Articles Posted in Theft Crimes

Online shopping has never been more popular, but the convenience can come at a price. Like the old days, the preferred method of delivering a package to a single family home or townhouse is simply to leave it at the front porch. The inherent flaw of placing potentially valuable packages in plain sight of those walking or driving by is outweighed by the cost of repeat delivery attempts for companies like Amazon and UPS, and the unfortunate result is that package theft has become commonplace. We blogged about a string of package thefts in the Pikesville area of Baltimore County a few years ago, but until now this crime of opportunity has largely stayed out of the news. Last month a package theft in Harford County made national headlines, but not for the reasons you might think.

On November 30^th a five-year old girl was caught on camera taking a package from the front porch of another person’s Abingdon home, and the video quickly spread throughout the country. As you might expect, the girl appeared to be looking off to her side at someone for direction, and this someone was revealed less than 2 weeks later after an anonymous tipster identified the young girl. Police filed charging documents for a 46-year old Baltimore man on December 14 and a warrant was issued for his arrest that same day. There are currently four charges including theft, conspiracy to commit theft and 4^th degree burglary. The defendant was also charged under the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article for contributing to certain conditions of a child, which makes it a crime to encourage a child to commit an illegal act. This offense carries a 3-year maximum penalty and a $2,500 fine.

Fourth degree burglary is charged when a suspect either breaks and enters a dwelling (home) or store, or is alleged to have entered the yard or garden of a dwelling with the intent to commit a theft, like in this case. This is the only misdemeanor burglary offense, and it carries a 3-year maximum penalty. First, second and third degree burglary are all felonies with maximum punishments ranging from 10 years to 25 years if violence is involved. The suspect in this case was charged with theft less than $100 because the package he stole contained a pair of boots valued around $90. This offense carries a 90-day maximum sentence, as does conspiracy to commit theft less than $100. The conspiracy charge is peculiar from a legal standpoint, as the State would basically be saying the defendant conspired with a 5-year old. This charge will almost certainly be dropped by the State.

Theft is one of the most common crimes in Maryland, with over 100,000 cases reported annually to law enforcement.  Most of the reported cases involve valuable personal property, but if you factor in retail theft/ shoplifting and the thousands of other petit cases that citizens don’t bother to report the true number of thefts is likely around a quarter of a million per year.  Unlike 10 to 20 years ago, only a small percentage of these cases are motor vehicle thefts. In the early 2000’s and at points in the mid 90’s there were frequently over 35,000 motor vehicle thefts per year, and now this number is hovering around 10,000.  The drastic drop in motor vehicle thefts could be a result of new technology, which has made cars more difficult to steal.  But the real story is the evolving ability of law enforcement to track the commerce of second hand items.

All vehicles sold in America have unique vehicle identification numbers, which make it difficult to illegally buy and sell stolen cars.  Nobody wants to drive a stolen car because it’s only a matter of time before law enforcement finds it.  This drastically decreases the value of a stolen vehicle, and in turn makes cars less of a target for thieves.  The incentive to steal cars in this day and age is for the expensive parts and the scrap metal, which have no unique identifying information.  This creates an obvious problem for law enforcement, as there is no way to know if something is stolen.  On the other hand if you can track when, where and by whom something is sold, you may be able to match that up with a reported theft to produce a suspect. This data gathering approach to law enforcement is far from glamorous, but it has been highly effective in Maryland.

Last year Maryland law enforcement officers recovered over $5 million worth of stolen property by analyzing data stored in the RAPID database, which keeps track of all scrap metal, pawn/jewelry, and recycled automotive part transactions around the state.  Any licensed business that engages in the second hand commerce of these products is required to keep track of all their transactions, including gathering and entering the identity of persons selling items. The transactions are then recorded and saved into a uniform database that is accessible by all law enforcement agencies.  A quick example of the RAPID database in action could go like this:  a suspect breaks into a house and steals a laptop and a watch in Anne Arundel County.  There are no eyewitnesses and the suspect makes a clean getaway.  The same suspect or an accomplice then travels to another area like Baltimore or Montgomery County to pawn the items.  The pawnshop employee gladly takes the items in exchange for cash (at a major discount) with the only condition that the suspect produces identification and sign for the items.  Two days later the homeowner reports a burglary to police, who come out to the scene and inventory the stolen items.  A detective then runs the items through the RAPID database, the transaction pops up and the detective basically has enough evidence right there to seek an arrest warrant for the suspect for theft and burglary.

Last spring a large-scale investigation began in order to locate nearly $40,000 in funds that went missing from the Montgomery County Council of PTAs. The council represents 192 parent-teacher associations from individual schools, making it the single largest PTA organization in the state of Maryland. Members first noticed irregularities in the books back in March and then conducted a three-week internal audit, which revealed that money had been improperly taken from the council’s checking account for about nine months. The money consisted of donations and fundraising event proceeds that would ultimately be used to better the public school experience for students, teachers and parents, and the loss of $40,000 severely limited the council’s ability to plan for the upcoming school year. While the audit did provide some answers, the person or persons responsible for the missing funds remained somewhat of a mystery (at least publicly) and the case was forwarded over to the Montgomery County Police.

Those familiar with the day-to-day operations of the council likely had their suspicions that the newly appointed treasurer was responsible for the missing money. The irregularities began around the time she began her post, and ended after she had resigned in March. Apparently around $10,000 was actually returned to the account in February, around the time that council members noticed something wasn’t right and began asking questions. The former treasurer was not officially charged by the State’s Attorney’s Office in the circuit court until last month, though negotiations between lawyers on both sides had been ongoing before that. A plea agreement was filed by both parties on the same day as the charging document, and the former treasurer will learn her fate at a disposition hearing set for later this month. Maryland sentencing guidelines in this particular case call for a sentence of probation to 6 months in jail, and judges typically adhere to these guidelines. It would be reasonable to expect the judge to invoke a split sentence of county jail time under 6 months followed by probation with the condition that restitution to the council be paid in full.

