From Shore child's death stems 'groundbreaking' Maryland court ruling

The Maryland Court of Appeals has ruled that text messages between husband and wife in the 2016 trial for a Pocomoke City man accused of murdering his nephew were not subject to marital privilege.

The ruling will serve as an example of when texts between spouses can be used as evidence during criminal trials. Maryland law stipulates that communications between spouses during their marriage that is meant to remain private cannot be used at trial.

In September 2016, Kevin Sewell was convicted of first-degree murder, first-degree child abuse and neglect of a child in connection with the death of his 3-year-old nephew Luke Hill.

Sewell had been watching Hill, along with his own children, in May 2015 while his wife was at work. However, when his wife brought Hill home to his parents, a news release from the Maryland Attorney General's Office shows the boy was "unresponsive" and had suffered "multiple bruises."

Autopsy reports showed he had sustained several blows to his head and body, according to the release. His death was a result of those injuries.

Following his conviction, Sewell was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. But the Attorney General's Office said the Maryland Court of Special Appeals reversed the conviction in March 2018, ruling that text messages between Sewell and his wife that were introduced during the trial "were subject to marital privilege and should have been excluded."..

https://www.delmarvanow.com/story/news/local/maryland/2019/04/03/pocomoke-child-abuse-case-at-center-of-md-court-ruling-kevin-sewell-maryland-appeal/3353459002/

Senator Bobby Zirkin stood in the way of the long gun bill

When Maryland legislators recognized five fallen members of Capital Gazette this session, they seemed to stand in unison. But the machinations in the Senate on Monday spoke volumes louder than these words.

The difference in Maryland leadership was stark that day...

...When I wrote to The Capital about how legislators seemed more interested in Opening Day in Camden Yards than in fulfilling the mandate of the voters, I received a Facebook message from Zirkin, calling me names. More importantly, he said some facts were incorrect, so I rushed to make his requested corrections...

...While I contemplated this draft article and agonized over whether it was fair to Zirkin, I received a second private Facebook message from him that ended my concerns. This message accused me of again being untrue when I had commented that his delays were preventable.

He insisted that he “could show me every text or email” to prove he did not delay the bill. I gave him my personal email, and asked him on his public page to share it. I have no response. He did delete my post, along with unrelated posts by others. He also blocked me from posting again, behavior that Marylanders paid fines for when Larry Hogan did it last year...

https://www.capitalgazette.com/opinion/columns/ac-ce-column-chamblee-20190410-story,amp.html?fbclid=IwAR0fQK1JPHRaF3dP2-Fngx9phk-Shb-KfYVXXQpoCiDQJk1ZqPp9zroXBkE

First Bus Camera Scheme Jail Term: Former Dallas City Councilman Sentenced to 56 Months, $500,000 in Restitution #BusPatrolAmerica #ForceMultiplierSolutions @mcps @

This is a news story about the sentencing of the first of 5 individuals who were arrested and charged in connection with the Force Multiplier Solutions bus camera scheme in Dallas, Texas.  This is the same no bid bus camera scheme that was brought to Montgomery County.  Neither the Board of Education or the Montgomery County Council have addressed the problems with this bus camera scheme or the implications of the criminal proceedings in Dallas, Texas. 

The fall from power for Dwaine Caraway is complete after the former Dallas City Councilman and mayor pro tem was sentenced to 4.6 years behind bars Friday for his role in the $100 million criminal conspiracy that shut down school bus provider Dallas County Schools.

The disgraced politician was sentenced to 56 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn and ordered to pay more than $500,000 in restitution; The sentence comes after Caraway struck a plea deal Aug. 9, 2018, where he admitted to accepting bribes worth $450,000...

https://www.nbcdfw.com/investigations/Former-Dallas-City-Councilman-Dwaine-Caraway-Sentencing-Set-for-Friday-508156141.html

"School leaders determined the teen was so prone to acting out that he needed to be kept in class until the end of each passing period." [But was allowed to be unsupervised after school and on the football team.]

