Blogs: The News Hole

When the latest Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) prison gang racketeering indictment was announced at an April 23 press conference, detailing that 13 of the 25 defendants are Maryland correctional officers (COs) who allegedly facilitated the gang’s operational takeover of two Baltimore detention facilities, their boss, Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) secretary...
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If harried Sun reporters and editors thought things could only get better after half a decade of bankruptcy following the diabolical mismanagement of the evil gnome Sam Zell, they were in for a rude awakening Sunday when the New York Times did a piece about how Charles and David Koch, cackling heirs to an...
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The appraiser who was crucial to an east side mortgage fraud scheme was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison this afternoon as more than 30 supporters looked on, some sobbing. “Oh my God,” someone in the packed courtroom shouted as the judge, James K. Bredar, sentenced David C. Christian to a sentence well...
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 Tax Evaders  is one of the more amusing lefty efforts on the national budget to come across my email in a long while. Based on the old Space Invaders game, you blast away corporations that make billions in profits, hold billions of dollars off shore, and yet pay little or no income taxes. The...
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The Maryland General Assembly did an amazing thing last night: they passed a campaign finance reform measure that progressives and good government people actually like. “It was a difficult vote because it was in many ways against their own interest,” says Jennifer Bevan-Dangel, a lobbyist for the non-profit Common Cause. “I’ve been a lobbyist...
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The Office of Legislative Audits dropped a thick and scathing performance audit on the Board of Liquor License Commissioners, the Baltimore-based state agency that polices the bars and liquor stores in the city. Among the April 3 findings: The liquor board has no written policies and procedures for its inspectors. It also has two...
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Ken Kohler, the one-time man about Upper Fells Point whose strange real estate dealings City Paper explored in late 2008, was sentenced on April 3 to 18 months in federal prison, followed by two years of supervised release, for his part in a mortgage fraud scheme. U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar also ordered...
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Dr. Ben Carson stepped onto the national stage in February with his pointed, right-leaning speech at the National Prayer Breakfast, defending the flat tax and slamming Obamacare in front of President Obama, and has stayed there ever since. In a series of subsequent public appearances, on Fox News, at the CPAC conference, and on...
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Salvatore Petti, at 76 years old, is at an advanced age to start life as a federal inmate – a factor that his attorney, Caroline Ciraolo, emphasized in arguing that he should be sentenced to probation, home confinement, and community service for the crimes to which he pleaded guilty: wire fraud and tax evasion...
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Stewart Dennis Sachs, the 61-year-old Baltimore financier and community leader who was charged March 18 with failing to file IRS forms regarding loan repayments he received in cash from a drug dealer, is no longer a criminal defendant. Maryland assistant U.S. attorney Richard Kay on March 29 filed a motion to dismiss the charge...
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The Office of Legislative Audits released its most recent audit of the State Police on Tuesday, March 26 . The good news: The whole thing is only 23 pages and has just five findings of note. That’s real progress in a department that used to see auditors uncover two or three times that...
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While it was only discovered recently the makers of Baltimore’s iconic Berger Cookies were operating without a city license, the feds were nice enough to license the bakery years ago. DeBaufre Bakeries returned the favor by not paying all of its taxes, according to a report. The Internal Revenue Service filed a notice of...
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