Pa. man seeks to have 10-year sentence for theft cut in half

- Don Markus | Baltimore Sun 7/18/09

The attorney for a former Baltimore police officer who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for taking nearly $380,000 from a Howard County bank in December 2007 has asked a three-judge panel in Circuit Court to have his prison term cut in half.

Debra Saltz said that her client, Robert Flanagan of Dallastown, Pa., was "extremely desperate" and still suffering from the effects of the illness that forced him to leave a nine-year law enforcement career when he took the money from a Bank of America branch.

During a hearing Thursday, Saltz called the sentence imposed by Judge Richard S. Bernhardt excessive to the point of cruel and unusual punishment.

Flanagan, then 38, had worked for a year as a guard for Dunbar Armored Security after leaving the Baltimore police force because of post-traumatic stress disorder. Assistant State's Attorney Lynn Marshall said that Flanagan was dismissed from Dunbar because of discrepancies in the money he collected and what he turned in.

Dressed in his old uniform but lacking proper credentials, Flanagan persuaded an employee at the Bank of America branch on Baltimore National Pike to turn over $379,000 in cash. Flanagan and his wife, Robin, were arrested later that day. About $200,000 has never been recovered.

The employee who gave Flanagan the money as well as the branch manager were later fired, which Bernhardt later cited as one of the reasons for the 10-year sentence. Since it was a first offense, Flanagan could have received as little as six months of probation.

Charges against Robin Flanagan were later dropped when she cooperated with police.

"We don't know what happened to that money, and we'll never know," Saltz said.

But Marshall contends that Flanagan still knows where the money can be found.

"He stashed that money somewhere," Marshall said. "He will do jail time so he can have a nice nest egg when he gets out."

Flanagan, who is being jailed in Cumberland and is receiving treatment for PTSD, according to his lawyer, declined to speak on his own behalf.

At the time of his arrest, Flanagan was out on bond after being arrested in Baltimore County on a similar charge. Flanagan pleaded guilty to taking $70,000 from a Target store in Towson while dressed as an armored guard, and was given five years in jail to run concurrent with his sentence in Howard County.

Saltz said that he should have been given the same length term in Howard County, but Marshall argued that the Baltimore County judge who sentenced Flanagan was aware of his 10-year sentence in Howard County.

Judges Lenore R. Gelfman, Louis A. Becker and Diane O. Leasure will make their decision later.
 

A Damascus man accused of co-hosting an underage drinking party where a 16-year-old girl was found lying unconscious in her own vomit pleaded guilty last month to one count of allowing underage possession and consumption, court records show. The remaining charges - nine counts of allowing underage possession and consumption, 10 counts of contributing to a certain condition of a child, one count of reckless endangerment and one count of disorderly house - were dropped. Montgomery County Police officers responded to the house at 12:30 a.m. Aug. 4 after neighbors complained, police have said, but the couple would not let the officers inside. They entered the house after looking through a basement window and seeing the unconscious girl, who was taken to Shady Grove Adventist Hospital and revived, police said. All of the party's guests - between 15 and 19 years old - had been drinking, police have said. ''I think the state went a little crazy - they ended up charging him with 22 counts,” his Greenbelt attorney, Debra Saltz, said last week. ''...He's put it behind him, and the family wants to put it behind them.”

Capital-Gazette (Annapolis)

OAK HILL GUARD ACQUITTED OF ASSAULT - 06/01/07

The former chief of security at the Oak Hill Juvenile Detention Center in Laurel was acquitted yesterday of assaulting an innocent boy while looking for three escapees.The now-18-year-old victim, Julian Jeanty, testified that he couldn't identify Henry C. Davis, 45, of Forestville, as one of his three attackers.

OAK HILL GUARDS CHARGED WITH ASSAULT - 5/27/07

Three guards at the Oak Hill Juvenile Detention Center in Laurel, including the former chief of security at the District of Columbia's youth prison, are charged with assaulting an innocent boy. Henry C. Davis, 45 of Forestville, is scheduled for trial Thursday for second-degree assault and reckless endangerment. According to court documents, Mr. Davis, then the facility's chief of security, and two other guards were looking for three escapees in Laurel about 6:30 p.m. Jan. 25, 2006. Then, they spotted 17-year-old Julian Jeanty, of Russet, walking to the Citgo at 3396 Laurel-Fort Meade Rd. to buy some chips.
Wearing plain cloths and carrying walkie talkies, the guards - all weighing 200 pounds or more - chased down the 135 pound, 5-foot-7 inch teen.

"The officers grabbed him, threw him on the ground and began to strike him with walkie-talkies. Juilan said they 'stomped' him on the back and ribs with their feet and placed handcuffs on his wrist," charging documents showed. Then the guards, who have no authority off the facility's property, noticed they had the wrong guy.

"Oh, my fault, he don't got on a white T-shirt," one of the guards said, according to the documents.
"Julian said the handcuffs were removed and one of the officers patted him on the head and told him to go home," Detective Matthew Evans said in his statement.

