Rent-A-Wreck's president indicted

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Jul 7, 2004 by Robyn Lamb

The president of an Owings Mills-based car rental company was indicted yesterday on charges of first-degree assault with a handgun.

Baltimore County prosecutors won a grand jury indictment against Rent-A-Wreck of America President Kenneth Lester Blum Jr. in Baltimore Circuit Court yesterday.

Blum, who oversees a company with 400 rental car locations in the United States and Scandinavia, was arrested June 8 for allegedly threatening a process server with a .32-caliber gun at his home in Owings Mills

According to the police report, Blum retrieved the gun from inside of his house after Ryan Smith knocked on his door with the intention of serving Blum a subpoena.

After ordering Smith off his property, Blum exited his home and pointed the gun directly at Smith.

On a subsequent visit to Blum's house, Baltimore County police found several guns, including the gun used in the incident, the police report said.

Blum said yesterday that he would not comment on his indictment until it is all over.

Rent-A-Wreck took its shares off Nasdaq almost two years ago. Blum said then that the company delisted because of the high costs associated with the periodic filings required by the SEC.

The company's revenues are royalty-based because it is a franchise, unlike other rental car companies that own and operate their own vehicles and report earnings in the billions.

For the quarter ended June 30, 2002, the last quarter for Rent-A- Wreck filed with the SEC, the company's sales dropped 17 percent to $1.7 million from just over $2 million for the same quarter the previous year.