Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon can afford a powerful lawyer to mount a defense on her behalf. Dixon, now beleaguered by a 12-count indictment that includes charges of theft, perjury and official misconduct, has on her side attorney Arnold Weiner, a man famous for getting politicians off the hook.
Dixon has two faces. She is passionate about the city of Baltimore. She is popular with the people who voted her into power. She is charismatic and beautiful, with an impeccable sense of fashion and a youthful exuberance. To her credit, during her tenure as mayor, the murder rate fell last year. But her marvelous accomplishments mask a disturbing penchant for abusing power and disobeying ethics rules.
Dixon is a shrewd operator who has flirted with the fringes of the law for as long as she has been in politics. Well aware of her own magnetism, she has enough supporters willing to forgive and forget her trespasses. They bolster her belief that she did nothing wrong by accepting expensive gifts from a former boyfriend, developer Ronald Lipscomb.
While exchanging gifts in a relationship is normal, Mr. Lipscomb is not just any boyfriend. He stands to benefit from tax breaks and city contracts. If he cultivated a friendly City Council and massaged the ego of a politician with a weakness for expensive furs, jewels, electronics and first-class travel, it is to be expected. He is a businessman. Dixon should have avoided him strenuously. If she couldn’t help falling in love with him, then she should have made clear to him that he would be stuck with the difficult task of wooing and winning her without exorbitant gifts. Clearly she did not do this.
She is even accused of stealing gift cards for the needy. And she also did not report the gifts she received to Baltimore’s ethics board as required.
But her lawyers have found a gaping loophole in the prosecutor’s case. Baltimore’s ethics board has a definition for “companies doing business with the city.” It also has a list of these companies and regulations require that this list be certified by the city’s finance director.
Ms. Dixon’s defense team just discovered that the companies on the list with the ethics board do not actually fit the board’s own definition of “companies doing business with the city.” And her lawyers say that Dixon could not access the list directly from the finance department because she had no password.
In other words, the ethics board’s record keeping lapses could kill the prosecutor’s case and we are to assume that Dixon, if armed with the right password, would have accessed the finance department’s database, verified Ronald Lipscomb’s true dealings with the city and refused his gifts.
We should not forget that Dixon recently deplored two girls who were caught on a surveillance camera, laughing in a Chinese takeout even as a man was shot and robbed in front of them. Obviously it is easier to preach morals than to practice them.
All of Baltimore should be concerned about Dixon’s high class tastes and her pattern of behavior that indicates a proclivity for nepotism and an entitlement for the best in goods. Can a spendthrift be frugal with taxpayers’ money, husband Baltimore’s resources the best way possible and make sure city contracts are awarded to the most efficient and cost effective firms?
Ronald Lipscomb’s firm, Doracon Contracting, got favorable zoning rules from the City Council and was awarded financial incentives for a project. Doracon used Utech, a minority firm, as a subcontractor. Janice, Dixon’s sister, was an employee of Utech. Mildred Boyer, owner of Utech, pleaded guilty to tax fraud. Dale Clark, former campaign manager to Dixon, got himself a plum contract as a computer consultant to the City Council and earned $500,000 on which he failed to pay state income taxes. Does any of this “All In the Family” type exchange of taxpayers’ money sound kosher? At the very least, don’t some of these reports reek of circumstantial stench?
Dixon hopes that her dark side will be buried beneath an avalanche of excuses and complaints about a witch hunt. She uses her good side to wash away her sins and by doing so she dupes the voters who trusted her.
Usha Nellore is a writer living in Bel Air. Reach her at [email protected].
