Beans, beer, pervs, ammo

Cause of death for dirty doc Nikita Levy: helium overdose.* (non-Sun link)

Sixty-five years for Richard Charles, convicted of raping his girlfriend's daughter.*

Female victim of the murder-suicide in Pen Lucy was ID'd as Candace Baird;* her killer husband she worked as a conflict mediator and probation agent.

A man was stabbed and robbed in the 22 block of South Broadway, a bar on Fleet Street was held up for patrons' cash, the contents of the register and two Red Bulls.

John Andrew Blaes

Twenty-seven years for underage-bondage pornographer John Andrew Blaes of Parkville.

Robert Hubbard went to the cupboard to fetch himself some ammo; the ammo was there but a snitch was aware so he got 15 years in the slammo.

The House unanimously passed a bill that would reverse the ruling deeming pit bulls an "inherently dangerous" breed.

Senators are giving constituents lip service to their speed camera objections, the Death Penalty ban is expected to pass the  Judicial Proceedings Committee and the gov's gun-control proposal is up for a vote today.

Jean Brown of Jamaica was convicted in federal court for her racketeering role in the Brown Organization, a vicious pot-smuggling syndicate.

Anastasia Olouch, who was accused of elder abuse and then fled to Kenya, pleaded guilty today and was sentenced to six years in prison.

Hermes makes sweaters?

Steve Pearson, 57 and assaulted last December in Pikesville, is still in a coma.

A 91-year-old man and his 42-year-old passenger are accused of buying drugs in Baltimore and driving them to West Virginia.

The Department of the Environment is cracking down on lead-paint-law violators.

Baltimorean Eric Eugene Walker, 27, was shot to death in Lanham by a guy high on PCP.

Kathleen Machen

In Ocean City, Kathleen Machen, arrested two weeks ago for assaulting her fiance with beers and a can of beans, was arrested again, this time for slapping said fiance after he took the last can of beer.

'this scar was invisible because it was on his soul'

Must read: NYMag on "The Truce on Drugs: what happens now that the war has failed?" ... Which uses Baltimore as the prime example of said failure/truce, and details FHBIII's relatively radical shift away from drugs towards guns. Holy crap, in 2005 in our city 108,000 people were arrested-- one sixth of the entire population arrested in a single year. Now only 1/10th of the population is arrested every year!

The Ink recounts last week's six murders

Really? a UC Berkeley study claims Baltimore is the country's 17th most "under-policed" cities,* and Fenton sez puts the cost of crime at $3,400 per citizen (don't see where that figure is in the study and dunno how they came up with it, but here's a link to the study if you want to try to figure it out).

A woman was shot in the leg in a drive-by shooting near Langston Hughes Elementary*

An Owings Mills woman claims she got a beatdown from four men during a "road rage incident" on Thanksgiving

In Cumberland, Jerod Pridget, a 20-year-old prisoner from Baltimore was beaten nearly to death in his cell*

A drug courier from Czechoslovakia, Dmytro Holovko, is one of the latest defendants v horké vodě from the Brown organization,* which you may recall is a violent pot-smuggling group with ties to Jamaica and Mexico, implicated in the grisly murder and dismemberment of alleged cash courier Michael Knight of Woodlawn.

Van Smith profiles William Bond, nee William Crockett Rovtar, a guy who killed his dad with a hammer in Ohio as a teen and now is crusading against perceived corruption in the local judiciary.

Today in Kevin Clash news: Gawker re-enacts the scandal with Spiderman and the Derpy Doo "My Little Pony" ("the bad things he did with Elmo scarred him, like when you skin your knee on the sidewalk, only this scar was invisible because it was on his soul"), the ravenous bottom-feeders at TMZ tell us Clash's nom de boudoir was "Mr. Tickler" (plus a whole lot more, which I shall now repress, lalalala) and New York magazine reports on Sesame Street's ace crisis-PR team, which includes the former CEO of Newsweek and a flak from the H. W. Bush White House. ... but srsly, what should the penalty be for a 40- or 50-something who engages in frottage with a 16-year-old? It's not right and it's not okay, but it's also not like molesting a 10-year-old either, exactly. ... FWIW, the age of consent in NY is 17.

Criminally Insane

Accused cannibal killer Alexander Kinyua has been indicted and moved to Clifton T. Perkins hospital for the criminally insane.

Michael Knight, from Inside Charm City

You may have seen Dean "Journey" Myrie on "America's Most Wanted," last June, and soon you'll be able to see him co-starring live at the Garmatz courthouse with his co-defendants from the Brown Organization including, "Doc, " (left) "Dollar Bill" and "The Russian." The defendants are from Jamaica, California and Florida and charged with pot dealing and racketeering, and also kidnapping, murdering and dismembering Michael Knight, 50, of Woodlawn. "Doc" Downer is also charged with firearms violations, and with illegally re-entering the United States after having been deported after a felony conviction.

Cell phone carriers reported a massive uptick of law enforcement requests for subscriber information to Congress.

And the local branch of the Federalist Society would like to invite you, yes you, to lunch and discussion with Heritage Foundation fellow Hans von Spakovsky, "The Unpersuasive Case Against Voter Identification," Thursday July 19 at noon at the offices of Miles & Stockbridge, 10 Light St. Spakovsky was a lawyer in Fulton County, GA, then for Bush during the 2000 Florida recount and was later appointed to the Justice Department, where he worked to pass a voter ID law that was later overturned by a Federal judge. The Heritage Foundation is perhaps best known for promoting the Gulf Wars, denying global warming, raging against Obamacare and for its prominent members, which include Joseph Coors, John Ashcroft and Rush Limbaugh. The lunch 'n' learn is free, but email Brian Fish at asabrianfish@earthlink.net if you plan to attend.

... speaking of people who might have a hard time finding an ID, the CP drops in on Baltimore's  decade-old shantytown.

A happier shelter is this home in the 800 block of Caroline Street*, formerly a vacant where a 13-year-old was raped, now being turned into $150k-180k 'workforce housing.'