A lawyer for the man accused of shooting a Baltimore priest launched a shouting tirade yesterday outside the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse, saying the city state's attorney is not investigating allegations that his client was molested by the priest.
Hollering insults about prosecutors through a bullhorn, attorney Warren A. Brown stood alongside the family of the accused man, Dontee Stokes, 27.
"The state's attorney's office is trying to whitewash this investigation," said Brown, who claims he came up with the bullhorn approach because his letters requesting a meeting with State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy have gone unanswered. Prosecutors say they never received the letters.
Stokes, who faces nine criminal counts in the shooting May 13 of the Rev. Maurice J. Blackwell, said he shot the 56-year-old priest because the clergyman would not apologize for assaulting him when he was a teen-ager.
Brown noted that in 1998, Blackwell admitted having a sexual relationship with a teen-ager in the 1960s, and was stripped of his church authority.
"They have no intention whatsoever of prosecuting Maurice Blackwell, even though he is an admitted child molester," Brown yelled.
Brown's news conference began in his office yesterday and ended on the steps of the courthouse, where he heckled and argued with Margaret T. Burns, a spokeswoman for the city state's attorney's office.
Burns walked outside to answer allegations leveled by Brown that her office has "figuratively climbed into bed with Maurice Blackwell." She said the state's attorney's sex crimes unit would investigate Brown's allegations if he filed a complaint.
"There are procedures and protocol in place," Burns said. "Mr. Brown, you're welcome to come upstairs and talk with someone in our sex abuse office."
The state's attorney's office is investigating Blackwell in reference to another person who came forward saying the priest sexually abused him. Prosecutors opened an investigation of Blackwell in 1993 based on Stokes' allegations that the priest touched him, but closed it that year with no results.
Brown said yesterday that Stokes told him the abuse was more serious than touching - which would qualify the offense as a felony rather than a misdemeanor. Brown would not offer details.
Maryland has no statute of limitations on felonies, meaning that if prosecutors chose to believe Stokes' claims, they would not be barred from charging Blackwell because of time constraints.