ROCKVILLE, Md. (ABC7) — The juvenile suspect — also known as the so-called ringleader in the Damascus High School locker room sexual assaults — will be tried as a juvenile due, in large part, to ADHD.

Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Steven Salant issued his controversial ruling Thursday morning following nearly seven hours of court proceedings Tuesday. Those proceedings ran like a full-blown trial, during which, attorney Dan Wright crafted a defense grounded in his teenage client’s “extreme ADHD.”..

...“This was a premeditated, planned attack,” Woodward added. “And this wasn’t the first time The evidence shows the defendant was part of a similar attack earlier in the year.”

In fact, during a summer football practice — only a few months before the rape case — the suspect allegedly tried to “broom” a different teammate, but that player managed to break away. The revelation added fuel to the notion that hazing and “brooming” are tradition within Damascus’ revered football program.

Prosecutors also took time to highlight the suspect's “atrocious” school and juvenile criminal records...

...The suspect's Montgomery County Public Schools Record:

In the fall of 2014, he enrolled as a sixth grader at Rocky Hill Middle School in Clarksburg. Almost immediately, the then 11-year-old began to misbehave. By the time police arrested him in the pending broomstick case — some four years later — MCPS had given the suspect 11 suspensions, 61 disciplinary referrals and sent 141 communications home regarding poor conduct. The transgressions included sexual comments, inappropriate touching, threatening remarks, fights, and chronic class cutting...

...In fact, MCPS conducted multiple Functional Behavior Assessments (FBA) and Behavior Intervention Plans (BIP) for the suspect's benefit. School leaders determined the teen was so prone to acting out that he needed to be kept in class until the end of each passing period. That helped limit the number of hallway distractions. An adult escort was also recommended as an alternative option for the suspect to safely move from class to class...

...Judge Salant also took shots at MCPS for attempting to control the suspect's numerous symptoms, but not seeking to excavate the root cause of that disruptive behavior.

"They wanted him to follow the student code of conduct, but he can't do it... There's clearly a lack of impulse control."..

Fighting Words From the Father of One Victim:

...Following repeated requests, the victim's father says he is scheduled to meet with MCPS Superintendent Jack Smith on the afternoon Friday, March 29. The victim's father explained the meeting will be 45 minutes long. No attorneys are allowed to attend, and the discussion cannot delve into topics of negligence, liability or responsibility...

...The victim's father further shared that two of the four victims are the sons of Montgomery County Police officers, one having recently retired from the force. He believes the suspects — the suspect in particular — hand picked the victims due to their law enforcement ties.

For example, weeks before the locker room attacks, the suspect reportedly stole a gold chain from the son of one officer. Damascus head football coach Eric Wallich threatened to call the police if the chain was not returned. In another instance, the suspect demanded that same boy stop wearing a police department Maryland Special Olympics t-shirt.

"Take the fu----- shirt off! Fu-- the police! Fu-- Montgomery County," the suspect allegedly shouted during the heated ordeal.

“There’s no doubt that two of the victims were targeted because they’re sons of law enforcement...The act of inserting a broom in another man’s rectum is done to degrade and demoralize, retaliate, to injure, to destroy their self-esteem.”..

Prosecuting Judge Salant's Ruling:

...Maryland law prohibits prosecutors from appealing Judge Salant's ruling. Instead, McCarthy expects the juvenile court to sentence the suspect to less than one year. The types of discipline can include a detention center, house arrest, community service, among others.

“I challenge you to call the Department of Corrections to find out how many kids are incarcerated — or being detained in any juvenile facility in the state — who are 19, 20 or 21 years old. I’m going tell you, I think it’s going to be less than five.”

https://wjla.com/news/local/so-called-ringleader-in-damascus-hs-rapes-to-be-tried-as-juvenile-victims-outraged

ABC7: Damascus H.S. assistant principal charged with 2nd DWI, arrest caught on body camera

DAMASCUS, Md. (ABC7) — An assistant principal at Damascus High School is on personal leave after police charged her with drunk driving for the second time in less than two years.

