Welcome To the New Baltimore Brew

We're currently working on the new and improved version of the Baltimore Brew.

Pardon our mess as over the coming weeks we introduce new features and layouts to the website.

We value your feedback, please don't hesitate to email us about the site: admin@baltimorebrew.com.

Feedback

Patrick Turner’s phone bill, Sheila Dixon’s conviction

Brew Editors 9 months ago, December 2, 2009 View Comments

The question of whether Mayor Sheila Dixon will step down remained murky today, but the jurors’ decision to convict her on one count of misdemeanor embezzlement appears to be pretty straightforward.

What does their conviction mean they think happened? The two jurors who have spoken publicly said they were swayed by a couple of things.

One was a videotape of developer Patrick Turner’s testimony on the stand. They wanted to figure out if Turner did believe those gift cards were intended for poor children. They apparently concluded that he did. (Perhaps their confusion stemmed from the fact that he grew visibly anxious and switched to the passive voice during this crucial part of his testimony.)

The other evidence?  Turner’s AT&T phone bill on Dec. 13, 2005, the day he bought the $1,000 worth of cards.

DEC. 13, 2005

* 11:04 a.m. — Turner calls Dixon on her BlackBerry

* 12:21 a.m. — Turner goes to Best Buy and buys $500 worth of cards ( 20 at $25-each)

* 1:01 p.m. — Turner goes to Target and buys $500 worth of cards (20 at $25 each.)

* 1:21 pm — Turner calls Dixon again.

Turner said on the stand he couldn’t remember when he got the envelope with the 40 gift cards to City Hall (without his name, just with herst.)

But just a few days later, on Dec. 18, 2005, Dixon was using those Turner giftcards to buy $525 of stuff, including a video camera, case and cassettes, which were found in her home. Prosecutors had receipts and other electronic records to back up their claim.

Dixon’s defense lawyers never contested any of these facts. They just argued that Dixon didn’t realize the cards were from Turner and presumed they were from her boyfriend, Ronald Lipscomb.

    The Daily Drip

    • September 3, 2010

      • On September 8th, One Less Car is hosting cyclist/cellist extraordinaire Ben Sollee for the Baltimore leg of his 2010 Ditch the Van Tour, a cross-country endeavor in which Sollee straps his cello onto the back of his bicycle and tours city-to-city without leaving a carbon footprint. “I love touring by bicycle!” Sollee writes on his [...]

      • Columnist Neal Peirce argues that demolishing old elevated highways, like Baltimore’s Jones Falls Expressway, would  heal communities destroyed by these remnants of the post-World-War II building boom. He notes that one place where this idea s being pushed lately is New Orleans, where there’s a move afoot to tear down  2.2 miles of the elevated [...]

    • September 2, 2010

      • Highlights from Investigative Voice’s coverage of pretrial deliberations, as three men go on trial for the 2008 killing of Baltimore City Councilmember Kenneth H. Harris. “You look at my face when you’re talking to me!” Circuit Court Judge David Ross said yesterday to Assistant State’s Attorney Cynthia M. Banks, who was reading from a notepad [...]

      • Here’s another opportunity for Baltimore bicyclists to assert themselves: city transportation officials are installing an automatic bike counter on the Fallsway. This comes from a bulletin from the city Department of Transportation, which tells cyclists to “just look for the diamond-shaped groove and ride over it. “If we have the traffic numbers and public support,” [...]

    • September 1, 2010

      • Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has announced that the famous Georgia-based Le Mans racing series will participate in the Baltimore Grand Prix racing events this weekend.

    More of the Daily Drip »

    Twitter

    Facebook