Man charged in child porn case
A Baltimore County man has been charged with possessing and distributing child pornography after state police said they intercepted his attempts to download sexual images on the Internet.
Shawn J. Eisenstein, 21, of the first block of Strongwood Road in Owings Mills could get up to 40 years in prison if convicted. Police said he was charged with three counts of distributing child pornography and 10 counts of possessing child pornography.
The investigation was conducted by the Maryland State Police Computer Crimes Unit. In a statement, police said that in March troopers identified a man in a chat room offering videos of children engaged in sex acts for others to download. Police said investigators traced the e-mail to a house in Owings Mills.
Police said Eisenstein surrendered to state police at the Golden Ring Barracks on Tuesday and was released on personal bail by a District Court commissioner.
Man indicted on porn charges
A federal grand jury indicted this week a 43-year-old Glen Burnie man on child pornography charges.
The indictment was returned against Lance Russell late Tuesday.
According to the charges, Russell distributed images of prepubescent children engaged in sexually explicit conduct with adults on five separate occasions from Dec. 6, 2006, through Feb. 15, 2007. The indictment alleges that from May 19, 2007, through June 1, 2007, Russell received five images of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct with adults.
Russell faces a minimum mandatory sentence of five years and a maximum of 20 years in prison, followed by supervised release for life.
Matthew Dolan
FBI security worker indicted
An FBI security specialist from Annapolis has been indicted on charges of accepting an illegal gift worth $7,500 from a contractor whose work he oversaw.
Curtis Jones, 47, was indicted Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore on charges of accepting an illegal gratuity.
According to the indictment, as an equipment program manager for the FBI, Jones was responsible for negotiating, reviewing and making recommendations regarding a purchase agreement valued at nearly $2 million for upgraded paper shredders.
Prosecutors said Jones approved the bid of an undisclosed company and subsequently served as the liaison for all FBI field offices to submit their purchase requests to the company for new shredders.
Shortly after visiting the company and approving its machines for purchase, Jones accepted an offer from the contractor in 2003 to join the company's top executives on a Caribbean cruise.
Matthew Dolan
Man accused of stealing ambulance is held in Va.
A 21-year-old man was arrested yesterday, and authorities in Virginia said they had charged him with stealing a Baltimore ambulance and driving it about 100 miles on Interstate 95 at speeds exceeding 80 mph.
Corinne Geller, a Virginia State Police spokeswoman, said the man was arrested near Dale City, Va., in Stafford County, after a high-speed pursuit on the highway. Derrion Q. Stackhouse of the 1700 block of N. Pulaski St. was charged with four felonies, including possession of a stolen vehicle, assault on a police officer, eluding police and obstruction of justice.
Chief Kevin Cartwright, a spokesman for the Baltimore Fire Department, said the ambulance, a 2000 Ford labeled Medic 24, was stolen about 10:30 a.m. from an emergency bay at University of Maryland Medical Center, near Lombard and Penn streets. He said paramedics left the vehicle unlocked when they took a patient into the hospital.
The ambulance was first spotted by a Prince George's County police officer on the Capital Beltway with its emergency lights and siren on, then by the Virginia State Police on I-95. Geller said the driver initially pulled over for a trooper but sped away as the officer approached, forcing him to jump out of the way.
A few miles later, Geller said, troopers and deputies from the Stafford County Sheriff's Office boxed in the ambulance and forced the driver to stop on the side of the highway shortly after 1 p.m.
Cartwright said some ambulances are equipped with satellite positioning devices, but not the one that was stolen. He also said the city paramedics who were operating the vehicle face disciplinary action. "Our policy is to secure the unit any time it is unattended," Cartwright said. "Apparently, that wasn't the case today."