Does Maryland need a special prosecutor to investigate the state prosecutor’s office?
Last week State Prosecutor Robert Rohrbaugh had his office send out a new round of subpoenas in his investigation of Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon. According to news reports, Rohrbaugh issued the subpoenas to find out more about four development projects. Ronald H. Lipscomb, a Baltimore developer who was one time linked to Dixon romantically and exchanged gifts with her, is said to be involved in at least three of those projects.
The news of the latest round of subpoenas jolted me like a pimp slap to the chops. Rohrbaugh didn’t call all the witnesses he subpoenaed to the last grand jury that heard testimony about Dixon’s alleged malfeasance in office. A grand jury, I might add, which didn’t return an indictment.
One of those witnesses subpoenaed and then cavalierly dismissed with a wave of the prosecutorial hand was Anthony McCarthy, who worked for Dixon when she was City Council president and was briefly spokesman for Dixon after she became mayor. (Dixon was City Council president when she had her relationship with Lipscomb and voted on several projects in which the developer had a financial interest.)
A. Dwight Pettit, McCarthy’s attorney, said folks in the state prosecutor’s office never told him why McCarthy wasn’t called to testify. They didn’t tell him when his client might be expected to testify either. McCarthy said he was told to call the office if he had any questions. He called twice, McCarthy said, and no one returned his call.
When the story about McCarthy and other witnesses not being called to testify after being subpoenaed hit the newspapers a few months ago, I started to get a disturbing feeling. About a state prosecutor’s office issuing subpoenas and then not calling witnesses to testify. About the arrogance of a state prosecutor’s office not giving explanations to either the witnesses or their attorneys about why they weren’t being called to testify and about when they could reasonably be expected to be called to testify.
Apparently, Rohrbaugh thinks he’s conducting this investigation with his own money and thinks that he doesn’t owe explanations to McCarthy, Pettit, the other dismissed witnesses or their attorneys. It’s my distinct pleasure to remind him that he’s not conducting this investigation with his own money but with OUR — the taxpayers’ — money. And while he may not owe an explanation to McCarthy or Pettit, Rohrbaugh sure as hell owes one to us. He owes us the answer to some questions too.
1. Why weren’t McCarthy and the other witnesses who didn’t testify before the last grand jury allowed to testify? Why weren’t they or their lawyers given explanations about why they didn’t?
2. Will they be subpoenaed again?
3. If the answer to that is “yes,” will they actually get to testify this time, or will this be another one of your chain jerks?
4. The last batch of witnesses testified before a grand jury that failed to return an indictment. Are you engaged in a legitimate investigation or are you on a fishing expedition? Or a witch hunt?
Now some may claim that witnesses being subpoenaed and not called to testify is no big deal, that it happens all the time. That argument would have some merit, but I doubt that McCarthy is sympathetic to it. Before he was subpoenaed McCarthy had just gone through an ordeal in which he was charged with serious — and downright despicable — sex charges in Baltimore County. Those charges were dismissed, but not before McCarthy lost his job as Dixon’s spokesman and his reputation was ruined. McCarthy hasn’t worked since. If there’s a God in heaven, those responsible for putting McCarthy through this will one day answer for what they did.
McCarthy’s trek through hell is all the more reason he didn’t need his chain jerked by a state prosecutor’s office that apparently feels as if it’s accountable to no one, not even taxpayers. But if Rohrbaugh thinks that the public’s eyes are on Dixon and not on him, he’d better think again.
Because there are some of us who do indeed watch the watchers.
Gregory Kane is a columnist who has been writing about Baltimore and Maryland for more than 15 years. Look for his columns in the editorial section every Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at [email protected].
