Man pleads guilty to gun charge

The Baltimore Sun

Just over two weeks after Mayor Sheila Dixon sought to temporarily release him for his son's funeral, Charles Murel pleaded guilty yesterday to being a felon in possession of a weapon.

Murel, 20, had been convicted in 2005 of carjacking. In this more recent case, he admitted to having a black Glock 9 mm handgun when police arrested him near a grocery store on Pratt Street in West Baltimore.

His 3-year-old son, Charles Murel III, was killed June 30 when two cars collided and ricocheted into him and a woman in the 1900 block of W. Lanvale St. When Dixon called the child's mother to express her condolences, the mother asked Dixon if she would help arrange for the elder Murel to attend the funeral.

Baltimore Circuit Judge John M. Glynn said he thought Murel was too dangerous and denied a defense request for the funeral release. Dixon's chief of staff asked the judge to reconsider, but Glynn still refused. Then Otis Rolley III called prison officials to make the arrangement, but they, too refused.

Murel did not attend the funeral.

His conviction carries a mandatory sentence of five years in prison without the possibility of parole.

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