A former treasurer for a railroad workers union will spend six months in prison and six months on home confinement after pleading guilty to embezzling $45,000 from the organization, a federal judge ruled yesterday in Baltimore.
From 1999 through 2004, Walter Fisher served as the secretary-treasurer of the United Transportation Union Local 1949. The union local had about 250 members during that time who were yard masters with CSX, Norfolk Southern, Amtrak, and Conrail in New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
An audit by the International Union of the Local 1949 books for 2003 revealed that Fisher embezzled about $15,000 in 2003, prosecutors wrote in court papers.
Fisher, who pleaded guilty on May 3, must pay approximately $45,000 in restitution to the union, Chief Judge Benson E. Legg on the U.S. District Court ordered yesterday.
Matthew Dolan
Baltimore
: East side
Person critically injured in fire
A person was critically injured in a house fire in the 3400 block of Noble St. in East Baltimore about 8 p.m. yesterday, said Kevin Cartwright, a Fire Department spokesman. The person was taken to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Cartwright said. Cartwright did not have any information on the victim.
Annie Linskey
Highlandtown
Fire hits old Haussner's site
The former Haussner's Restaurant building in the 3200 block of Eastern Ave. caught fire about 9:30 last night, a Fire Department official said. No one was injured in the two-alarm blaze in the vacant structure, according to the fire department. The venerable Highlandtown restaurant closed in 1999.
Annie Linskey
Anne Arundel
: BWI
Thunderstorms delay some flights
Southwest Airlines flights from Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport were delayed between two and four hours late yesterday because of thunderstorms, according to an airline spokeswoman.
Spokeswoman Brandy King said could not say how many flights were delayed.