Maniya Jules, 50, a 22-year veteran of the Montgomery County Public Schools system, is facing jail time for her alleged improper behavior.

Around 12:45 a.m. on Friday, March 22, an officer was dispatched to the 8800 block of Tuckerman Lane in Potomac for a suspicious vehicle call. According to law enforcement sources, that officer found Jules behind the wheel of a Honda with two flat tires. The disabled vehicle was idling on the side of the road near Herbert Hoover Middle School...

https://wjla.com/news/local/police-charge-damascus-hs-assistant-principal-with-2nd-dwi-arrest-caught-on-body-camera?fbclid=IwAR3hP7_EYVtVMLcR1r2eKPF0k_vZxCtAGuibNX-hYwD_tKTaj0uZarU4fP8

Breaking: Maryland lawmakers use unusual maneuver to revive bill on child abuse lawsuits

An effort to give survivors of child sexual abuse more time to file lawsuits that failed in the Maryland Senate has been resurrected by the House of Delegates.

Democratic Del. C.T. Wilson’s bill to remove a statute of limitations for lawsuits rising from child sexual abuse had sailed through the House, but died in a deadlocked Senate committee.

The defeat frustrated Wilson and abuse survivors.

So, the House Judiciary Committee, in an unusual move, took many elements of Wilson’s bill and tacked them Saturday onto an unrelated bill from Sen. Justin Ready — a Carroll County Republican who is one of the senators who voted against the abuse lawsuit bill in committee.

...

The House adopted the amendments and moved the revised measure forward to a final vote on Monday — the final day of the 90-day General Assembly session. Any changes to the bill would need to be approved by the Senate in order to send the measure to the governor.

...

Ready was among five senators who voted against Wilson’s bill in the Judicial Proceedings Committee, citing questions about its constitutionality.

...

Zirkin said he supports both bills and hopes a conference committee will work out a compromise where both measures can be enacted.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-abuse-bill-revived-20190406-story.html

Md. Senate panel rejects effort to give childhood sex abuse victims more flexibility to sue

A Senate panel has voted down a bill that would have let childhood sex abuse victims of any age sue institutions that harbored their attackers.

The legislation, proposed amid a global clergy sex abuse scandal, had passed the House of Delegates overwhelmingly last month. But the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee declined to advance it on Wednesday, with one Democrat joining the committee’s four Republicans in voting it down.

The bill had become a heightened source of controversy in Annapolis after its lead sponsor accused the Catholic Church of swindling himinto a deal that may have granted the organization irreversible immunity from sex abuse cases that happened decades ago.

The deal, part of a 2017 law extending the civil statute of limitations, was a key reason cited by a senator who voted against this year’s proposal...

...Del. C.T. Wilson (D-Charles), the bill’s sponsor and himself a victim of childhood sex abuse at the hands of his adoptive father, was shaking in anger after the committee vote. He said the lawmakers who voted down the bill were complicit in helping institutions protect predators...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/maryland-panel-votes-down-effort-to-give-more-rights-to-childhood-sex-abuse-victims/2019/04/03/df60045e-565d-11e9-9136-f8e636f1f6df_story.html?utm_term=.747f9d7fde2c

Bill to lift limits on child sex abuse lawsuits in Maryland fails

A bill that would have enabled untold numbers of child sexual abuse survivors to file civil lawsuits in Maryland has been defeated.

The Senate’s Judicial Proceedings Committee on Wednesday deadlocked 5-5 on the measure, which would have eliminated the statute of limitations for civil claims related to child sexual abuse. The bill had already sailed through the House of Delegates.

The committee vote infuriated Del. C.T. Wilson, the bill’s sponsor and a survivor of child abuse himself. “They did their best to protect pedophiles,” an angry Wilson said in an interview after the vote.

Wilson observed the committee’s voting session, which he said featured a “tornado” of misinformation about the law and his bill.

