A Baltimore police lieutenant who gambled with his career by allegedly falsifying hours while based at the Horseshoe Casino was arrested this morning on felony theft charges.
Tag: fraud
City Police Lieutenant Accused of Logging Fake Overtime Hours, Charged with Felony Theft
Hedge Fund Fraudster, Family Squat Million-Dollar Maryland House
In 2007-2008, FX aired a show called The Riches, about a family of five grifters who move into a fancy house that they’re only pretending to own. In a strange case of fact following fiction, nearly the exact same thing happened in a luxury home in Bethesda.
Robo-Call Convict Julius Henson Runs for Md. State Senate
For his connection with the infamous “relax” robo-call that apparently sought to discourage black voters from going to the polls in 2010, Julius Henson was fined $1 million, sent to jail for 60 days, and prohibited from political consulting. Henson found a workaround for that last bit; he’s running for office himself.
The aggressive and “indelicate” Henson hopes to represent Baltimore (specifically the 45th district) in the Maryland state Senate, and to do so he’ll have to unseat 20-year incumbent Nathaniel J. McFadden.
I Always Suspected There Was Something Shady About the Waverly Post Office…
What with the national mail system bleeding money (and consequently raising the price of a first-class stamp again), I imagine the higher-ups at the USPS aren’t happy hearing that two of their Baltimore post offices are “cash cows” — but not in a good way.
Former Hopkins Researcher Raises Serious Questions About Colleagues’ Methodology
In February 2012, Nature published the results of a human-genome study at Johns Hopkins Medical School. The paper represented an advancement in our understanding of a key mechanism in cellular aging and cancer. But Daniel Yuan, a former researcher at Hopkins, had his doubts.
Monday Links: Another Opinion on Ticketmaster Fees; Verizon Turns in Baltimore Church Deacon; Rockville Man Indicted in Ponzi Scheme; and More
Ticketmaster fees are a necessary evil – Baltimore Sun
Verizon turns in Baltimore church deacon for storing child porn in cloud – Ars Technica
Rockville man indicted in $25M Ponzi scheme – Washington Business Journal
Family decries friends’ silence after son killed following Ravens parade – Baltimore Sun
Gun deaths, violent crime overall are down in District and U.S., but reasons are elusive – Washington Post
Morgan State Prof. Charged with Defrauding Nat’l Science Foundation of $200K
In a down economy, it seems more and more Americans are turning to fraud. And more and more are getting caught. The latest allegations of accumulating wealth under false pretenses are aimed at Morgan State University professor Manoj Kumar Jha, 45. Jha received a total of $200,000 in grant money from the National Science Foundation in 2008 and 2009. Which would be fine, if he had actually been conducting any of the research he claimed he was.
Perry Hall Man’s Lame Defense Fails Him in Biofuel Fraud Trial
The Perry Hall man who stood accused of selling phony biofuel credits to commodities brokers and oil companies was convicted yesterday of wire fraud and money laundering.
Rodney R. Hailley, 33, founded Clean Green Fuel to sell biofuel credits to companies that needed to meet quotas set by the Environmental Protection Agency. And to lower his overhead he decided not to actually produce any fuel. A really brilliant plan, except for it being fraudulent.
Annapolis Woman Gets Five Years for Stealing $2.6M from Banks, Social Security
In an economy this depressed, it can sometimes seem that fraud is the only honest living to be made. I see more and more news stories about fraud scams every day. The latest one I caught was about Annapolis resident Winnie Joanne Barefoot. She was recently sentenced to five years in prison for defrauding “banks, lenders, insurers and the Social Security Administration of $2.6 million.”
Reading that list of much maligned institutions I can’t help but think of ’30s gangsters like John Dillinger and the Barrow Gang who became folk heroes for robbing banks during the Great Depression. I wonder if Dillinger and the like would’ve captured the public’s imagination the way they did if, instead of criss-crossing the Midwest robbing banks at gunpoint and engaging in shootouts with police officers, they ripped off banks by taking out loans under stolen identities, received disability checks (if such a thing had existed) under false pretenses, and set up a business that sent phony bills to health insurers, as Barefoot did. I have to imagine they wouldn’t have. But on the other hand, neither would they have been gunned down, in all likelihood.
So, though Barefoot is unlikely to enjoy the consolation of being played by a modern-day Faye Dunaway (Hmmm… who would that be?) in a movie version of her exploits, it could be worse
Judge to Allow Conspiracy Defense in Henson Robocall Trial
The election-fraud trial of political consultant Julius Henson — who is in trouble over a robocall that went out on Election Day in 2010 apparently designed to keep black voters from going to the polls — is underway. And his attorney is planning to argue that Henson would not have been indicted had he not begun working for a Republican, namely Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.
It’s kind of a difficult hypothetical, since it seems much more certain that he would not have authorized fraudulent robocalls intended to suppress the black vote had he not been working for a Republican.
Either way, the judge has decided to allow the it’s-a-conspiracy! defense to play out, so it ought to be a pretty interesting trial (I’m predicting a couple “No, you’re out of order!” moments).
Now, I have never been accused of possessing a prodigious legal mind, but it seems to me like a losing argument from the start. Will Henson’s attorney really be able to portray a vindictive Democratic conspiracy vast enough and insidious enough to overshadow — even nullify — what appears to be a clear-cut case of voter suppression?
