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Anne Arundel County executive indicted on charges of misusing police detail

From the Baltimore Sun's Nicole Fuller:

Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold was indicted Friday and charged with multiple counts of misconduct in office, based on allegations that he used his county-paid police security detail for his own political gain and to engage in sex acts with women.

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The state proseuctor's office charges John R. Leopold with:

Paying police two or three times a week during the latter half of 2010 to work overtime to prevent one girlfriend from meeting his live-in partner during two hospital stays, costing taxpayers $10,000.

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Instructing officers to "drive him to local commercial parking lots and wait for him while he entered another vehicle and engaged in sexual activity with another county employee." The indictment says he bragged to police about his exploits.

The indictment, prosecutors said in a statement, "details a systemic use of on-duty sworn Anne Arundel County officers as political campaign workers regularly requiring them to place, distribute and check on political campaign signs, often for several hours a day."

The indictment raises questions about Anne Arundel County Police Chief James Teare Sr. saying that officers complained about allegedly having to help out on campaigns, "but no effective action was taken by the Chief."

Teare, by the way, wrote a letter published in today's paper defending is officers for doing more with less.

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Read the statement and indictment from the Office of the State Prosecutor.

You might recall that some of these allegations surfaced back in 2009. Nicole wrote this back then (read her full story here):

Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold said yesterday that police "found absolutely nothing improper" after responding to an anonymous 911 call about possible sexual activity in what turned out to be Leopold's county-issued car while it was parked at an Annapolis mall in late January.

The 911 caller told a dispatcher that he saw "activity going on in a car" in the parking lot at Westfield Annapolis Mall and "I don't think it's proper," in the recording released by Anne Arundel County police yesterday.

The caller added: "I'm not positive, but it looks like there's naked people in the car."

Officers, who discovered Leopold in the back seat of the car, determined that the call was unfounded. No charges were brought, and no police report was written.

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