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Sheila Dixon: Indicted For Using Money For The Poor On A Personal Shopping Spree
BALTIMORE — Mayor Sheila Dixon was indicted Friday on charges that she accepted illegal gifts during her time as mayor and City Council president, including travel, fur coats and gift cards intended for the poor that she allegedly used instead for a holiday shopping spree.
A grand jury indicted Dixon on 12 counts, including four counts of perjury and two counts of theft over $500. She was also charged with theft under $500, fraudulent misappropriation by a fiduciary and misconduct in office.
The State Prosecutor's Office, which has been investigating corruption at City Hall for nearly three years, said Dixon received holiday gift cards for four years from several people. Prosecutors said the gift cards were to be distributed to needy families, but were instead used by Dixon to buy electronics _ including an Xbox, a PlayStation 2 and a camcorder _ clothes and other merchandise and also handed out to members of her staff.
"I am being unfairly accused," Dixon said in a statement. "Time will prove that I have done nothing wrong, and I am confident that I will be found innocent of these charges."
Dixon said she would not step down. "I will not let these charges deter me from keeping Baltimore on the path that we have set."
Her attorney, Arnold M. Weiner, leveled an angry verbal attack against State Prosecutor Robert A. Rohrbaugh at an afternoon news conference.
"Sheila Dixon has been the state prosecutor's singular, personal obsession over the past four years," said Weiner. "There wasn't a bedsheet that he failed to look under or a lead that he found too trivial for him to pursue personally."
Rohrbaugh declined through his office to respond to Weiner's comments.
Weiner also criticized Rohrbaugh for failing to secure an indictment for bribery, which he described as "the offense that every prosecutor looks for when he or she investigates a public official."
After consulting with City Solicitor George Nilson, Weiner said the charges would not affect Dixon's ability to continue in her job.
The charges of theft over $500 are felonies and each carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. Each perjury count carries a maximum of 10 years; misappropriation by a fiduciary carries 5 years; misdemeanor theft carries at most 18 months; and misconduct in office has no specific penalties.
Dixon, a 55-year-old Democrat, served on the City Council from 1987 through 2007 and as council president from 1999 through 2007. She became mayor in January 2007, finishing the term of Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley, and was easily elected to a full, four-year term later that year.
The state prosecutor's investigation began in March 2006, and has overshadowed her tenure as mayor. She has consistently denied wrongdoing, and while many political observers worried that an indictment could come at any time, the mayor nonetheless earned praise for efficient management, shrewd hiring and coolheaded responses to crises.
Some residents and city officials, including City Councilwoman Rochelle "Rikki" Spector and City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, expressed support for the mayor Friday.
Construction worker Michael Scott said he believes the allegations were racially motivated. Dixon is the first black woman to serve as mayor of Baltimore.
"I'm pretty sure they got it twisted up," Scott said. "They could be saying anything just to drag her down. Prove it to me."
The indictment against Dixon does not name Ronald H. Lipscomb, a prominent developer who briefly dated the mayor and who was indicted Wednesday on one charge of bribing a City Council member. But Weiner confirmed Lipscomb was "Developer A" mentioned in the indictment who showered the mayor with gifts and took several lavish trips with her in late 2003 and early 2004.
Both were married at the time, although they were separated from their spouses. Dixon has since divorced.
The indictment describes Dixon taking money from Lipscomb and using it to buy expensive gifts _ two fur coats and high-end skin products, for example _ all while pampering herself with trips to New York City, Chicago and Colorado with stays at lavish hotels.
The documents describe an elaborate scheme by which Lipscomb paid for part of a shopping spree Dixon enjoyed during a stay in Chicago. At one point, Dixon gave $4,000 in cash to a city employee, who deposited it in his personal checking account and wrote a check to pay off part of Dixon's American Express bill, according to the indictment.
Dixon obtained the cash after Lipscomb cashed a corporate check worth $15,000 and the two exchanged several phone calls, the indictment says.
Dixon has never listed any gifts from Lipscomb on financial disclosure forms. At the time of Dixon and Lipscomb's affair, his company was involved in several projects that received tax breaks from the city.
Weiner said the state prosecutor was using a mistakenly broad interpretation of the city's ethics law, which requires that elected officials disclose gifts from people doing business with the city.
Perhaps more damaging is the allegation that Dixon stole gift cards meant for the poor. For four years running, according to the indictment, Dixon received gift cards that were supposed to be distributed to needy families.
The alleged scam continued through December 2007. According to the indictment, a city employee gave the mayor gift cards from Toys R Us that were supposed to go to poor children. Dixon gave one gift card to a staffer, and investigators said they found five more in a search of her home last summer.
Dixon received Best Buy gift cards from Lipscomb's company in December 2004 and held onto some of them for a year before using them to buy CDs, DVDs and a video game, according to the indictment.
In 2005, Dixon hit up another unidentified developer for gift cards that she said would be used for needy families. The developer paid for 20 Best Buy gift cards worth $25 each, and Dixon used 19 of them, or $450 worth, to buy a camcorder, a video game controller and other electronics, the indictment says.
Dixon's financial disclosure statements for the years in question do not mention that she received any gift cards.
Weiner said most of the gift cards mentioned in the indictment were private gifts from Lipscomb.
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Associated Press writers Alex Dominguez, Ben Greene and Kasey Jones in Baltimore and Brian Witte in Annapolis, Md., contributed to this report.
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BEN NUCKOLS | January 9, 2009 11:41 PM EST |
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