BY KEN ROSSIGNOL
THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY

TWO FORMER MARYLAND PROSECUTORS COULD SOON BE STRIPPED OF LAW LICENSES

Many charged with prosecuting crimes often end up committing crimes or violating professional standards and being stripped of their law licenses

Former St. Mary’s County Deputy State’s Attorney Daniel White is in good company regarding being included in the colorful legion of former prosecutors in Maryland. A complaint alleging conduct qualifying him for administrative actions up to and including disbarment has been filed with the Attorney Grievance Commission by his brother, John White.

The Attorney Grievance Commission bar counsel filed a complaint against former Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby following her conviction for federal perjury charges.

THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY has confirmed that the federal complaint filed by Compass Marketing in 2022 outlines the allegations against Daniel White in the complaint to the AGC.

Daniel White is also a member of the bar in Virginia and is in good standing. His LinkedIn profile states that he is a Deputy Commonwealth Attorney. It is unclear if he is on the staff of Greene County, Virginia, as Google searches lead to that county.

When do prosecutors get disbarred in Maryland? How Often? 

Prosecutors in Maryland have been disbarred; others have their law licenses on the chopping block due to pending sentencing in criminal cases.

Assistant States Attorney for Baltimore City Adam Lane Chaudry

One former prosecutor is Assistant States Attorney in Baltimore City, Adam Lane Chaudry, a prosecutor from 2009 to June 18, 2021. Chaudry was assigned to the Homicide section of the State’s Attorney Office, virtually a busy train station filled with non-stop murder investigations and prosecutions as Baltimore’s murder rate climbed over 300 annually.

Chaudry evidently didn’t take getting dumped by his former squeeze kindly and pleaded guilty in federal court to illegally using grand jury subpoenas to obtain phone records of two ex-girlfriends along with three of their friends for the purpose of stalking and harassing his old flames.

Chaudry evidently didn’t take getting dumped by his former squeeze kindly and pleaded guilty in federal court to illegally using grand jury subpoenas to obtain phone records of two ex-girlfriends along with three of their friends for the purpose of stalking and harassing his old flames.

The indictment in federal court against Chaudry noted that prosecutors in the office have the authority to issue subpoenas for documents that include the language “YOU ARE HEREBY COMMANDED to produce the following documents or objects…” The indictment laid out the details of how Chaudry’s romances bloomed, faded, and turned dark enough for him to issue subpoenas to two telephone companies for all of the records of two of his former romantic pursuits as well as those records of their friends and coworkers. Chaudry was tracking not only phone records but even hotel stays of his old flames, obtaining driver’s license photos and other private details, and racked up sixty-five such documents.

“Adam Chaudry egregiously abused his power,” said U.S. Attorney Erek Barron. “We wield prosecutorial power for the public interest, not for personal interest. This office will tolerate nothing less.”

Chaudry was sentenced to two years in prison, which would enable him to catch up on old times with acquaintances he made in courtrooms over the dozen years he spent relocating various miscreants to government housing.

Baltimore City States Attorney Marilyn Mosby

The Bar Counsel for the Attorney Grievance Commission, Thomas Degonzia, filed charges in the Maryland Supreme Court on Dec. 22, 2023, asking for action against Mosby by Maryland’s highest court due to her federal conviction and violation of the rules of Professional Conduct.

The other most recent convicted prosecutor is former Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who voters gave the heave-ho in the 2022 Democratic Primary when Ivan Bates cleaned her clock.  Mosby has since been convicted in Federal Court for perjury in filing false statements in obtaining a mortgage for a resort home in Florida.  The George Soros-funded Mosby lied about suffering from financial hardships due to the COVID-19 pandemic, making her eligible to withdraw funds from a retirement account. 