Even though Wilson was present, he said none of the senators asked him questions about his bill. He said senators were “cowards” not to discuss the bill with him...

https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-abuse-limits-bill-20190403-story.html

When Maryland gave abuse victims more time to sue, it may have also protected institutions, including the Catholic Church

Two years ago, Maryland lawmakers made it easier for adults sexually abused as children to sue institutions that harbored predators.

They may have also irreversibly granted some immunity to the Catholic Church.

A provision tucked into a 2017 law now stands in the way of Maryland joining a nationwide effort to bring justice to victims who come to terms with childhood abuse when they reach middle age and, for decades, have had no recourse in civil courts.

The language was pushed by lobbyists for the Catholic Church two years ago as part of a compromise to extend Maryland’s civil statute of limitations from age 25 to 38. Because it forbids the state from raising the maximum age above 38, it effectively inoculates the church and other organizations from costly lawsuits that could reveal whether they sheltered abusers decades ago.

State lawmakers who heralded the 2017 compromise as a breakthrough for victims now say they were swindled.

“I made a deal with the devil,” said Del. C.T. Wilson (D-Charles), the sponsor of the 2017 law and a survivor of child sex abuse by his adoptive father.

“I was working with them in good faith,” Wilson, a lawyer, said of the church. “They were behind the scenes, crafting language that protects them forever.”..

...In interviews, several other lawmakers who negotiated the compromise recalled the two church lobbyists who shopped the repose provision, saying they did not want to repeatedly revisit extending the statute of limitations. The lawmakers said they now believe they unwittingly agreed to language that could permanently prevent anyone born before the early 1980s from suing the church...

...Permanent immunity “was never discussed,” said Del. Vanessa E. Atterbeary, (D-Howard), a lawyer who is vice chair of the Judiciary Committee.

“I was in meetings with the Archbishop of Baltimore,” she said. “That’s the sort of conversation I would have remembered.”

Church lobbyist John Stierhoff declined to comment on how the provision got into law. Mary Ellen Russell, the executive director of the Maryland Catholic Conference at the time, declined to comment because she no longer works for the organization...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/when-maryland-gave-abuse-victims-more-time-to-sue-it-may-have-also-protected-institutions-including-the-catholic-church/2019/03/31/769537ca-4f3a-11e9-911a-7d51996d6f38_story.html?utm_term=.0f424f458a8b

More on MCPS Bus Attendant: Clarksburg Man Arrested in Virginia on Homicide Charges; Tied to Two Incidents in Montgomery County

Previous news story at this link. 

Clarksburg Man Arrested in Virginia on Homicide Charges; Tied to Two Incidents in Montgomery County

The Montgomery County Department of Police – 5th and 6th District Investigative Sections, have charged Muhammad Taha, age 29, of the 23300 block of Observation Drive in Clarksburg, with crimes related to two incidents occurring in Germantown and Gaithersburg.  The same individual was arrested in Prince William County, Virginia, and charged with 2nd Degree Murder, Felony Hit & Run, and other charges for events that occurred on March 24, 2019, in the Manassas area.

On March 22, 2019, officers from the 6th District responded to the Islamic Center of Maryland Mosque located at 19411 Woodfield Road in Gaithersburg, for the report of an injured person.  Investigation revealed that the victim was walking on the property when he was struck by a vehicle which then fled the area.  The victim was taken to a local hospital with serious but non-life threatening injuries.  Surveillance footage was able to capture parts of the incident.  A description of the vehicle and evidence was recovered on the scene.

On March 24, 2019, officers from the 5th District responded to the Islamic Society of Germantown located at 19825 Blunt Road in Germantown, for the report of a suspicious situation.  Investigation revealed a vehicle had been seen circling the parking lot before the driver exited the vehicle and used a brick to vandalize a parked vehicle in the lot.  The driver then drove away from the scene after striking an additional parked car.

Later in the day on March 24, 2019, the same suspect struck and killed a woman with his vehicle in the area of the 9600 block of Cloverhill Road, in Manassas, Virginia.  Prince William County Police, based off of a lookout placed by the Manassas City Police, were able to find the vehicle and suspect matching the description of the homicide nearby.  Muhammad Taha was arrested and charged with 2nd Degree Murder, Felony Hit & Run and other charges related to the incident.

