A recently retired and decorated Anne Arundel County police officer was given probation before judgment yesterday for committing bigamy by marrying his fifth wife before divorcing his fourth.
Clarence Lee Whitlow, 44, wed his current wife Sept. 8 using the papers from his November 2001 divorce from his third wife to prove he was free to marry, Assistant State's Attorney Kathleen A. Evans said.
"He's a police officer. He should have known," she said outside the Anne Arundel County courtroom. "Maybe he has a motive of love, but you are still breaking the law."
Whitlow apologized during the brief hearing before Circuit Judge William C. Mulford II, who fined Whitlow $100 and placed him on six months' probation. The maximum penalty for a conviction is nine years.
Bigamy cases are unusual, but not unheard of, in Maryland, and Anne Arundel County has had a few in the past decade.
Whitlow's two most recent marriages overlapped for about six months, including about a month when he was on the Anne Arundel police force.
When he married Jennifer Anne Pangborn last year, he was still married to Lisa Holmes Whitlow, his fourth wife, Evans told the judge.
The couple was separated, however. Court records show that he filed for divorce from Lisa Whitlow in March 2006 in Carroll County. It was granted this past March.
A spokeswoman for the state's attorney's office said "one of his former wives" complained to authorities.
"Based on an issue of timing, he made an error in judgment," his lawyer, Michael J. Belsky, said later.
He and prosecutors agreed to probation before judgment, which allows Whitlow to ask to have the record expunged in several years.
Belsky told the judge that Whitlow had "distinguished" careers with the Army and Anne Arundel County police.
He was on the police force 20 years, ending in October 2006, police said.
Whitlow received several commendations, including a 1997 award in the fatal shooting of a bank robbery suspect who turned his weapon on police officers. He was struck by a suspect's vehicle in a 2002 police chase.
andrea.siegel@baltsun.com