Designate Evidence Afterwards/ Secret Obfuscation Department

Nicka

 Putney

D'Amico

Matt Nicka, of Nicka Conspiracy fame, was nabbed on Monday with his weird-looking girlfriend Gretchen Peterson whilst waiting for a ferry in Vancouver near his new home/meth lab in Coquitlam, British Columbia. Nicka was considered the leader/recruiter of the scheme, which involved trucks, trains, planes and a lot of local stash houses, and was found to have laundered some of his pot-sealing proceeds by buying sound equipment for Sonar, the "armpit of a venue" he silently co-owned with local restauranteur/money launderer Dan McIntosh from 2007- 2012.*
    The import business started in about 2001 and involved moving about $150-200 million bucks' worth of pot from Canada and Northern California to Baltimore and then elsewhere. Nicka and Peterson's arrest leaves only two of 20 alleged conspirators at large, David D'Amico and Jeffrey Putney. Putney had actually been arrested back in 2009 after a bust on Hickory Avenue in Hampen, said Van Smith, but MD just took his Toyota 4Runner and declined to prosecute, because in Baltimore that's how we do.
     And could the latest NSA/DEA/SOD revelations collapse the government's case? Dan McIntosh's sentencing is currently on hold waiting on a ruling because, reported Smith, Deborah Johnson, the U.S. attorney prosecuting the case against McIntosh and pilot Keegan Leahy, 'stated that the government knows 'for a fact that there’s been telephone communications' between defense attorneys and a Philadelphia lawyer named Michael Farrell. The statements suggest the government listened in on lawyers’ conversations about the case, and that’s a no-no that, if proven, may breach attorney-client privilege and poison the integrity of government’s entire case." Better hurry up and get to recreating that investigative trail, federales. Sentencing for McIntosh is scheduled for September 18.
    Other defendants involved in this vast soap opera: Jacob Jeremiah Harryman (real estate developer), Andrew Jin Park, Brandon Marrow, Anthony "Mr. Purple" Marcantoni (large-scale distributor, owner of martial arts studio), Michael Phillips, Ryan Foreman (Rolex watch delivery), Jeremy Landsman (Nicka and McIntosh's landlord), Andrew "Bird" Sharpeta, Sean "Chong" Costello, Daniel Fountain and Ian Travis Minshall (mid-level dealers), Adam Constantinides, Joseph "Goose" Spain (truck driver sentenced to one day), Michael Borakove and Kevin Brandes.

Antonio "Tank Top" Davis was convicted of being the ringleader of a fake robbery* proposed by undercover DEA agents. Sounds like the dictionary definition of "entrapment," though federal agents claim it wasn't because Davis had been involved in robberies before. And speaking of the DEA, Austin "Yellow" Roberts III got 19 years in the federal pen for taking Kate Moss to the shore. He was one of 71 defendants indicted in Wicomico Co. in January.
Related TIL: in California making a car trap is illegal.

Robert Jarrett Jr. used to love her, but he had to kill her. He knew he'd miss her, so he had to keep her. He buried her right in his backyard. Thirty years* seems insufficient.

Also in HoCo, a woman's breasts grabbed on a walking trail and cellphone thief Travon Millar hit his victim and a witness with his car.

The defense has rested in the Karla Porter trial. She admitted to police to hiring a hit man to kill her husband William, but took the stand to claim she was abused by him-- a claim that witnesses handily refuted.*

JM Giordano's Summer of the Gun series continues with hauntingly beautiful photos of the August all-male anti-gun-violence march.

Wat? Former MD Republican Party director of opposition research and assistant chief of staff for Bob Ehrlich, Robert Ballinger II, was arrested for impersonating a Secret Service agent to withdraw money from somebody's bank account.

Barf, barf, barf.

E.L. Reisinger III

W.H. Cole

 Branch

M. Beatty

A city council committee meeting of three councilmen-- Warren Branch (13th), William H. Cole IV*(11th) and Edward Reisinger*-- approved $107 the million in financing that will cost taxpayers $398 million, as requested by Harbor Point developer Michael Beatty and vigorously protested by every other person in town. Beatty also shot down the church members' $25 million request but promised to put $3 million towards affordable housing because it's "the right thing to do."
     Things apparently got loud, because  Road-Trippin Trikki Rikki Spector, city councilperson notorious for repping the 5th district, living in the 10th, and charging taxpayers for her gas, called public observers a "peanut gallery."
     Now that you mention it, Rikki, all of those greasy grifters really should be pelted with peanuts wherever they go. Also waiters should sneak pubes in their food, women (and/or men) should refuse to have sex with them and schoolchildren should compose mocking jumprope rhymes using their names.

Sleazy William Cole, sit on a pole!
Dirty Warren Branch, move to the bunny ranch!
Backdoor Michael Beatty! Go live in Haiti!
Edward Reisinger the 3rd ...

They should be menaced by paperboys until the day they die, old and alone, perhaps asphyxiated in a vault, fetalized on top of their ill-gotten gains. Their children, children and children's children should be condemned to reside in one of the slums next to the development until every taxpayer of Baltimore is repaid the $663,333 in goods and services that the project will cost us.

'I will not let you know when your time has run out'

Fenton chronicles the foretold death of Quintin Poindexter*

The Medical Examiner says that autopsy results on Tyrone West could take weeks,* West died last month during an attempted arrest by city police.

Tavon White pleaded guilty to racketeering and attempted murder*

Prison officials got a threatening letter from the inmate accused of stabbing a corrections officer at North Branch, but they didn't warn said officer.* The union says that there have been 15 assaults on officers in the past 30 days (!)

The bomb squad was called to Elijah Cummings' office over a mysterious putty-like substance, the stuff was found to be not explosive.

