FRITZ: SOFT ON CRIME: Easy Plea Deal from States Attorney in Brutal Beat Down at Leonardtown High School

Video courtesy of The Bay Net

FRITZ: SOFT ON CRIME

Thug Who Fled Delaware After Arrest for Gang Carjacking and Beating Woman Now Gets Easy Plea Deal from States Attorney in Brutal Beat Down at Leonardtown High School

By Ken Rossignol

THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY

News & Commentary

Fritz talks tough on violence for TV cameras a press conference on threats by Leonardtown High students
Howard Anthony Straughn Jr. was convicted of deadly beating but only given six months in jail in a plea deal by Fritz

LEONARDTOWN, MD. – Just a few short weeks after appearing at a press conference with St. Mary’s County Sheriff Tim Cameron, St. Mary’s School Superintendent Scott Smith and other officials on Feb. 21, 2018, declaring vigilance to protect students at public schools from violence following the arrest of two students for making threats of violence – in a case of alarming violence in Leonardtown High School – St. Mary’s States Attorney Richard Fritz took a powder.

He erased the ‘red line’ and blew ‘zero tolerance’ off the table of tools of the law enforcement and justice system which could be used to assure safety in schools. This action is just the latest in a long line of incoherent and chaotic administration of the States Attorney’s Office – aided by a clown act of untruthfulness and deception that has been made an art form in the administration of Sheriff Cameron and the questionable acts of Joe Stanalonis, one of Fritz’s lead prosecutors who will likely be the next Circuit Court Judge.

What did Fritz do?  It is what he didn’t do. When faced with an actual case of violence at Leonardtown High School, he agreed to a plea deal that left a would-be murderer to do an easy six months in the local jail instead of a few years in prison.

Just play the video at the top of this article. This wasn’t wrestling or pushing and shoving case of mutual combat. This attack was aimed at the head of the victim by ruthless and repeated blows to the head with only one likely outcome – to kill the victim.

Howard Straughn Jr. assaulting Sylvester Kenneth Price at Leonardtown High School.

What message did Fritz send to other psychopaths considering a dark deed in their high school in St. Mary’s County?

The message is clear: about that zero-tolerance stuff – ‘we were just blowing smoke for the benefit of the voters in an election year’.  After all, when the press conference was held, the filing deadline for an opponent to file for election against Fritz had not passed.  At the time this case came to court, Fritz had no opponent for election and won’t have one.

Whew.

Now that he is unopposed for reelection, the real Fritz of easy plea deals and payola for drug dealers willing to pay cash to the court instead of seeing a jail cell resurfaces.

What about Fritz’s depraved heart murder rap for heroin dealers who sell doses that junkies take and die from?

What about Fritz’s depraved heart murder rap for heroin dealers who sell doses that junkies take and die from?

Geoffrey Uhall charged with selling heroin to Colleen Cord who died of an overdose on April 19, 2017
Colleen Cord died of a heroin overdose after police say she bought the drugs from Geoffrey Uhall, now found not guilty of murder in St. Mary’s County Md. 

Juries haven’t been buying his argument and all of those he charged have been found not guilty. The latest was Geoffrey Uhall who sold drugs to Colleen Cord. Cord died from a deadly cocktail of drugs including heroin, fentanyl, tramadol, and cocaine.  The deadly mixture caused her death, according to the autopsy report. But court testimony revealed that Cord didn’t have any residue of heroin in her nose and the heroin that had been procured for her by Uhall was still in another room when her body was discovered.

The St. Mary’s Circuit Court jury found Uhall not guilty of reckless endangerment, manslaughter, and second-degree murder. The jury found him guilty of felony distribution of drugs for which he faces a 20-year term in prison when sentenced by Judge David Densford. The argument that an addict decides to take dangerous and lethal drugs and therefore bears responsibility for their own actions and not a drug dealer who may not have known that the heroin was more than just unhealthy, but actually would kill his customer – appears to be the prevailing verdict in all the cases.

This brutal beatdown of a Leonardtown High school student who attempted to intervene with two students that were attempting to kill another student was caught on cell phone video and displayed on social media. The vicious assault which was viewed widely online ended with court action on April 3, 2018, that resulted in a brief six months in jail for the perpetrator of the vicious and brutal assault.

The victim was kicked in the torso and head repeatedly by the assaulter, Howard Anthony Straughn Jr., of 22874 Thornbury Drive, California, Md.

