Dixon case in jury’s hands 

Posted: 6:03 pm Thu, November 19, 2009
By Brendan Kearney
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon’s fate now rests with the jury.

The nine women and three men got the case around 12:30 p.m. Thursday, but after they asked several questions over the next four hours — two about the definition of misappropriation — the judge sent them home and told them to return Friday to continue deliberating.

“Have a good night, get rested, don’t dwell on this, and we’ll have you back tomorrow morning,” Visiting Judge Dennis M. Sweeney told them.

And so, after a three-and-half-year-old investigation, almost a year since Dixon was first indicted, and a week of trial testimony, the city waits to hear whether its mayor is a crook or is innocent in the eyes of the law.

But earlier Thursday, all eyes were on the lawyers in the case as they made their closing arguments.

While the mayor’s criminal trial has garnered substantial public interest and the downtown courtroom has been filled on most days, yesterday was the first when every seat was filled and some would-be spectators were turned away at the door.

City Hall staffers, local and state elected officials, and groups of interested lawyers and media looked on as each side made their last, best plea to the jury in Baltimore City Circuit Court.

After Sweeney instructed the jury on the relevant law, Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Shelly Glenn led off for the prosecution.

Glenn uncorked zingers that skewered the mayor and the defenses she’d raised to the five remaining charges of using gift cards intended for needy families instead for herself.

Referring to how Dixon directed developer Patrick Turner to buy gift cards at Best Buy and Target in December 2005, Glenn said, “It’s almost as if she’s phoning in her order.”

Showing Dixon’s phone records and Turner’s receipts on a projection screen, Glenn laid out the chronology of Dec. 13, 2005: Turner called Dixon at 11:04 a.m.; Turner bought the Best Buy gift cards at 12:21 p.m. and the Target gift cards at 1:01 p.m.; and then, at 1:21 p.m., he called her again.

Glenn said it “defies common sense” that they wouldn’t discuss “the elephant in the room,” that he had purchased the gift cards she requested.

Dixon eventually spent $525 of the $1,000 worth of cards on a digital video camera and other electronics, a fact she does not deny.

The cornerstone of her defense has been that Turner’s gift cards were delivered to City Hall in a white envelope with only her name on it — no sender’s signature, no note — and Dixon thought they were a personal gift from another developer, her then-boyfriend Ronald H. Lipscomb.

Glenn called that defense unbelievable, however, in light of the fact that Dixon called Turner the next year while he was taking a holiday vacation in the Cayman Islands.

“Obviously the defendant knew Mr. Turner donated the cards,” she said. “She calls him up and says, ‘Will you donate again?’ ”

Speaking about five Toys “R” Us gift cards from the December 2007 Holly Trolley charity event, which were supplied by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, Glenn said Dixon had to have known she was supposed to return the unused ones to the agency.

“This woman did not get this far in life if she could be that easily confused,” Glenn said.

The five cards were found during a June 2008 police search of Dixon’s home, in a Victoria’s Secret bag, Glenn noted  — “not the mayoral handbag.”

Dixon was keeping the cards “in reserve for the next time she wants to give a gift to someone,” Glenn quipped.

‘Figure it out’

Then it was the defense’s turn.

Arnold M. Weiner, the veteran courtroom showman who defended former Gov. Marvin Mandel and former U.S. Rep. Edward Garmatz, began his closing argument by praising his client’s achievements and calling her “a woman of faith and a woman of dedication.”

“She has had to endure at least since the spring of 2006 one of the most searching, intrusive investigations that a human being could go through,” he said, noting that prosecutors had subpoenaed a wide variety of her personal records as well as records from a half-dozen city agencies. “To come up with what?”

Weiner noted that much of the prosecutor’s case had been stricken from jury consideration — the two counts that related to Lipscomb, more than 40 exhibits, seven witnesses’ entire testimony, portions of four witnesses’ testimony — leaving the jury with “the job of having to remember what you’re supposed to forget.”

Weiner harped on the fact that there are alternate criminal theories for each set of gift cards. The jury can find Dixon stole the Turner gift cards or misappropriated them, but not both; likewise with the Holly Trolley cards.

“Isn’t that interesting? They can’t find out what kind of theft it was, so they ask you to figure it out,” Weiner said to laughter from at least three jurors and the audience. “It’s not fair to ask you to do it. It’s not just plain not fair.”

And he faulted the prosecution for trotting out the Victoria’s Secret shopping bag.

“The mere fact that they would do that shows the lack of respect … the reckless abandon with which the prosecution searched this woman’s property and the reckless abandon with which they brought this worthless case,” Weiner said.

Weiner asked the jury “to end this nightmare, to put the finishing point on a three-and-a-half-year relentless pursuit.”

His speech was greeted with applause in the courtroom.

“Be quiet please,” Sweeney said sternly from the bench. “That’s not appropriate.”

Perhaps a dozen people filed out at the end of Weiner’s remarks, including state Del. Curt S. Anderson.

State Prosecutor Robert A. Rohrbaugh closed by saying the “oratory” might be on Weiner’s side but the evidence isn’t. He laid the 19 gift cards purchased by Patrick Turner and the five Toys “R” Us gift cards out on the ledge at the front of the jury box.

“They weren’t for Ms. Dixon,” Rohrbaugh said. “They were for the children.”

Rohrbaugh said he accepted the testimony of Dixon’s character witnesses, including her longtime friend and personal spiritual advisor, Bethel AME Rev. Frank M. Reid III, who said she was honest. But “good people sometimes do bad things,” Rohrbaugh said.

Repeating a sentence from his opening statement, he said the mayor stealing from her needy constituents is “unspeakable.”

“The citizens of Baltimore and the children of Baltimore expect the highest integrity in their public servants,” he said.

Dixon, who took notes throughout the arguments in her notebook and on Post-Its, appeared to be on the verge of tears and offered no comment.

Daily Record reporter Robbie Whelan contributed to this article.