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City Paper a Finalist for three AAN Awards
City Paper is among the finalists for three Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN) awards, in writing, design, and photography categories, AAN announced today. In the “LONG-FORM NEWS STORY circulation 50,000 and over” category, staff writer Edward Ericson Jr. was nominated for “Minding Her Own Business” (Sept. 11, 2012), about the efforts of a disabled woman, Deborah Quasney, to regain control of her finances. In the “EDITORIAL LAYOUT circulation 50,000 and over” category, contributing photographers Ryan “Rarah” Stevenson and Frank Klein, illustrator Alex Fine, and art director Joe MacLeod were nominated for “Never Mind the Crab Cakes, Here’s the Cheese Fish” (March 7, 2012). You can also read the story, in it’s non-finalist format here. And in the “PHOTOGRAPHY circulation 50,000 and over” category, Rarah was nominated again for his year of work. Winners will be announced at the AAN convention in July. Congratulations to the all the finalists!
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Fake Seal seeks to raise “billion a year” for vets
A reporter typically gets a half dozen charity solicitations each day in the email, and most go to the trash. This one a couple weeks back caught my eye because of one phrase: “WWII Navy Seal.” Hi Edward, Earl Littman, fmr Navy Seal (Team 1 !) has a new mission. He has a plan to raise 1 billion every year. This is just kicking off. As everyone knows, Navy Seals are the toughest of the tough, heroes who rescue the heroes who get in trouble, the guys who killed Osama Bin Laden. Seals are mythical supermen with superpowers. As many people don’t know: they started Sealing in 1962 – about 17 years after the end of WWII. Before the Seals there were the frogmen, the underwater demolition teams, which did indeed begin training circa 1942. The frogmen are the fathers of the Seals. They are not Seals, but some confusion is inevitable, and a WWII UDTR team member could be forgiven if, for the sake of simplicity in modern times, he called himself a “WWII Seal.” He could, that is, if there was a record of him completing UDTR training during World War II. Turns out that record is easy to [...]
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Alleged BGF leader Tavon White wins transfer out of Maryland prison
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.
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Feds sue to keep $61,000 in cash seized from home of former deputy mayor and state delegate Salima Siler Marriott
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 [...]
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Misfortune mounts on ill-fated “party” ride
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’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 [...]
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Judge schedules two-month jury trial in BGF racketeering case, starting June 2014
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.”
