Anne Arundel County Executive John Leopold is accused of using his executive protection staff to escort him to a parking lot for “sexual activity with another county employee [in 2010],” the state prosecutor’s office announced Friday.
http://liarcatchers.com/executive_protection.html
An Anne Arundel County grand jury indicted the Republican on Wednesday on four counts of misconduct in office and one count of fraudulent misappropriation by a fiduciary, according to a release.
The indictment details a wide range of misconduct that includes using Anne Arundel County police officers to keep “dossiers” on his political opponents and to drive him to locations throughout the county where Leopold would remove his opponent’s campaign signs in 2010.
The indictment alleges a “systematic use of on-duty sworn Anne Arundel County officers as political campaign workers,” according to the press release. The officers would pick up and deposit campaign contributions and check on campaign signs for several hours a day, according to the indictment.
In addition, the police officers drove Leopold to parking lots to meet women for sexual encounters and they ran interference between a girlfriend and his live-in partner during a hospital stay, according to the news release.
“The indictment also recounts two hospital stays for back surgery during which the County Executive required an additional police officer to work overtime to prevent one girlfriend from meeting up with his live-in partner. The cost to Anne Arundel County for police overtime pay during these hospital stays exceeded $10,000,” the release stated.
The Republican “regularly misused his executive protection staff and other county employees for his own personal benefit,” the indictment alleged.
“Public officials criminally abuse their public trust when they treat public resources as their personal property and public personnel as their personal servants. These abuses will not be tolerated,” state prosecutor Emmet C. Davitt said in the release.
Leopold’s attorney, Bruce Marcus, has not released a statement. Leopold will not be arrested but a criminal summons will be served on his attorney, according to sources.
No trial date has been set. Davitt was not available for comment.
State delegate and fellow Republican Cathy Vitale said in an intervew with Patch that it’s a “very sad day” for the county.
“This is a distraction that the county doesn’t need, we should be focusing on the financial issues of the state and how they are going to affect the citizens of the county,” said Vitale, a Severna Park resident, via telephone. “I have two thoughts that come to mind: the county has heard for months about the ongoing investigations this certainly answers a question about what is happening. It is now up to the court system and the legal process to take over.”
But talk of an indictment has been brewing for months.
“It’s about time. … The accusations that came out against him and some of the things, I’m pretty sure he did,” county council PTA president Ray Leone told Patch. “I had some personal dealings with the man. I was relatively sure what he’s being indicted for is true.”