CROOKED BALTIMORE MAYORS: Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh pleads guilty to 11-Count Federal Indictment for Wire Fraud and Tax-Related Charges

Request for immediate suspension of Mosby’s license to practice law

The greedy Mosby never suffered one dime of lost income due to her hefty salary being funded by the taxpayers of Baltimore City.  Her defense presented the theory that she suffered because a planned side business was prevented from blooming due to the worldwide flu. The jury didn’t buy the bogus claim and convicted her in the first of a double feature of criminal trials.

The task of defense attorneys for Mosby to convince a jury of her peers that she was the victim of racial injustice by the Department of Justice because of her far-left advocacy of criminals was a steep hill to climb for two reasons.

 First, the property purchases that her perjury involved were two resort properties worth over a million bucks, and second, since taking office in 2015, she presided over a spiraling crime rate and a murder rate higher than that achieved in Baltimore in more than twenty years.  Prosecutors showed the jury that the resort properties were not the second homes she had claimed but were instead rental properties and produced evidence that she had contracts with a management company for that purpose. Mosby used the money, said the prosecutors, about $80,000, to make down payments on the Florida resort properties – an eight-bedroom rental near Disney World and a condo on the Gulf Coast – and allegedly also misled the lenders.

Lying on loan applications to federally insured lending institutions is also illegal, even for Soros-funded big city prosecutors.

CHEATING DEFENDANTS LED TO DISBARMENT for retired Harford County States Attorney Joseph Cassilly

Harford County State’s Attorney Joseph Cassilly was disbarred after he retired as prosecutor when he was revealed to have concealed evidence in a criminal case.

The infamous case of the Memorial Day Murders in 1981 led to John Norman Huffington serving 32 years in prison on two life sentences.

In the last week of his second term, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan pardoned Huffington. 

When Huffington was convicted of the double murders of Diane Becker and her boyfriend, Joseph Hudson, on May 25, 1981, testimony from an FBI agent about critical evidence of hairs sealed the fate of Huffington.

Five years later, DNA testing became available, and when the FBI reviewed the Huffington case in 1991, Cassilly was told about the questionable evidence used to convict Huffington. FBI Agent Michael P. Malone testified that the hair found on Becker’s blanket and clothing came from Huffington. A Department of Justice review later determined that Malone had a spotty record of dubious claims and lied about evidence.

 The state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, now renamed the Supreme Court of Maryland, found in 2021 that Cassilly withheld the exculpatory (helpful) evidence from the defense. Cassilly, when still on the job as State’s Attorney in Harford County, was ordered to provide a new trial for Huffington in 2017 and such cases being difficult to try due to deceased witnesses, and yet Huffington had to admit that there could still be enough evidence to convict him and agreed to enter an Alford Plea.

The Baltimore Sun reported the following: In an op-ed in The Aegis days after he was disbarred, Cassilly wrote, “In my 41 years as a prosecutor, I have faithfully and honestly worked to serve and protect the citizens of Harford County.” He gave his account of the case, including saying the FBI’s 1999 report “did not say that the examiner lied, testified falsely or made a mistake in what he testified to in the Huffington case.” Reached Friday night for comment, Cassilly called the pardon “an abomination of justice.”

ST. MARY’S STATES ATTORNEY
CHARLES AUGUSTINE NORRIS

Charlie Norris was elected to the post of St. Mary’s County State’s Attorney in 1962 on the New Leadership slate of the late John Hanson Briscoe and the late Senator J. Frank Raley Jr, who styled themselves as the reform Democrats.  Norris beat William O. E. Sterling in the Democratic primary for State’s Attorney by 500 votes. The county-wide vote for Norris was 3,128 to 2,640 for Sterling.

Just a few months after taking office, Norris became embroiled in the saga of slot machines and gambling in St. Mary’s and was charged with and acquitted of withholding testimony in a Grand Jury investigation.  After all, what are friends in high places for if favors and waivers can’t be granted?

