A candidate for mayor has filed a lawsuit to block the controversial pension of former Baltimore Deputy Police Commissioner Marcus Brown.
Claiming the dispute over Brown?s pension is not yet over, Clerk of the Courts Frank Conaway announced on Wednesday that he had filed a petition for a writ of mandamus seeking a judge to order the police commissioner to suspend Brown?s pension.
“I?m asking the judge to make the commissioner reverse the pension, to take it away,” he said,
The complaint was filed last Thursday and originally named former Police Commissioner Leonard Hamm as the defendant. However, since Hamm resigned last week, Conaway amended the lawsuit.
“I sent it to the attorney for the Police Department and the attorney has to make a decision as to who gets served,” he said.
The controversy over Brown?s pension erupted nearly a month ago, when the city?s police and fire pension board approved the pension after Hamm wrote a letter to the board stating Brown was “laid off.” Pension board officials accused Hamm of lying about Brown?s employment status.
“He allowed someone to get a pension who didn?t deserve it and who hadn?t earned it,” Conaway said of Hamm.
Brown is chief of the Maryland Transportation Authority Police.
Legal expert Byron Warnken, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, said the petition for a writ of mandamus is used when all other legal avenues have been exhausted.
But Warnken questioned if Conaway had legal standing to file the suit.
“The only way he gets standing is as a taxpayer, but you really need to show the nexus of your role as taxpayer,” he said. “He gets no special standing as Clerk of the Court.”
Police officials said they had not yet seen the lawsuit and declined to comment.