Detectives from the 5th and 6th District Investigative Sections have now connected all the events to Muhammed Taha.  Taha has been charged with following offenses:

CR 2-206  Attempted 2nd Degree Murder

CR 3-202 1st Degree Assault

CR 6-301  Malicious Destruction of Property (2 counts)

Representatives of all six police districts have been in communication with the Mosques within Montgomery County since the initial event occurred.

Detectives believe these are isolated events related directly to Taha who remains in the Prince William County Adult Detention Center on a no bond status.

The Montgomery County Department of Police wish to thank the Manassas City Police Department and the Prince William County Police for their assistance with this case.

###

Jennifer Alvaro: "I call on you as the county executive to immediately take action to terminate the contract of Jack Smith..." @Marc_Elrich

Jennifer Alvaro just sent this letter to the Montgomery County Executive, the Montgomery County Council and the Montgomery County Board of Education. If you share her outrage and share her passion for protecting children, please let them know your thoughts as well.

Here is the letter:

April 5, 2019

Dear County Executive Elrich, Members of the County Council and Members of the MCPS Board of Education,

The Washington Post’s explosive story published on 3/31/19, “A football locker room, a broomstick and a sex assault case roil a school”, documents with sickening detail the continued, abject failure of adults employed by MCPS to protect children. Sadly, what occurred is not surprising to many of us in the community. It was foreseeable and preventable.
Since 2012, I have advocated for changes to be made to protect our children from sexual violence of all forms in MCPS schools. Changes to weed out offenders knowingly left in the classroom, to fix the culture which protects the system not children, to hold those who fail to protect our children responsible.

In December 2017, I sat with a still new superintendent of schools, Jack Smith in his office (along with Andy Zuckerman and Josh Civins). I acknowledged he did not cause this problem but he did inherit it and it was now his responsibility to fix the issues. I shared the changes MCPS had made and most importantly shared what still needed to be done. I told him what the schools had committed to change was not being implemented and even if it were, it was insufficient to protect children. I told him he was getting incorrect information and bad advice from staff. I urged him to call in outsiders as the people who create a systemic culture of allowing and enabling abuse simply cannot be trusted to fix it. Jack Smith told me moving forward I should communicate concerns directly to him, he told me he had instructed staff he was to be informed of every single incident of sexual violence in the school system. He told me he would take personal responsibility for fixing the issues.

Time and a trail of victims have proven those statements to be false. Led by Jack Smith, MCPS has continued to superficially address the issue instead of taking real action and our children have paid the price. Adults who have failed to protect have been allowed to blithely move on in their lives with no fear of punishment and thus no motivation to change; this thanks in part to Maryland being 1 of only 2 states in the country who do not have criminal penalties for failure to report abuse.

If the continued harm of children, much less the subsequent negative press, will not make MCPS change, we are justified in asking what will force MCPS to change. What could possibly force those to whom we entrust our children to follow the law, to act ethically and morally or at very least with common sense? Only this, the county must act decisively and put in new leadership who put the safety of children first.
County residents need to see strong leadership and action once and for all on preventing abuse and holding enablers accountable.

April is Child Abuse Prevention month; I look forward to the county taking concrete steps to protect our children. I call on you as the county executive to immediately take action to terminate the contract of Jack Smith and any and all other employees who knowingly chose to break the law, ignore policies and procedures and common sense which directly led to the harm of our children. I implore you to bring in independent investigators who will tell people what they don’t want to hear and then listen to them and fix this problem once and for all. I would welcome an opportunity to meet with you and discuss this further.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Alvaro

Resident of Montgomery County

MCPS graduate

Parent of current MCPS students

LCSW-C (MD & VA), Certified Sex Offender Treatment Provider (VA)

The Washington Post:  A football locker room, a broomstick and a sex assault case roil a school

Superintendent Jack Smith Wants 750 Gallons of Propane in Tanks Next to Bleachers at Watkins Mill HS. What Could Go Wrong?

