, when Sandra crashed it into an empty SUV parked on the shoulder near the exit for Route 40. When Maryland State Police responded and noted that Sandra’s “speech was slow and slurred and she had bloodshot and glassy eyes,” according to court records, she denied she’d been drinking – though she admitted “that she took her prescribed Oxycodone, but could not remember how many she took or how long ago before the collision she took them.” The couple was taken to University of Maryland Shock Trauma for treatment, where Samuel died from his injuries. Matters turned even worse for Sandra after the Maryland State Police arrived at Shock Trauma to Mirandize her on suspicion of driving under the influence, court records say. A trooper asked Sandra for her drivers license, and she said [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Judge schedules two-month jury trial in BGF racketeering case, starting June 2014</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/judge-schedules-two-month-jury-trial-in-bgf-racketeering-case-starting-june-2014/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/judge-schedules-two-month-jury-trial-in-bgf-racketeering-case-starting-june-2014/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 15 May 2013 19:16:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Van Smith</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BGF]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[black geurrilla family]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[O'Malley]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tavon White]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16579</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Maryland U.S. District judge Ellen Hollander today issued a scheduling and discovery order in the Black Guerrilla Family prison-gang racketeering case that has caused a national sensation since the indictment was unsealed on Apr. 23, exposing anew Maryland’s longstanding problem of correctional corruption. The two-month jury trial, scheduled to start on June 9, 2014, will be preceded by many months of sharing evidence and arguing motions between the 25 defendants’ attorneys and federal prosecutors Robert Harding and Ayn Ducao. Hollander urged defense attorneys for the 13 indicted correctional officers “to form one group, and counsel for the inmates to form another group, and to collaborate with regard to the submission of joint motions,” so as to “avoid unnecessary duplication of motions.”]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/judge-schedules-two-month-jury-trial-in-bgf-racketeering-case-starting-june-2014/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>The BGF’s Tavon White complains about conditions in new facility</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/the-bgfs-tavon-white-complains-about-conditions-in-new-facility/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/the-bgfs-tavon-white-complains-about-conditions-in-new-facility/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 May 2013 18:31:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Van Smith</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16562</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Tavon White (pictured), the alleged Black Guerrilla Family leader charged in a racketeering indictment stemming from correctional corruption at the Baltimore City Detention Center, is currently being held at North Branch Correctional Facility (NBCI) in Cumberland – and he’s not happy about his conditions of confinement there, according to a motion for a hearing filed this morning by his attorney, Gary Proctor. Saying White’s “continued confinement within the Maryland Department of Corrections needs to be reconsidered,” Proctor’s motion points out that White’s belongings had yet to make it to NBCI, leaving him with only “a jump suit, one pair of underwear, shower sandals, [and] a sheet for the bed.” Letters from White to Proctor “have yet to arrive” at Proctor’s address, and White was only “allowed to make one call to counsel on arrival, but none since.” What’s more, Proctor says his visit with White was limited to “less than an hour” and was “non-contact” – though Proctor had been assured previously he’d be able to visit him face to face – so going through documents “is nigh on impossible when talking through glass, with no means to pass documents through to one another.” Proctor asserts that, given his experience [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Longtime liquor license official to retire following critical audit</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/longtime-liquor-license-official-to-retire-following-critical-audit/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/longtime-liquor-license-official-to-retire-following-critical-audit/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 May 2013 16:54:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16550</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sam Daniels (pictured), the executive secretary of the Board of Liquor License Inspectors and a fixture for decades, has announced his retirement, effective July 1 in the wake of a critical state audit of the agency. “OMG&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;is it Christmas? Today? Pinch me, seriously!!!” Beth Hawks, a west-side small business owner, wrote in an email on Thursday, May 9. “I can hardly contain my JOY!!” Daniels confirmed his retirement to City Paper on May 13. “Frankly this has nothing to do with the audit,” he says. “Everybody would probably like for it to look like that but truth is there is a major philosophical difference between me and the agency and the mayor and her designs on all things liquor.” Daniels says he did not read the Maryland Daily Record story saying he had resigned. (Dated May 10, it is behind a pay wall). The state audit, released early last month, found inspectors not doing inspections, inspectors inspecting closed establishments and not noting they are closed, failure to confirm criminal background checks and a host of other problems (“Audit Slams Liquor Board,” Mobtown Beat, April 10). “I’m tired of all the BS,” Daniels continued. “I’ll be 66 in July and eligible [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Watch Bill O’Reilly call MD corrections boss Maynard &#8220;a moron&#8221; over BGF