Eight Federal Years for Kendell Richburg

Kendell Richburg, via MySpace

KR via MySpace

Kendell Richburg deserves his own novella and HBO mini-series, but it's Sunday night so this will have to suffice: At 36 he's just been awarded eight years in prison for conspiracy to distribute heroin and possession of a firearm.
    Is that too little considering how he framed grandmas with planted drugs* to boost his own arrest numbers? or is it too much, given that he started out as a good cop by partnering with an informant, yet evidently succumbed to BPD pressure to juke the stats *? Explains Slate,

Richburg did these things not for personal gain, but to benefit a confidential informant who fed him information that helped him make arrests. In order to keep his confidential informant on the street, Richburg gave him drugs that he could sell. Richburg tipped off the informant to police activity, helping him avoid arrest. But eventually, their arrangement took a more sinister turn."

Notably, Richburg was assigned to the VCIS,* the notoriously 'maverick' BPD department that groomed such mavericky mavericks as Jemini Jones. Richburg's defense: he was one of many* who "misrepresented facts." No doubt.
   So then what has became then of all of Richburg's many cases? And how has the police department changed procedures to prevent perverse incentives leading to malfeasance so police quit planting pot on grandmas? While O'Malley cabal's PR machine can find a high-schooler's personal photos from four months ago it can't muster comment on this case, apparently.

Paramedic assaults patient, a gas cocktail, a flipping scheme

Have you seen missing 9-year-old Jasaiah Roberts? He was last seen Saturday in the 3100 block of East Monument St. 

A 24-year-old man was shot in the chest on a basketball court in the 1400 block of N Caroline St. in the Oliver* neighborhood, reports the Sun's Mary Gail Hare

?! A woman in the 4600 block of York Road tried to sicken her niece by serving her water with gasoline in it.

?! A paramedic named Shaun White was arrested for assaulting a patient*. Fenton reports that the victim was a drunk 36-year-old woman and the assault was caught on tape* and involved a slap across the face. Oh my. And irony alert!! Olympic gold medalist Shaun White was also arrested this weekend-- he was drunk and assaulted a telephone and then himself by slapping his drunk face on the floor while trying to hit someone else. What does it all mean?!

Poor Anthony Batts! His contract with the city has him taking a $60,000 cut below what he was making in Oakland* to command a force six times smaller than ours.

One Kenneth Koehler pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud in a scheme whereby he lied like a rug to get fraudulent loans for six properties in Upper Fells Point, kept Fannie and Freddie's cash and then let the properties fall into foreclosure. Four of the houses are in the same block of S. Chapel St., one is 2217 Gough and another in the 200 block of S. Castle. The City Paper covered this story back in 2008, Koehler told Ed Ericsson he's owned 27 properties in and around Fells Point.

Glen Burnie dad Mitchell Gresham is being charged as an accessory to murder after helping his son, Cornelius Johnson, cover up the killing of his half-brother, Andrew Michael Johnson.  (Explains the Gazette, the brothers had the same mom but two different dads.)

More deets on Matthew Long, the grandson suspected in the deaths of the Peppers: he was en route to California and found in a Travel Inn in Weatherford, OK; the motel owner called the cops after not getting a response from Long's room. Creepy detail: the motel is two blocks from Dead Woman's Crossing, so named after a notorious murder in 1905 that, legend has it, led to a suspected accomplice poisoning herself. What does it all mean?!

From the "shocking to no one" files, Luke Broadwater reports that "More than half of the 1,900 city officials and employees required to complete ethics and financial disclosure forms fill out the forms incorrectly or not at all.*" In other unshocking news, all signs point to our gov eyeballing a 2016 presidential run. .. poor O'Malley, after all these years he's still trying to live down "Carcetti." Meowed the guv to Governing magazine, "David [Simon] came to Baltimore and saw nothing but suffering and hopelessness, and made a lot of money on it."

In the Patch metro blotter, a skeevy 20-something in Essex set fire to a garage,  a drive-by shooting in Pikesville, an armed robbery on a Sunday afternoon in Owings Mills.

O'Malley endorses Jessamy

Just ran into the gov at Belvedere Square ... (doing my best to recall the convo)
Me: So I have to ask you, you're endorsing Jessamy, really? I thought you were old enemies!
O'Malley: Early on I made some oversweeping remarks about her that I regret, but crime is at its lowest in 15 years, and she's been a big part of that.
Me: Really? But isn't there a possibility someone could do a better job? Is something wrong with Gregg Bernstein?
O'M: I could do a better job, we could all do better at our jobs.
Me: Yeah, okay, sure but.. what about the judges you've appointed and this Charles Village murder, didn't you appoint Braverman, who let one of the killers out?
Him: Actually that was Judge Howard, appointed by Ehrlich. And what happened in Charles Village is a tragedy. But the great thing is my vote counts just as much as your vote, and we have a choice.
Me:: .. but do we really have a choice? Jessamy was appointed to that position, and very few people pay attention to that race. If you endorsed a different candidate that really might make a difference.
Judge Katie O'Malley (hustling me away): It's not that there's anything wrong with Gregg Bernstein. He's a great lawyer. It's just that our administration and Jessamy have worked so well together.

.. so there you have it.

.. it looks like IV editor Regina Holmes also talked to O'M at the same event.. and while the governor is "supporting" Jessamy, he may or may not be "endorsing" her. Or something.