Nothing could go wrong with having 750 gallons of propane in tanks next to the bleachers at Watkins Mill High School.  

Unless there was a leak in one of the tanks.  But, that never happens.  

Except when it does.

Superintendent Jack R. Smith wants propane tanks next to the Watkins Mill High School bleachers to appease cell tower companies.  Public school land is all about providing really cheap land to cell tower companies, correct?  Therefore a plan to give more land to a private, commercial company is a great use of dedicated, taxpayer paid for, public school land, correct?

AT&T has filed an application with the Montgomery County Tower Committee to EXPAND the cell tower site at Watkins Mill High School and to add another propane tank and another cell tower compound next to the bleachers on the football field.  The application is shown below.

The Montgomery County Tower Committee meets TODAY at 2PM to approve this plan.  The public is not allowed to speak or comment on these applications.   But you can see from the link to the Tower Committee that the vendor, AT&T, will be allowed to present an entire power point presentation!  The public will not be able to speak or present so much as a Post-it Note.

The propane tanks have what is known as a spark radius as shown on this image from the AT&T application filed with the Montgomery County Tower Committee.

We assume that is the area around each tank where a spark could ignite the tank in the event of a leak.  Both of the tanks will have a spark radius that extends in to the open space by the bleachers as shown by the red lines on the image above.

Hopefully no one will smoke, vape or light anything up behind the bleachers.

Here is a picture from Google Earth showing the exact location of the new propane tank and the new cell tower compound next to the Watkins Mill High School bleachers. 

Wheaton High School football field from Google Earth

In the event that Watkins Mill High School were to be rebuilt at some time in the future the cell tower compound would then dictate the location of any construction on the site.  As we know from Wheaton High School, when a cell tower and associated compound are on school land they never move.  The Board of Education is happy to simply build around cell towers and their compounds, even if the resulting construction means the cell tower is smack up against the new school building.  

Wheaton High School today from Google Earth

MC2018100517+Application+&a... by on Scribd

School District claims it doesn’t possess a single document about meetings

Beverly Hills school officials say they lobbied the Trump administration – and the president himself – in an effort to stop a Los Angeles subway project that they say poses a threat to the local high school.

But the Beverly Hills Unified School District claims it doesn’t possess a single document about the meetings. Calling that claim “highly implausible,” Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting has sued the school district, saying that it violated the California Public Records Act last year when it rejected a request for documents.

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, says the school district should be ordered to do a proper search for the requested documents and release them promptly, as the law requires.

“The public has an undeniably strong interest in knowing the use of public funds and the details of public officials’ lobbying efforts paid for by taxpayers,” the lawsuit says. No court date has been set.

The fight against the subway line has dominated Beverly Hills politics for six years. It took on national importance when local power players began using their connections to President Donald Trump to try to kill the project by canceling $1.2 billion in federal transportation grants.

The LA Metro transit agency is building a 9-mile, $8.2 billion subway extension to link downtown with the city’s Westside. The plan calls for running a subway line through a tunnel under Beverly Hills High School, a 92-year-old landmark famed for its movie-star alumni.

Because the school was built atop an old oil field, the district contends that tunneling could set off explosions of underground methane gas and cause other dire problems. But LA Metro’s environmental studies show the project is safe. The school district has spent an estimated $16 million on lawsuits, but failed to stop the project.  

Several school officials have described their lobbying meetings...

https://www.revealnews.org/blog/why-were-suing-the-beverly-hills-school-district/

Somerset ES parent who secretly recorded children changing, showering sentenced to 20 years

Md. man who secretly recorded children changing, showering sentenced to 20 years

Children were invited to 'splash parties' at Oldale’s residence where they were encouraged to change clothes or take showers before they went home.

A man who invited children into his home in order to secretly record them while they were changing clothes or using the bathroom was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison Monday.
Jonathan Mark Oldale, 55, will spend 20 years behind bars followed by a lifetime of supervised release on charges of production and possession of child pornography, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland.