scandal</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/watch-bill-oreilly-call-md-corrections-boss-maynard-a-moron/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/watch-bill-oreilly-call-md-corrections-boss-maynard-a-moron/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 May 2013 15:57:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Van Smith</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16546</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Fox News show The O’Reilly Factor yesterday aired a new segment about Maryland’s correctional corruption scandal (watch it below), with correspondent Jesse Watters interviewing an anonymous former Baltimore City Detention Center detainee who described a free-for-all party scene for inmates and confronting Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) and Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services secretary Gary Maynard. O’Malley, while fielding Watters’ questions about the 2010 Correctional Officers’ Bill of Rights law that curtailed Maryland government’s disciplinary powers over prison staffers, claimed “there have been 89 people terminated from the corrections service even before these 13” correctional officers were indicted in April for racketeering with the Black Guerrilla Family prison gang and asserted, as he has before, that “we initiated this investigation.” When Watters asked Maynard whether he should lose his job over the scandal, Maynard said “we opened up this problem” and “I know I’m the man to fix” it. Watters invited him to come on the show, and Maynard retorted, “I don’t watch his program” – to which Watters suggested, “Maybe you should,” and Maynard, sounding very much a cornered school boy, retorted, “Well, maybe you should.” “Is that guy as dumb as he sounds?” host Bill O’Reilly asked [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>6</slash:comments>
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		<title>State offers online open source data trove (O’Malley style)</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/state-offers-online-open-source-data-trove-omalley-style/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/state-offers-online-open-source-data-trove-omalley-style/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 May 2013 20:37:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16526</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Maryland state government quietly announced its brand-new online open source data trove last Wednesday. Gov. Martin O’Malley (last seen burying his head in the sand over corruption in state prisons) called the portal “a movement away from ideological, hierarchical, bureaucratic governing and toward information-age governing that is fundamentally entrepreneurial, collaborative, relentlessly interactive and performance driven.” O’Malley talks a mighty good game on the stump. As always, watch what he does. The State Integrity Project was recently unimpressed with Maryland’s access to public records, giving the state an F on that score while ranking us 40th among states in terms of corruption risk. That was just a survey, though. People were asked if data was available and if the access to the information was “effective.” The best way to see what’s available and its potential effectiveness is to visit the new site for a test drive. This we did. We give it an F too. Like many O’Malley initiatives, it looks impressive at first glance. There are more than 200 “data sets” available through the website, and you can list them in order by several different criteria, including “relevance” “most accessed” “alphabetical” and “most recently updated.” Sounds good, right? Here’s [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
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		<title>Alleged BGF drug supplier pleads guilty in separate Eastern Shore case</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/alleged-bgf-drug-supplier-pleads-guilty-in-separate-eastern-shore-case/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/alleged-bgf-drug-supplier-pleads-guilty-in-separate-eastern-shore-case/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 May 2013 17:40:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Van Smith</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16513</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Back when the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was building its blockbuster 2009/2010 racketeering case against the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) prison gang – the one that had many of the same elements, including correctional corruption, as the current FBI-investigated racketeering case against the BGF – agents identified Austin Roberts (pictured), who goes by the nickname “Yellow,” as one of the gang’s main drug suppliers. Today, the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office announced that Roberts, 37, has pleaded guilty in a separate, Eastern Shore drug conspiracy, and confirmed that the defendant is the same as the man targeted in the BGF case investigated by the DEA. According to court documents in the 2009/2010 BGF case, Roberts was one of three “key lieutenants on the streets for drug-trafficking activities” on behalf of lead BGF defendant Eric Brown, who, while an inmate at the Metropolitan Transition Center in Baltimore, was “in command of day-to-day operations in the State of Maryland” for the BGF. The other two were Rainbow Williams, who was indicted with Brown, and Gregory Fitzgerald, who was arrested on cocaine-conspiracy charges in January 2009, before the DEA’s first BGF indictments were handed down in April 2009. Fitzgerald beat those charges, but [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>U.S. Navy’s disastrous 2011 liberation of a Taiwanese fishing ship from Somali pirates lands in Maryland federal court</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/u-s-navys-disastrous-2011-liberation-of-a-taiwanese-fishing-from-somali-pirates-lands-in-maryland-federal-court/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/u-s-navys-disastrous-2011-liberation-of-a-taiwanese-fishing-from-somali-pirates-lands-in-maryland-federal-court/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 10 May 2013 17:20:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Van Smith</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16493</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Though Somali piracy on the high seas is on the wane, it’s been making for news and entertainment recently, with a World Bank report on its $18-billion-a-year cost to the global economy and the impending release of a new Tom Hanks movie, Captain Phillips, that retells one of the problem’s more chilling episodes. While the economic costs are attributed to the pirates’ lawless conduct, the U.S.