Norris was also in office and approved the easy plea deal for Richard Fritz when he was charged with carnal knowledge of a minor child, along with two other young men.  Fritz pleaded guilty to the charge, was sentenced to eighteen months in prison, and was later elected St. Mary’s States Attorney in 1998, due in large part to the light treatment consented to by Norris. If the Maryland Sex Offender Registry Law were retroactive, Fritz would still be listed.

Norris distinguished himself as being the first State’s Attorney in Maryland to go to jail when he was sentenced to seventy-five days in jail in Prince George’s County for failing to file federal income taxes in 1963 and 1964. Norris was out of politics following the end of his term in 1967, after that nefarious achievement, but he was not out of practicing law and continued to run his legal business in Leonardtown.

In 1992, Norris’s life began to fall apart.

St. Mary’s County Grand Jury issued criminal charges for stealing from a client, and authorities began to track him down to Florida and the state of California on indictments that he purloined a $20,000 personal injury settlement for a client and pocketed the money.

Norris was charged with stealing $10,000 from William Burns, a disabled WWII veteran injured in combat at Guadalcanal, who lived in a VA home. Burns was declared incompetent in 1968 and was placed in the guardianship of Norris. When Michael Burns made repeated telephone calls to Norris to inquire about his uncle’s affairs, without ever getting a return call, he drove to Leonardtown and found that Norris had closed his office and was nowhere to be found. Other attorneys told Michael Burns that other escrow accounts may have been depleted, and Burns then made a complaint to the St. Mary’s Sheriff’s Department. That investigation led to the indictment. The case against Norris was moved to the Circuit Court in Charles County due to the conflicts of prosecutors and Judges in St. Mary’s County and their long associations with Norris.

Norris also stole money from State Farm Insurance, Joan Tawney, and from Joseph and Susan Copsey. Judge John Hanson Briscoe called back an arrest warrant for Norris when his attorney told the court that Norris would arrive and surrender. The Judge agreed to allow him to post bond pending trial.

Norris obtained a plea deal for his charges, pleading guilty to one felony count, resulting in serving eighteen months of a five-year sentence along with work release.  St. Mary’s State’s Attorney Walter B. Dorsey agreed to the plea deal with Norris’s attorney Joseph Vallario to put a felony charge of theft on the Stet Docket on December 10, 1992. Restitution to the victims was included.

An article in the Washington Post by Eugene L. Meyer noted that Norris was a high school math teacher before beginning his law practice. While in the slammer at the St. Mary’s Jail, he worked once again teaching math at the Leonard Hall Junior Naval Academy, which shares the campus of the county government, including the jail, allowing Norris to walk to work at the end of his career practicing law.

The Maryland Attorney Grievance Commission obtained a judgment against Charles A. Norris for $351.00 on January 6, 1993.

Thomas Capano Killed His Mistress and Dumped Her Body in Ocean

Former prosecutor and well-connected Delaware attorney Thomas Capano was sentenced to death for the murder of Anne Marie Fahey in 1996. His sentence was changed to life in prison after legal rulings over whether a judge or jury should order a death sentence. Nonetheless, life in prison was death for Capano when he was found dead of natural causes in his jail cell in the Delaware prison located near Smyrna.  Fahey worked as the scheduling secretary for Delaware Governor Tom Carper, who has been a U.S. Senator from Delaware since 2001.

BALTIMORE SUN’S EXPOSE IN 1997 OF MARYLAND LAWYERS SHOWED ONE COMPLAINT FOR EVERY TWELVE ATTORNEYS IN MARYLAND WITH THREE-QUARTERS OF THE COMPLAINTS TOSSED WITHOUT AN INVESTIGATION

How many of Maryland’s lawyers break the law or violate their ethics code? In fiscal year 1997, the grievance commission got 2,135 complaints, one for every 12 attorneys in the state. Nearly three-quarters of those were thrown out, often without an investigation.

Altogether, only 24 lawyers — out of a statewide total of 26,278 — were disbarred that year. But while the number of lawyers disciplined may be small, their impact can be wrenching to the clients they have wronged.