Oldale will also be required to register as a sex offender where he resides, where he is an employee and where he is a student.
He also was ordered to pay a $400,000 money judgement in lieu of forfeiting his interest in his house, which he had used to commit his crimes.
According to his plea agreement, on May 5, 2017, the Montgomery County Police Department received a complaint from an employee at a children’s gymnastics facility in Silver Spring that Oldale had placed a backpack containing a camera disguised to look like a car key fob in the bathroom. The employee told officers about a prior incident, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, where Oldale had done the same thing.
Police searched his home, and found three computers, two of which had been on the “dark web” and accessed child pornography or exchanged child pornography. A second search of his home found three “spy cameras” and footage of children in his bathroom changing, showering and using the toilet...

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/md-man-who-secretly-recorded-children-changing-showering-sentenced-to-20-years/65-d7864e6d-a056-4f1c-aa23-f16d4b41fcc1?fbclid=IwAR0ZQfyLo7Cw6fmChMk8iMGXu7-CUZfiJiM9HwQzUw-Ue79onag_5pnwqxc

Audit finds PGCPS broke the law when awarding millions in school contracts

UPPER MALRBORO, Md. (FOX 5 DC) - Prince George’s Co. Public Schools is not following state law or its own policies when it comes to awarding millions of dollars in contracts, according to a state audit on the school system’s financial management.

FOX 5 has learned the school district’s director of purchasing is no longer employed as of Friday. 

According to the audit by the Department of Legislative Services, the contracts in question total nearly $85 million.

According to the report, “the required justification was not documented for 13 of the 15 sole source contracts we tested totaling $6.8 million and PGCPS had not documented the benefits from one ICPA (intergovernmental cooperative purchasing agreement) contract“ valued at $34.8 million over five years.

The audit also found 32 contracts totaling $43.1 million were not submitted to the Board of Education for approval as required. Two of those contracts were awarded to vendors that were either not the most qualified or the lowest cost bidders, according to the audit.

“It has the appearances of bid steering, improper bid steering,” said Louis Clark, CEO of the nonprofit Government Accountability Project.

The state audit does not name the companies or offer details on why rules were not followed with certain contracts. Clark says an additional investigation is necessary to find out if there was improper bid steering...

http://www.fox5dc.com/news/local-news/audit-finds-pgcps-broke-the-law-when-awarding-millions-in-school-contracts?fbclid=IwAR367OzapMPZNzzLcns-LRBzXN7T5nq0IaVHqXg9PkHhVNkEytyGX7-hTxg

The Post Investigates: Councilman’s Financial Docs Reveal BCPS Ties, But Conceal County Contracts

Baltimore County Councilman Julian Jones may have just joined a building cast of characters recently zinged in Maryland for failing to disclose business connections when signing legal forms designed to capture conflicts of interest.

Joining former Baltimore County Superintendent Dallas Dance and Baltimore City Mayor Catherine Pugh, the District Four Councilman revealed his wife’s connection as vice president of a moving company, Walters Relocation Services, but failed to mention agreements with Baltimore County government in his financial statements, which includes at least two master agreements and contracts, some which have been in place since at least 2012.

On all four years of his financial disclosure statements, Jones made clear that his spouse, Sabrina Jones, worked as a principal for the company.  Missing, however, was information stating that Baltimore County government contracted with the company for moving and relocation services, and not the Board of Elections as he indicated on the forms, which is a distinct and separate entity.

Even two fellow councilmen were unaware of the connection to the county vendor.

Clearly disclosed on Jones’ financial records, however, was that the moving company had been doing business with Baltimore County Public Schools – for years – and had earned over $610,000 from the school system, during former Superintendent Dallas Dance’s entire tenure, records show...

https://thebaltimorepost.com/the-post-investigates-councilmans-financial-docs-reveal-bcps-ties-but-conceal-county-contracts/?fbclid=IwAR1ZuuvrqnSFFl06wG1NbyCZRMXEjkIRzAWFdg7XoQ2SSLpYKp-GEFvGsVk