-led response has also entailed tragic losses – including the life of Taiwanese fishing-ship captain Wu Lai-Yu and the sinking of his 90-foot-long ship, the Jih Chun Tsai 68 (pictured), in May 2011. Though a ransom deal had been struck and the pirates were expected to release the ship and crew soon, the U.S. Navy’s USS Stephen W. Groves moved to liberate it in the Indian Ocean. During the operation, which was subsequently excoriated for numerous violations of protocol in a Navy investigation, Lai-Yu was shot in the head and killed, and after it was over, the Navy inexplicably sank the still-viable ship. Protests in Taipei ensued. Lai-Yu’s widow, Wu Tien Li-Shou, yesterday sued the U.S. government in Maryland federal court, demanding $9 million for claims of wrongful death and willful destruction. Li-Shou’s attorney, Timothy [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>More Baltimore BGF racketeering defendants plead not guilty</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/more-baltimore-bgf-racketeering-defendants-plead-not-guilty/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/more-baltimore-bgf-racketeering-defendants-plead-not-guilty/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 10 May 2013 14:32:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Van Smith</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16469</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As of this morning, six of the 25 defendants have entered not-guilty pleas in the federal racketeering case unsealed April 23 against Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) prison gang conspirators who, with the help of corrupt correctional officers (COs), allegedly  gained operational control of the Baltimore City Detention Center, which is run by Maryland’s embattled correctional agency. Inmate and lead defendant Tavon White (pictured) pleaded not guilty, as did CO Tiffany Linder, on April 29. Since then, inmates Steven Loney and Jermaine McFadden entered not-guilty pleas on May 6, and inmates Jamar Anderson and Kenneth Parham followed suit yesterday. Details about the allegations against these and the other 19 defendants, including excerpts of conversations many of them had on wiretapped phones, can be found here.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>O’Malley wants to re-assess Correctional Officers’ Bill of Rights in light of FBI corruption probe</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/omalley-wants-to-re-assess-correctional-officers-bill-of-rights-in-light-of-fbi-corruption-probe/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/omalley-wants-to-re-assess-correctional-officers-bill-of-rights-in-light-of-fbi-corruption-probe/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 09 May 2013 17:17:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Van Smith</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16464</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The office of Maryland governor Martin O’Malley (D) today issued a statement detailing a seven-point plan to “enhance security and root out corruption” in Maryland’s correctional facilities, in light of last month’s Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) prison gang racketeering indictment that charged 13 Maryland correctional officers (COs) with participating in the gang’s alleged criminal enterprise. The points are an array of rather obvious steps, including cracking down on cellphones in prison and enhancing correctional security procedures. One point, though, is likely to cause an interesting debate among the state’s movers and shakers, including the public-employees union, AFSCME Maryland (led by president Patrick Moran, pictured standing), that represents COs: “reviewing the procedures of the Correctional Officers’ Bill of Rights (COBR) with an open mind to any amendments that would improve discipline while ensuring due process.” As City Paper reported this week, the FBI views COBR as “corruption-enabling reform that itself was a product of corruption.” Maryland’s COBR, which AFSCME Maryland easily escorted through the legislative process in 2010 and which affords greater protections to COs accused of misconduct, was criticized by the FBI in court documents in the BGF case as being “ineffective as a deterrent” to CO corruption. According to [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Baltimore Spectator to go free</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/baltimore-spectator-to-go-free/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/baltimore-spectator-to-go-free/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2013 20:50:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16429</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A 38-year-old cab driver and citizen journalist known as The Baltimore Spectator pleaded guilty to possession of a sawed-off shotgun today, receiving time served and three years probation in a closely-watched case that began last December with a live-tweeted standoff with a Baltimore SWAT team. Apollos Frank-James MacArthur, who has been held without bail since the December 1, 2012 incident, received a prison term of three years—all but six months suspended—plus a $500 fine. Since he has been in jail for more than five months and the Department of Corrections gives “good time” credits, his lawyer says he will be freed tomorrow morning. “No matter how you calculate it, he should get out tomorrow,” Attorney Mark Van Bavel said. The hearing at Baltimore City Circuit Court was tense at times. Judge Alfred Nance repeatedly scolded people in the court room for their attire and other minor violations of courtroom etiquette. About 40 people attended the hearing, at least half a dozen of whom whipped out cell phones after the sentences was read and began recording an impromptu press conference with Van Bavel in the hallway outside courtroom 556. A bailiff warned everyone they could not record inside the court house. [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>33</slash:comments>