Straughn is a student who was convicted in Delaware of another vicious attack on a woman in which he and his two cohorts carjacked the woman’s vehicle. Instead of going to prison in Delaware, Straughn was allowed to enter Leonardtown High School, which apparently only performs criminal background checks on school staff and teachers.

Parents may well want to question school officials if any other new “transfers” to the school system are actually fleeing felons and dangerous criminals being interjected into the school system.

In spite of a record of a 2016 assault during a carjacking, along with the witnesses to the gang assault at Leonardtown High School, St. Mary’s States Attorney Richard Fritz allowed his District Court prosecutor to make a plea deal with the defendant, Howard Straughn Jr., 18.

The Laurel Police Department in Delaware reported that on Sept. 20, 2016, officers from the Laurel Police Department responded to a reported carjacking and found a 63-year-old woman who had visible injuries and required immediate medical assistance.  The victim was transported to Nanticoke Hospital for treatment.

THEY BEAT A 63-YEAR-OLD WOMAN BECAUSE THEY WANTED THE PRIVILEGE OF HER CAR: Three thugs charged with robbery and assault in Laurel Del includes Howard Straughn Jr. given easy plea deal in Leonardtown High beating. 

The Laurel police investigation led to the arrest of Tiara Taylor, 18, of Laurel, Delaware; Calisha Davis, 16, of Laurel, Delaware; and Howard Straughn Jr. 17, of Laurel, Delaware.

The defendants were charged with Robbery 1st Degree; a Class “B” Felony, Conspiracy 1st Degree; a Class “E” Felony and Theft of a Motor Vehicle; a Class “G” Felony. Howard Straughn was also charged with Wearing a Disguise during the Commission of a Felony; which is a Class “E” Felony.

Calisha Davis was arraigned by Justice of the Peace Court #3 and committed to Stevenson House in Milford without bail. Howard Straughn was arraigned by Justice of the Peace Court #3 and committed to Stevenson House in Milford in default of a $52,000.00 Secured Bond. Tiara Taylor was arraigned by Justice of the Peace Court #2 and committed to SCI in Georgetown in default of a $50,000.00 Cash Bond.

Maryland State Trooper Brandy Ditoto arrested Straughn on Dec. 3, 2018, and charged him with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct in the assault on Sylvester Kenneth Price. Price was trying to break up a fight when Straughn and two other Leonardtown students began to attack him.

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On April 3, 2018, in a plea deal in St. Mary’s District Court Straughn entered a guilty plea to assault, and the disorderly conduct charge was dropped by Fritz. THE DEAL: a sentence of 18 months in jail with all jail time suspended except for 6 months.

Court records show that a commitment record to the St. Mary’s County Jail was issued on April 3, 2018.

Taxpayers of Maryland can be assured of swift and certain justice for the accused in this case as two free attorneys represented Straughn. The attorneys were paid for by the hapless taxpayers, who get the bill for everything.

The slap on the wrist of a repeat offender violent assailant finds little severity in sentencing less than a week after another violent act, on March 20, 2018, in the bloody halls of nearby Great Mills High School.

The Bay Net reported this statement from Tania Price, the mother of the badly beaten Sylvester Price:

“Before sentencing, Price’s parents offered a victim impact statement. Tania Price, the victim’s mother, read from a prepared statement. “Parents never send their kids to school to defend themselves. Sly attempted to help a classmate and was attacked.”

Tania Price went on to call Straughn an animal when he “brutally kicked” her son repeatedly. “Luckily, our son had knowledge of self-defense and covered his head. These punks viciously persisted until an adult stopped it.”

“Tania asked Judge Riddle to hand down a tough sentence, saying “He has no place in a public-school system or society. Now is the time to stop this [behavior] in our schools.”

The deadly attack in Great Mills High that Jaelynn Willey critically injured from a gunshot to the head and died a few days later; and also, Desmond Barnes wounded due to the act of another teen psychopath was on March 20, 2018. The plea deal by Fritz to let Straughn live on the easy street in the St. Mary’s Jail was on April 3, 2018.

Thus, just two weeks after the dramatic school shooting with national television coverage and politicians rushing from Washington to give statements to the TV cameras in front of Great Mills High School, Fritz demonstrated what he thought was an appropriate response to a violent and vicious attack by a repeat offender thug.

A slap on the wrist – a sentence that a repeat offender shoplifter might be given.

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