The mother of an 18-year-old man being held on $1 million bail in two alleged Carroll County rapes blamed racism for what she calls excessive bail.
“I just don?t understand how a judge can say a million dollars right off the bat,” Bless Queen said. “Who sets a million-dollar bail on an 18-year-old kid? I really feel that it is prejudiced.”
Noting the alleged victim is a 16-year-old white girl, Queen said, “She?s white, and it?s a small town.”
Her son, Nicholas Queen, of New Windsor, was at a party in Taneytown July 15, smoking marijuana outside the house with Fidel Melo, 20, a Hispanic, and a 16-year-old girl, according to charging documents.
The girl refused a kiss from Queen, saying she had a boyfriend and “was not going to do this with him,” according to the documents.
On the way back to the house, Melo held her down while he and Queen raped her, prosecutors alleged.
Kelley Galvin, an assistant state?s attorney, had asked the court to deny bail, but said $1 million was fair.
“This is the rape of a minor,” she told The Examiner on Tuesday. “They were acting in collaboration, allegedly. I think a million is quite appropriate.”
Queen?s bail was set in July in District Court and upheld in September when his lawyers tried to reduce it.
The day the lawyers sought reduced bail, prosecutors charged Queen with the rape of a 15-year-old Taneytown girl. The prosecutors said Queen and Melo committed that rape with William M. Smith, 24, and that it occurred in mid-July. Smith was charged with second-degree rape, and his bail was set at $500,000.
Queen?s attorneys, Bradley Bauhof and Jill Swerdlin, say he was not present when the second rape allegedly took place.
The Rev. Jekia Ledbetter, the pastor at the Baltimore church the Queens attend, called the case one of the worst injustices she?s seen.
“I think it?s worse than Jena 6,” she said. “I don?t think he can have a fair trial in Carroll County.”