The Fells Point residents' association has decided they do not not oppose the $398 million Harbor Point project, and the Downtown Management Authority (DMA) has also come out as opposed, which the Brew calls "a blunt wake-up call" to the mayor and city Development Director Brenda McKenzie.

Directly following the "Night Out" against crime a man was shot in the 1400 block of Guilford Avenue. And in nearby Waverly, residents are trying to curtail the hours of longtime trouble spot Yau Bros.

A body was found outside of Hillcrest Elementary school in Catonsville July 30

Stand up straight! Suck in that gut! Look like you know where you're going! A Canadian study found that street robbers pick their victims based on the way they walk (thanks EM)

Oh shit they got Muffy

Street crime comes to Roland Park*! A jogger on Wyndhurst threatened with her own pepper spray, a 54-year-old threatened with a Taser® on Roland Avenue and a 40-something jogger in Wyman Park thrown to the ground by robbers in a dark-colored sedan and a stolen SUV.

Crazed and murderous ex-cop James Smith's cause of death in jail* = hanging.

Butterfaced homophobe Don Dwyer pleaded guilty (again) to boozy boating in hopes of avoiding jail time; as you may recall, despondent over the failure of his marriage and the House of Delegates' inability to ban gay marriage, he and his male friend got shitfaced while boating on the bay with three children, wrecked said boat and put the three children in the hospital. The specialer-than-you legislator was also cited for illegal crabbing last month. He plans to seek a fourth term.
Wonder how the 5-year-old with the fractured skull is doing?

aaaand Doug Gansler's gubernatorial campaign just screwed the pooch bareback* on a bed of rose petals with a side of fries.  So long, nice to know you. Well, not really. Didn't really know you. But it was nice to have an alternative to Anthony Brown for five minutes. So, well, anyway, bye.

Vegetables for the children!

Don't miss Carol Ott of Baltimore Slumlord Watch talking to CBS evening news. A poignant piece, but wish Jeff Pegues had reported anything about why there are so many vacants and what the city is(n't) doing about them.

Look who's taking too: city insiders are using clergymen as a front to get at a $25 million piece of the Harbor Point project. ... but it's for vegetables and Internet for the children! Think of the children! What kind of Nazi Teahadist could take a radish out of the hands of a preacher who is going to get a kickback to feed it to an innocent child? A racist one, probably.

Tavon White has entered a guilty plea. Speaking of children, wonder what will become of all of his?

A corrections officer was stabbed five times with a "makeshift weapon" at North Branch, an assault "attributed to gang activity"

The coke-dealing Byrd brothers got 10 years

Report of a shooting in area of 3900 blocks of Potee/S Hanover in Brooklyn.. #BPDSD
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) August 6, 2013

Recent homicide victims names: James Godsey, 21, killed Fri in 1600 blk Hartsdale Rd; Dwayne Powell, 22, killed Thurs in 6400 blk Harford Rd
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) August 6, 2013

In court this am where a BGF member who pled guilty to murder two weeks ago is asking to take it back, go to trial
— Justin Fenton (@justin_fenton) August 6, 2013

Parallel Construction

Journalists can't protect their sources any more (now even TOR has been compromised), but the DEA's "SOD" [Special Operations Division] is apparently so good at protecting theirs that even judges and lawyers never know their sources existed. Vocab of the day: parallel construction: wherein investigators invent a cause for arrest where none previously existed in order to establish a legal reason to be investigating someone the NSA/DEA is already investigating. Example: "Agent Heywood Jablowme wanted to protect his informant Snitchy McPlea, and wasn't sure the warrantless GPS tracking, phone or email records he got from the DICE database would hold up, so he asked city police to pull over Pookie Green for a busted tail light when he knew Pookie was riding dirty to create a parallel construction for the bust and prosecution of the D-Bag drug crew."
Related: USA Today reported that the FBI let informants commit 5,658 crimes in 2011. 

All's well that ends.. horribly. Officer James Smith, who shot his fiancee Kendra Diggs in the back in front of police and medical crews* as she tried to escape him, has committed suicide in prison.*

Two men shot overnight in the Perkins Homes*

A city grand jury indicted James Berry III and three associates of the D-block drug crew for their roles in a revenge plot that killed seven* people

 Murderer

Scott Thompson, 47 (and not to be mistaken for the Canadian actor) was shot on Rosedale Street on Sunday and has died.*

On  March 3, 2013, the sketched  suspect  at  right  stabbed  and  murdered Twain  Robinson  in  the  3100  block of  Milford Avenue. 

Police arrested suspect Darryl Knight, who has his zip code (21234) tattooed on his face.

Jury selection began today for Karla Porter,* accused of arranging the murder of her husband William at a Towson gas station. Because of her alleged videotaped confession Porter likely would have faced the death penalty had the state not repealed it.*

Local gadfly Adam Meister escaped an attempted robbery last Friday night: 

"two black males around 16 to 18 years old approached me from the median on Eutaw as I approached Lafayette. One pulled out a gun which appeared to have a large barrel and pointed it at me as the other one said something to me that was very hard to understand because his English was so horrible ("give me...." is all I could make out). Upon seeing the weapon I instinctively turned my back to them and started sprinting north on Eutaw." 

Meiser escaped and the perps are still at large.

Remember the aspiring rapper with the weird-shaped head and tattooed eyebrows that spell "MAD MAN" whose wife stabbed a guy at the Fish Head Cantina in Halethorpe? Well,  Fish Head Cantina's been fined $2,000 for* its rowdy crowd.

The City That Breeds has a roundup of all the numbers in the Harbor Point development project/scandal. Note that Excelon is required to build in the city, so the employment numbers would be similar no matter where they built it.