Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon has been indicted Friday on 12 counts of corruption in the same investigation that resulted in the indictment of a councilwoman last week. She faces four counts of perjury, two counts of misconduct, three counts of theft and three counts of fraudulent misappropriations. The allegations stem from the use of gift cards from two real estate developers — who gave the cards to help needy families and instead discovered that they were being used to allegedly by Dixon things like a PlayStation2, CDs and DVDs.
Many of the gift cards came from developer Ron Lipscomb as well as card purchased by cash by the city. The indictment alleges that on Dec. 16, 2004, 15 $50 Best Buy gift cards were purchased with cash by the city. Two were used on Dec. 11, 2005, at the Best Buy store downtown by Dixon to purchase $237 worth of merchandise, including a PlayStation2, CDs and DVDs.
Notably, Dixon was discovered because she paid the difference for these items with her own credit card. She is accused of using the gifts at Old Navy, Circuit City, Toys “R” Us and a Giant food store for items ranging from an Xbox to a Sony PlayStation to a digital camcorder to an iPod and clothes.
When police raided her home, they reportedly found at least five Toys “R” Us gift cards that were donated to the city for needy families. That will make for a bit of a problem in front of a jury.
She is also accused of accepting gifts from Lipscomb without disclosing them including a $2,000 gift certificate at a local fur store, thousands of dollars in travel and lodging expenses in New York and Chicago and several thousand dollars for a shopping spree in Chicago at such stores as Saks Fifth Avenue, Giorgio and Coach. Lipscomb was trying to get tax credits from the city. Both he and Councilwoman Helen Holton were indicted Wednesday on charges of bribery last week.
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Anonymous,
Please do not use big or “them foreign-lookin'” words such as ‘a priori’ or you will further mesmerize mesmerize in the worst sense of that word.
Thanks, FFLEO, for the level-headed analysis. I could tell by
just reading the USA and mesmerize comments that their point
of view was less than neutral. Sort of diminishes their arguments
a priori for many, including myself.
u_s_a & mesmerize,
If either of you two illiterates could read and were not too lazy to follow the original story at the link provided by Professor Turley, you both would have seen the excerpted comment I posted below which *implies* that Mayor Dixon is a Democrat (note the: “overzealous Republican prosecutor”).
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“Criminal defense attorney Arnold Weiner mounted a very vigorous defense publicly after Dixon made her statement Friday, describing her accuser as an *overzealous Republican* prosecutor.”
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Furthermore, the original story was published by a Baltimore news station and in that very article, there was *no* direct mention that Ms. Dixon was a Democrat; therefore, you have no basis of faulting Professor Turley.
Just why wasn’t Mayor Dixon’s party affiliation mentioned in the *original* Baltimore article? Because any minimally literate, conscious, and living Baltimorean, to whom the article’s demographic was intended, should have the knowledge that their own mayor is a Democrat and that they know this is a local Baltimore news station’s publication because they live in Baltimore or environs.
Oh and if you are not from Baltimore, then simple reasoning and curiosity should have inferred that Mayor Dixon was a Democrat and not a Republican.
You both lack the fundamental capability to reason out the meaning of the simplest writing of a basic article written in 5th grade—or lower grade—prose. If I were Professor Turley, I would place an illiteracy/stupidity filter on posts from u_s_a & mesmerize and their ilk.
Unfortunately USA is correct. It is wrong to leave off party affiliation whenever the corrupt person is a Democrat. I see this time & again in the media. Seems the media is about 85% Liberal and even the guys in the print room will redact the word Democrat out of an article if it is negative if a journalist had put it in their.
Not even Turley himself could bring himself to tell us her party affiliation. So much for this idea that he is somehow not completely biased. I guess that is why we know we cannot believe a word he says when he can’t even give the party affiliation of the corrupt Mayor.
I read the whole article and KNOWHERE DID IT LIST HER PARTY AFFILIATION! Isn’t that strange……….
Well guess what, she is a DEMOCRAT but you would not know that by reading the article would you. Now we all know that if she was a Republican the headline would have been :
Baltimore REPUBLICAN Mayor Indicted on Corruption Charges
I am amazed by the gross misconduct and corruption of the Democratic party that is becoming more and more apparent every day. I guess that is what happens when the Godless join ranks and take over a political party.