Raid signals more trouble for Baltimore mayor
By BEN NUCKOLS, Associated Press Writer Wed Jun 18, 2:58 PM ET
BALTIMORE - Sheila Dixon has reduced violent crime and gracefully handled
a
variety of crises since taking over as mayor in January 2007, but a
two-year
state investigation of her financial dealings as City Council president
threatens to overshadow her successes.
Investigators searched Dixon's home for more than seven hours Tuesday, and
five city employees were subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury.
She denies any wrongdoing, but experts say an indictment could derail
Baltimore's progress. The city, the third most-violent in the nation in
2007, is on track this year to have its lowest homicide total since the
1980s.
Dixon's attorney, Dale Kelberman, said investigators seized do***ents from
the mayor's house, but he did not know what they were and had not seen the
search warrant.
Dixon told re****ters she is cooperating with prosecutors but had no idea
what they were seeking.
She was City Council president from 1999 until 2007, when she was sworn in
to finish the term of now-Gov. Martin O'Malley.
She won a full four-year term in a landslide last fall, becoming the first
female and second black elected mayor.
Seen by some as a divisive figure during her time on the City Council,
Dixon
has won over skeptics with her shrewd management of an often-troubled city
of about 624,000, including an estimated 40,000 heroin addicts.
"The city, in spite of a bad economy, seems to be moving forward," said
Matthew Crenson, a political science professor at Johns Hopkins
University.
"Things look pretty good, but (an indictment) could make them look pretty
bad."
Dixon said Tuesday she will stay focused on running the city despite the
raid on her home.
"I don't have anything to hide," she said.
The probe involves city money that went to companies employing Dixon's
sister and her former campaign chairman.
In November, prosecutors raided the offices of Doracon Contracting Inc.,
which had hired Union Technologies as a subcontractor on an east Baltimore
project that received millions of dollars in city and state subsidies.
Dixon's sister, Janice, worked for Union Technologies, and Dixon had
advocated for the project as council president.
Union Technologies owner Mildred Boyer pleaded guilty in March to
falsifying
tax returns. Prosecutors have said she agreed to cooperate on "other
matters," but her attorneys have said she has no connection with the
mayor.
In a separate case, Dixon's former campaign chairman, Dale G. Clark,
pleaded
guilty last year to failing to file state income tax returns after earning
$500,000 without a contract as the City Council's computer consultant.
Clark's attorney said he did not believe his client's interviews with
state
prosecutors produced evidence that implicated the mayor.
The Baltimore City Board of Ethics cleared Dixon of wrongdoing last year.
"The mayor has done nothing wrong," Kelberman said. "That's why no charges
have been filed."
State Prosecutor Robert Rohrbaugh said his office does not comment on
investigations.
Andrew D. Levy, a defense attorney with experience in public corruption
cases, said Tuesday's raid of Dixon's house does not mean charges are
imminent.
"The mayor is in the worst possible position in a cir***stance like this,"
Levy said. "These pictures of investigators carrying boxes out of her
house
make for great television, but they don't mean she's guilty of anything."
Crenson, however, said that if Dixon isn't indicted, Rohrbaugh will "look
pretty silly."
"The evidence must have been pretty compelling to get a judge to issue a
search warrant for the mayor's private residence," he said.
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