Instead, Carl Jeanty, Julian's father, flagged down a county police officer and reported the incident. He eventually took his son to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. There, doctors found scrapes on his scalp and wrist "consistent with an assault."

After reviewing pictures of the injuries, Detective Evans also noted red marks on Julian's neck and head and a bloody gash on his right wrist from the handcuffs.

Police said the guards located all three escapees - ages 13, 14 and 15, - around 8:30 p.m. near the Red Carpet Inn at 3440 Laurel-Fort Meade Road and the Knights Inn at 3380 Laurel-Fort Meade Road.

Mr. Davis told police shortly after the incident that no one beat Julian or used excessive force during their encounter with him. He didn't know how Julian sustained his injuries, but said if someone hit him with a walkie-talkie he would have gashes.

"The only thing Mr. Davis could point to as a possible mistake was placing Julian in handcuffs," Detective Evans wrote. Debra Saltz, Mr. Davis' attorney, maintained her client's innocence and decried the state's weak case.

"It's this boys word against three very respected guards," she said, claiming Mr. Davis didn't arrive on the scene until after Julian was handcuffed. She said while he no longer works at Oak Hill, he has been rehired by the district's juvenile system.

OFFICER VACATIONS; SUSPECTS GO FREE
Washington Post - March 26, 2007
By Ruben Castaneda

Seven times, an armed robbery case in Prince George's Circuit Court was delayed at the request of prosecutors because they said a police officer who was a witness was recovering from a car accident.

A judge granted the seventh delay in September. Then the officer went to the Cayman Islands for five days. After Prince George's police Capt. Barry Fox went south, so did the armed robbery case.

One defendant, Dmitri Negbe, was acquitted by a jury. The victim testified that he could not identify Negbe, defense attorney Debra A. Saltz said. Also, the victim disputed the testimony of police officers who said Negbe and the other suspects were standing when he identified them the night of the attempted robbery. The victim said the suspects were lying on the ground, and officers held up their heads, Saltz said.

Under cross-examination from Saltz in front of the jury, Fox said he was unable to attend the trial scheduled for September because he had doctor's appointments.

"But you did take five days out to go to the Cayman Islands. Is that correct?"

"Yes," Fox replied.

In an interview, Saltz said she learned of Fox's Cayman vacation by chance, a few weeks after the September trial date was postponed.

PRINCE GEORGE'S SLAYING CASE UNRAVELS AS WITNESS IS HELD
Washington Post - September 25, 2006

Greed Drove Offer to Recant, Lawyers Say

In short order, Widmer [the witness] went from star witness to perjury defendant. Prosecutors dropped the murder charges against [their client] and his attorneys, Richard A. Finci and Debra A. Saltz are now prosecution witnesses against Widmer.

“I believed [Widmer] was lying all the time” about seeing the killing, Finci said.. “All the witnesses I spoke to said 'He's a liar. You can't believe a word he says. .

INTERROGATION TACTICS FAULTED IN PR. GEORGE'S WOMAN'S STATEMENT IS 4TH SUPPRESSED SINCE JUNE
Aug. 22, 2005
Washington Post
By Ruben Castaneda

Nearly five hours after Prince George's County police arrested her on suspicion of fatally shooting her on-again, off-again boyfriend in her Capitol Heights home last January, Abere Karibi-Ikiriko became emotional in a small interview room at police headquarters.

She sobbed and screamed as a police video camera recorded her, according to a description by a defense attorney who later saw the videotape. She began to collapse and was held up by a county homicide detective. Karibi-Ikiriko asked the detective: How could you live if you knew you killed somebody you loved?

The Prince George's jury that decided Karibi-Ikiriko's fate this month never saw any of it.

A judge threw out the entire interview because he determined that Cpl. Bernard Nelson Jr., an 11-year veteran of the homicide unit, violated a bedrock principle of the criminal justice system: a suspect's right to an attorney.

It was one of four videotaped statements that circuit or appellate judges have suppressed since June because they determined the Prince George's police obtained them improperly.

And it was the second time in four years that a judge has tossed out a defendant's statement because Nelson disregarded a suspect's request for an attorney. During that time, Nelson also obtained a confession from a teenager in a murder case that turned out to be false.

After viewing a portion of the videotape in Karibi-Ikiriko's case, Circuit Court Judge Richard H. Sothoron Jr. ruled that none of Karibi-Ikiriko's statements during her 4 1/2 hours in an interview room were admissible because she'd asked for an attorney four times, which made the statements involuntary.

Karibi-Ikiriko's attorney Debra A. Saltz, describing the tape in court, said she counted six requests for an attorney in five minutes.

According to Saltz, Nelson told Karibi-Ikiriko she could change her mind and talk to him after the first two times Karibi-Ikiriko asked for an attorney. Karibi-Ikiriko again asked for a lawyer, adding, "You understand, right?"