Maryland Law Blog

According to an article from chicagotribune.com, a Virginia doctor has been sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison for allegedly writing tens of thousands of prescriptions for muscle relaxants and other drugs. Apparently, the doctor provided these prescriptions over the Internet and did not meet or examine any of the patients. In addition to the seven counts held against him for introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce, the doctor was also charged with four counts of tax evasion. He pleaded guilty to all the charges against him.

The doctor was also sentenced in the city of Boston’s federal court to three years of probation following release from his one-year sentence. Based on the article, prosecutors argued that between 2004 and 2007, the doctor gave out about 50,000 to 100,000 prescriptions based on forms refined for online pharmacies. He was reportedly paid $5 to $7 per prescription and never reported this income to the IRS.

Even though the doctor in this drug crime case pleaded guilty to the charges against him, doing so is not something that applies to every criminal case. A guilty plea may benefit a defendant if it means facing a lowered sentence or being given the opportunity of probation instead of jail time. However, a person being accused of a drug crime in Maryland may want to discuss serious matters such as these with an experienced Maryland drug crime defense attorney.

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There is no question that the safety of children is a daily concern of parents, teachers, and anyone responsible for taking children into their care. School bus drivers in particular base their career on ensuring that children are transported to and from school without experiencing any danger or harm. Part of a school bus driver’s job is to uphold this important responsibility. Although it may not be as obvious, motorists of all vehicles on the road must take the well-being of children into consideration as well, particularly when a child is crossing the street, riding a bike, or is a passenger on a bus or in a car.

With the above points in mind, a recent accident involving a school bus and a small passenger car sent out ripples of concern amongst parents of Harford students who were traveling to school on the morning of November 11, 2009. According to a baltimoresun.com article, the school bus transporting the Harford County students to the Maryland School for the Blind was hit by a small passenger vehicle. It was reported that neither the students nor the bus driver were injured, however, the driver of the other vehicle did sustain injury. At the time of this writing no additional information regarding the injured driver has been released.

Continue reading " Driver Involved in Baltimore County School Bus Accident Injured " »

Ocean City police have arrested a 24-year-old Washington D.C. man who was wanted on charges in two Maryland Counties including first-degree assault and armed robbery. According to a mdcoastdispatch.com report, the suspect was taken into police custody after his identity was discovered during a routine traffic stop.

According to the article, when the suspect, Christopher McCray, was pulled over in a traffic stop by the Ocean City Police, he allegedly gave the officers a false name and birth date. However, the officers were later able to determine that the man had two existing warrants for his arrest including failure to appear for a court date in St. Mary's County and for first-degree assault and armed robbery in Prince George's County. In addition, the man now faces charges in Ocean City for driving a vehicle without rear registration illumination, driving without a license, giving a false and fictitious name to police, and other traffic offenses.

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According to a recent lohud.com article, a 24-year-old former all-star basketball athlete has been sentenced to one to three years in a state prison for causing a drunken driving accident in New York that killed her friend, Lisa Marie Mornay. Meghan Wood, a 24-year-old former basketball player and leading scorer her senior year at Loyola College in Maryland, was sentenced on November 4, 2009.

The New York State Judge handling the case could have sentenced Wood to five years "shock" probation in which she would serve the first six months in jail but he wanted his sentence to be a deterrent to others who would drive drunk. At her sentencing, Supreme Court Justice Lester Adler chastised Wood saying, “You endangered every single person on the road that morning. I can’t forget that; I can’t put that out of my mind.”

According to the article, Wood would have faced up to fifteen years in prison if she had been convicted at trial. Instead, Wood began serving her sentence at the Westchester County jail in Valhalla on August 3, 2009 after pleading guilty to the full indictment against her, which included a felony charge of vehicular manslaughter and misdemeanor counts of driving while intoxicated. She is now scheduled to be transported to a state prison where she may be eligible for parole in nine months.

Continue reading " Fatal DWI Crash Leads to Sentence of 1-3 Years in State Prison " »