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		<title>Alonso Mourning?</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/alonso-mourning/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/alonso-mourning/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 06 May 2013 18:59:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16402</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Two years into his new four-year contract and six years after he arrived from New York, Baltimore School Chief Andres Alonso confirmed he’s leaving the job to spend more time with his parents and teach at Harvard University. Alonso has been a controversial superintendent. He’s closed many schools and recast the teachers contract to “pay for performance”—something the union here (as everywhere) fought. He also pared down the school&#8217;s central administration savagely. All these things, though, were needed, and were not being done at all before he came along. The city’s schools are still too big and too many for the student population, but they are headed in the right direction. Enrollment is also up, as are student test scores. The dropout rate is down. The teachers’ contract he implemented is something of a national model. And as for the bureaucrats at North Avenue? We never heard anyone argue that there were too few administrators there. These days the head count is down about 50 percent from when Alonso arrived. Baltimore is embarking now on an ambitious, if not entirely funded (yet), school rebuilding project, aiming to further right-size the city’s school infrastructure while finally modernizing it. Alonso’s hard cuts [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>Demetrius Smith freed after Innocence Project prompts review of shooting case</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/demetrius-smith-freed-after-innocence-project-prompts-review-of-shooting-case/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/demetrius-smith-freed-after-innocence-project-prompts-review-of-shooting-case/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 May 2013 18:16:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16373</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As his sister Cheyenne Ward looked on, Demetrius Smith was set free today by Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams. The move came at a sentence reconsideration hearing. Smith, about five years into a 10-year sentence for assault, was re-sentenced to time served with three years of supervised probation. In February of 2011 Smith pleaded guilty to shooting Clyde Hendricks, a neighbor of his in southwest Baltimore, in an early morning robbery in the fall of 2008. At the time of the shooting, Smith was on bail after being charged with the execution-style murder of Robert Long, who was a state’s witness in a series of theft cases against another man, Jose Morales. Smith, now 30 years old, was held without bail after the Hendricks shooting.  Eventually he was convicted of both crimes, first receiving life in prison for the murder and later agreeing to plead guilty to the shooting if the sentence would run concurrently. “He protested his innocence,” says Antonio Gioia, chief of the Conviction integrity Unit of the States Attorney’s Office. “Ms. [Michele] Nethercott asked me to take a look.” Nethercott, who heads up the Innocence Project at the University of Baltimore Law School, took over the [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>Fed Up: Community associations sue problem landlord for millions</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/fed-up-community-associations-sue-problem-landlord-for-millions/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/fed-up-community-associations-sue-problem-landlord-for-millions/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2013 17:59:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16290</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Backed by the non-profit Community Law Center, six Baltimore neighborhood associations have sued a Texas-based property speculator for $8 million, saying his business model presents a nuisance that “threatens the well being of the communities.” The defendant, Scott Wizig, owns about 140 city properties, plus dozens more in Houston, where he is based. In the early 2000s he was charged criminally by the state of New York and dubbed “Buffalo’s worst slumlord,” eventually settling the case for several hundred thousand dollars. He started buying in Baltimore in 2001; City Paper took note of him three years later and not much has happened in the nine years since then. “He first got our attention with the ‘We buy houses’ signs,” says Kristine Dunkerton, the Community Law Center’s executive director. “He racked up quite a bill with the city for posting the signs. But he never did anything with the properties.” (Baltimore city strengthened its ordinance against so-called bandit signs in 2006. The city’s housing department enforces the ban, though with difficulty according to this 2009 City Paper story). Wizig buys run down houses via tax sales, paying just a couple thousand dollars each for houses that are arguably worth even less, [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>Fire at Remington building housing auto repair shops, Open Space</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/fire-at-remington-building-housing-auto-repair-shops-open-space/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/05/fire-at-remington-building-housing-auto-repair-shops-open-space/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 May 2013 00:38:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Evan Serpick</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16313</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Early this evening, a two-alarm fire engulfed the building at 2720 Sisson St. in Remington containing several auto repair shops and the Open Space Baltimore gallery.  One firefighter was taken to Mercy hospital with minor injuries and others were evacuated after a partial roof collapse. City Paper designer Jasmine Sarp, one of the resident artists at Open Space, reports that all residents were evacuated and are safe. The two alarm blaze reportedly started around 6:30 p.m. and was still going after 8 p.m.]