MD Legal Briefs April 25, 2003

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Apr 25, 2003 by Staff

Loss and gain

Michael J. Ferguson of Baltimore, a former Maryland Penitentiary inmate who claimed that a prison pharmacist ripped off the top of his right ring finger when she slammed a sliding metal door on it, settled his half-million-dollar lawsuit in Baltimore City Circuit Court against Prison Health Services Inc. of Brentwood, Tenn., two Prison Health employees and the State of Maryland.

Reversal of fortune?

Julie Phillips, of Spotsylvania, Va., a five-year employee and former branch manager at Freedom of Maryland a/k/a Freedom Federal Credit Union at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, filed a Title VII race discrimination action in Baltimore's federal court against her former employer. Phillips, who is white, claims she was fired to prevent allegedly incompetent black subordinates from suing the credit union for discrimination.

Sour medicine ball

Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr.'s Consumer Protection Division ordered The Fitness Company Ownership Group Inc., owner of the Chevy Chase Athletic Club on Wisconsin Avenue, to stop taking payment from consumers and enrolling new members until it complies with the state's health club services law by posting a surety bond or other security with the division.

$5 million scheme

Prosecutors in Baltimore filed a 22-count indictment against Gregory Dutcher, 45, and his wife, Kimberly Ruark, 35, of Easton, for allegedly fraudulently obtaining at least $5 million from more than 200 victims, money laundering, bank fraud, submitting a false loan application and federal income tax evasion as the owners and operators of Abott Financial Group & Associates, of Gaithersburg, The Oxford Group and about a dozen other companies. If convicted, the couple faces a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.

5 years for manslaughter

Tyrone Wilson, 21, of Cambridge, who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and a handgun charge, was sentenced to five years in prison for killing an Easton man in the doorway of a downtown Cambridge bar. Wilson claimed a handgun fired accidentally while he and several other men were fighting with Dexter Williams at Streeters Lounge last May. But police said Wilson was pistol-whipping Williams when the gun went off, hitting Williams in the abdomen and killing him.

O.C. recycles police

Ocean City is beefing up its police bike patrol for the summer season, adding five new bikes this summer and bringing the total to 33, officials said. This year, the bikes will be used all around town, not just the downtown area, police said. Residents asked for the increased bike patrols in their neighborhoods. Each bike cost around $600, fully equipped, and was purchased with money from the town and from private donations.

Fiery sisters get jail

Two sisters from Sandy Hook in southern Washington County have been sent to prison for fire-bombing a neighbor's house. No one was hurt in the February 2002 incident, in which Sheena L. Compher, 38, and Donna K. Eagle, 40, allegedly threw gasoline-filled beer bottles at the home. Some of the bottles exploded. Washington County Circuit Judge John H. McDowell sentenced Compher to the maximum of 10 years in prison. Eagle got five years plus three years' probation.