While the amount in question certainly rises to a felony level theft, the charge of embezzlement is actually a misdemeanor under Maryland criminal law section 7-113. The new theft law as of October 1^st makes it a felony to steal anything over $1,500 but legally speaking embezzlement and theft are two separate concepts. Theft consists of unlawfully obtaining the property or services of another, while embezzlement occurs when a person has lawful possession or control of something (money in this case) and uses or secretes if for the wrong purpose. In this case the former treasurer had control over the council’s account, so she did not actually steal anything. Rather, she used the account for a purpose that was contrary to her duty as a fiduciary. The embezzlement law still carries a mandatory jail sentence of one year, but this can be avoided by the imposition of a probation before judgment, or by the imposition of a suspended sentence. Most crimes with minimum mandatory sentences, like firearm crimes, specifically do not allow for suspended sentences or PBJs but this statute does not contain any such language. The Blog will follow this case and may post a follow up article if anything unpredictable occurs at the disposition hearing.

The number of Baltimore City school employees recently arrested for stealing from their own schools climbed to four after a former principal was charged with numerous counts of theft and embezzlement. The 44 year-old female administrator from Owings Mills now faces felony charges in the Baltimore Circuit Court, which has seen more than its share of public corruption cases. The allegations in this particular criminal scheme are disturbing to say the least as this was far from a one-time thing for the ex principal, whose school closed down after the 2016 academic year. She had been working at the school board’s central office on North Avenue, but is now on leave and is likely never return. A male teacher from Randallstown that worked at the same alternative high school has also been charged, and he will be co-defendants with his former boss in one of her three cases. The co-defendant case has an incident date of June 8^th, 2016, right around the time the school closed, but the former boss is facing theft scheme and misappropriation by a fiduciary/ embezzlement charges in two other cases that allegedly began 2013.

The Office of the Maryland State Prosecutor is handling this prosecution, as they do with many public corruption cases not pursued by the feds. The office began investigating both defendants after being notified of the possible wrongdoing by the Baltimore City School’s legal department. Charging documents for one of the cases alleges that the former principal stole $13,409.28 from a bank account that she set up on behalf of the school. Proceeds from school uniform sales, school supplies, class dues and graduation fees were all placed into the account only to be withdrawn by the defendant in 49 separate ATM transactions at of all places a casino. The Maryland Live Casino in Anne Arundel County likely has recorded footage of the former principal using the school’s debit card to take out cash that was simply gambled away. Another case alleges that the former principal used fraudulent purchase orders to steal over $40,000 of electronics from the Baltimore City school system, including speakers, laptops, tablets and digital cameras. Finally, the most recent case alleges the former principal and her co-worker conspired to steal four flat screen televisions from the now closed high school at the city county line near Dundalk.

All indictments were filed in the circuit court last week and the charges were just announced by the state prosecutor. Neither defendant is currently incarcerated nor are there court dates set at this time. Both will likely be arraigned within the next month, and their cases will be set for trial 2-3 months later. The former principal is facing the realistic possibility of a jail sentence for her actions, although the last Baltimore public school principal found guilty of felony theft received a five year suspended sentence. If found guilty, the teacher who allegedly participated in the television theft will not likely face jail time and could possibly be granted the benefit of a probation before judgment, thus keeping his record free of a felony conviction. The Blog will follow the progress of these cases, and we may post another article in the future.

Public corruption cases have always garnered special attention from law enforcement officers and prosecutors, and the media seems equally interested. Baltimore City made national news headlines in 2016 after a corruption scheme was exposed at the city jail as did the arrest of a Baltimore school principal who pled guilty to theft of student activity funds back in 2014. While these cases caused a stir, there is a particular kind of outrage reserved for elected public servants who cheat or steal from the very people that put them in office and pay their salaries. Elected officials almost always campaign on a platform of honesty and devotion to their constituents, and although few actually deliver on these promises actual corruption is rarely exposed. However, there will be at least two former Maryland politicians facing jail sentences for corruption in 2017. We already posted about the former Maryland State Delegate from Prince George’s County who is awaiting sentencing in federal court in April for bribery, and now he will be joined in asking for a judge’s mercy by another corrupt ex-politician.

The former mayor of a small eastern shore town in Caroline County recently pled guilty to theft scheme from $10,000 to $100,000, malfeasance in office and forgery. The 52-year old woman was also charged with embezzlement and other counts of theft, which were nolle prossed pursuant to her plea agreement. In a criminal complaint law enforcement alleged that the former mayor transferred money from the Town of Marydel’s bank account into her own account and even went so far as to use a debit card in the town’s name to pay her personal bills. There were also claims that the shamed former mayor forged the signatures of other town officials on checks that she used for herself. The theft scheme totaled more than $61,000, which is a huge chuck of change for a town with a population of less than 200.

The Office of the State Prosecutor handled the case in place of the Caroline County State’s Attorney, which is common practice when elected officials are prosecuted. This is especially true in smaller jurisdictions where all elected officials typically work closely together and are on a first name basis with each other. The former politician is currently being held at the county jail without bail, and will go before a circuit court judge in Denton in April to learn her fate. She faces up to 10 years in prison on the forgery charge and 15 years on the felony theft charge. The malfeasance in office count is a common law violation that does not carry a specific maximum punishment. Maryland judges are only bound by the Eight Amendment, which bars cruel and unusual punishment for common law crimes other than conspiracy. A sentence for conspiracy cannot be greater than the maximum penalty for the crime at issue.