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<title>CP readers knew: A brief history of Maryland’s struggles with Black Guerrilla Family correctional corruption</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/04/cp-readers-knew-a-brief-history-of-marylands-struggles-with-black-guerrilla-family-correctional-corruption/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/04/cp-readers-knew-a-brief-history-of-marylands-struggles-with-black-guerrilla-family-correctional-corruption/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:23:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Van Smith</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16223</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Fourteen articles published by City Paper between April 2009 and August 2010 provide details of Maryland’s struggles with gang-related correctional corruption during a 16-month period ending nearly three years before the latest Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) prison gang indictment named BGF leader Tavon White (pictured) and 13 correctional officers (COs) as defendants. In total, CP&#8216;s records of online usage show that the 14 articles have been looked at more than 250,000 times, providing readers with a host of insights about a problem that stewed for years before the latest federal action prompted a soul-searching crisis for Maryland corrections. Here’s a recap, with links to the &#8220;Hit List&#8221; of articles, of what readers knew long before the current maelstrom hit: Veteran inmate Eric Brown, and his wife, Dietra Davenport, having started a nonprofit and published a community self-help guide called The Black Book, are among those charged in April 2009 Maryland drugs-and-corruption indictments cracking down on the BGF&#8217;s reach in and out of prisons, which was facilitated by correctional officers. The gang reacts by putting a bounty on the heads of cooperators. Brown had sought to legitimize the gang’s ideals and operations, so when his drug-dealing, extortionate ways are exposed in [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
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		<title>A short, link-littered history of City Paper&#8217;s Black Guerrilla Family coverage</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/04/a-short-link-littered-history-of-city-papers-black-guerrilla-family-coverage/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/04/a-short-link-littered-history-of-city-papers-black-guerrilla-family-coverage/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Apr 2013 19:46:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Van Smith</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16209</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Black Guerrilla Family (BGF), though long known to be active in Maryland&#8217;s prisons and Baltimore&#8217;s streets, has suddenly become hot news, with the April 23 announcement of a federal indictment against 25 alleged members, including 13 Maryland correctional officers (COs). But the BGF had already burnished its image in the public&#8217;s mind in April 2009, when federal prosecutors announced two indictments against alleged BGF members, including correctional officers. City Paper jumped on the story, covering the press conference announcing the indictments and the BGF&#8217;s ties to a Baltimore bar called Club 410. From that point on, the stories kept rolling &#8211; starting with the unnerving news that the BGF had offered $10,000 to anyone who killed people involved in helping to build the case. A series of profiles, dubbed &#8220;Family Portraits,&#8221; was assembled, spotlighting co-defendants Nelson Arthur Robinson, Rainbow Lee Williams, Randolph Edison, Eric Marcell Brown, Deitra Davenport, Calvin Renard Robinson, and The Black Book (pictured), the BGF&#8217;s 122-page self-improvement guide that was subtitled &#8220;Empowering Black Families and Communities.&#8221; A lengthy feature provided a birds-eye view of the case. By the fall of 2009, the first guilty pleas were entered, including by two COs, and a few defendants were [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
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		<title>New data: Vacants up 43% over 10 years, doubled in many neighborhoods</title>
		<link>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/04/new-data-vacants-up-44-over-10-years-doubled-in-many-neighborhoods/</link>
		<comments>http://blogs.citypaper.com/index.php/2013/04/new-data-vacants-up-44-over-10-years-doubled-in-many-neighborhoods/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:36:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Edward Ericson Jr.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The News Hole]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://blogs.citypaper.com/?p=16178</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The release this week of Vital Signs 11, the annual compilation of relevant (and sometimes not) statistics in Baltimore’s neighborhoods/census tracts brought to CP’s mind a question: How are things looking, 10 years on? The Vital Signs project has produced reports regularly through changes in leadership and address (it is now housed at the Alliance-Jacob France Institute at the University of Baltimore). But the reports generally present just a two or three year snapshot. The web site does about the same. Since vacant houses are one of the best measures of a neighborhood’s health or lack thereof, we dug out Vital Signs II, which covered 2001-2002, and compared the statistics on vacants in it with those in Vital Signs 11, looking at 2010-2011. The results are not pretty. After a decade of Project 5000, an unprecedented housing boom (and bust) several new city and state programs to encourage home ownership and half a billion dollars spent (roughly $50 million a year) by the Baltimore Department of Housing and Community Development, the percentage of city housing units that are vacant or abandoned has actually increased by 44 43 percent. In 2001 the city-wide percentage of vacant housing units was 5.55. That [...]]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>7</slash:comments>
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