Ihtisham Butt.

The Brew reveals that outgoing finance director Edward Gallagher left the city an unholy accounting mess full of major errors that have already cost the city $1.4 million in auditing fees and could endanger the city's bond rating and ability to borrow money to fix our decaying sewage system. The finer points of Gallagher's legacy include $9.7 million in water-billing errors, miscalculated depreciation costs and an utter lack of internal audits.

Page Croyder reports a major "melt down" at the Public Defender's office, she says "at leave five" "white older men" were "tossed out into the street"and countless other employees were demoted with "no warning, no indication of poor performance, no request to change what they were doing, nothing," Elijah Cummings' brother Bob's job survived the purges, natch.

"A Baltimore City Circuit Court jury convicted Ihtisham Butt, 32, yesterday for sexually abusing the 14-year-old daughter of his former girlfriend."

Have you seen this robber who stuck up the 7-11 at Harford and S. Wolfe Sts?

Twitterations:

Brandon M. Scott ‏@CouncilmanBMS

The Latest City-Wide Comstat Crime Data Is Available herehttp:// tinyurl.com/9sc4gqm  via @openbaltimore @baltimorepolice

Justin Fenton ‏@justin_fenton

Dozens of crimes that occur in Baltimore schools go unreported as part of zero-tolerance rollback,reports @foxbaltimorehttp://foxbaltimore.com/newsroom/top_stories/videos/wbff_dozens-city-school-crimes-not-reported-police-16022.shtml …

Justin Fenton ‏@justin_fenton

Anthony Batts was confirmed last night as Baltimore's 37th police commissioner; Jim Kraft abstained and didnt say why http://bsun.md/Ri7PMD *

Michael A. Scarcella ‏@MikeScarcella

The government's legal fee tab in a #FOIA case in San Francisco: nearly $480K. http://www.rcfp.org/browse-media-law-resources/news/journalist-awarded-more-400000-foia-case-against-fbi … #FBI

Justin Fenton ‏@justin_fenton

Police identify weekend shooting victim (2500 E Hoffman) as 19 y/o Darius Taybron. Suspect was on a bike. Police need tips: 410-396-2100.

Only in Baltimore!

So Agnes Welch, 85, wants to retire from the City Council and appoint her son as successor. Whaddayagonnado, here in Baltimore we like our crabs hot, our beer cold, and our politicians dynastic, gun-toting, finance-law-violating miscreants.
(thanks Adam for digging up those stories)

.. don't miss "Waiting for the Plan," the fourth installment of Ed Ericsson's series, "Detox Clusterfudge."

and though a tutoring company is accused of stealing more than $100,000 from the school system by falsifying documents and forging signatures, prosecutor Robert A. Rohrbaugh says school officials and lawyers stonewalled and refused to turn over documents for months. The alleged tutor-$-scamming bitches certainly picked the wrong signature to forge... that of former Sun reporter (now Brew reporter) Joan Jacobson.

What's that loud flushing sound?

"Audit slams Baltimore region of state prison system" ... "so many opportunities for fraud and misuse of money by workers in the Baltimore region of the state prison system that state auditors are asking the attorney general to look into possible criminal charges." Not only that, but the auditors brought up the same issues three years ago, and since then, "it looks like the problems got worse"

Meanwhile the health department has launched an investigation into BBH after the Sun's story yesterday of addicts guarding the medicine cabinet

Addicts in Charge

Why Baltimore is a mess, reason 597:
"Addicts put in charge" in rat-infested recovery housing centers. Also see CP's report on BBH from September: "We Are Not In the Housing Business"
(Lolz: BBH's housing director says house managers face "pretty rigorous criteria ... you have to have at least 60 days of clean time.")

Related: "Youth counselor [Ronald Piper Scott] pleads guilty to heroin distribution, conspiracy"

Down at the federal courthouse, The Louis Berger Group, Inc., an engineering firm that worked in Iraq and Afghanistan, agreed to pay $69.3 million to settle fraud claims

"S. Baltimore shooting possibly a botched drug deal, police say"

Edgewood a "killing zone"

FBI ISO M&T bank robber

It's a HoCoFoSho! Fifteen alleged "johns" arrested in sting .. and the Sun is naming names!

Unfrickinbelieveable Waste & Sloppiness at DJS

Bykowicz reports an audit found the Dept of Juvenile Services lost $3 million due to "improper documentation" (yeah right) and ps., "The agency's failure to submit contracts to the state Board of Public Works on time, meanwhile, forced the spending panel to approve nearly $150 million in agreements after work had already begun."
And pps., says the dept spokesman, it's all Ehrlich's fault.

For a little backgrounder on leadership at the DJS, see the CP's "Juvenile Disservices"

Butterfingers Bureaucrats Bungle Bank Payments

TDR's Brendan Kearney uncovered a banking mistake that cost the city $600,000

Congratulations, taxpayers, you paid Margaret Burns $52 an hour to stand on the courthouse steps and talk smack about the ballot count.

More from Hermann

Prosecutors: It's okay to defraud the city

This is true, the office of Patricia Jessamy has concluded that sex offender Dennis McLaughlin was entitled to fraudulently obtained sick pay that he received while in prison for sexually abusing a minor. Thus there will be no charges filed against the people who filed the fake leave slips, forged the doctors' notes, or even against McLaughlin, who received the pay while in prison and is now laughing all the way to the bank. btw, he's still in jail for impersonating a police officer, abducting a woman, and sexually assaulting her.

For those of us who live in the city, your tax dollars at work.

Down in A-town

Facebook harassment, foreclosure mediation and some guy's sperm problem among subjects of bills in the hopper at the State House. A fab roundup of coverage from the MD Reporter.