juvenile program grants distributed by an anti-crime
office overseen by Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, but
Townsend said she believes the probe is fueled by her political opponents.
The federal grand jury investigation centers on a $503,000 federal grant awarded
in March last year to a Prince George’s County project, Diamonds of Opportunity,
which targeted youth who had committed crimes.
One partner in
the project was Safe Streets 2000 Inc., whose executive director, Terry Lawlah,
is the daughter-in-law of state Sen. Gloria Lawlah, a Prince George’s County
Democrat. Del. Joanne C. Benson of Prince George’s is listed as Safe Streets’
president on tax records.
The Governor’s Office of
Crime Control and Prevention, which reports to Townsend,
rescinded the grant within several months, after problems surfaced. But the
office later shifted money to an unrelated not-for-profit
organization to settle claims from three people who said they had not been paid
for work on the project.
Officials with the crime control
office said they had received a subpoena for documents related
to the grant. Townsend said the office had complied with the
order, and she was confident that money was distributed properly. She said she
had not been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury.
A spokeswoman with the
federal Office of Justice Programs said yesterday that the
agency would investigate whether the grant money awarded in Prince George’s
County complied with federal and state guidelines.
Steven P. Amos, executive
director of the governor’s crime office,
released 700 pages of grant-file documents yesterday to buttress his assertions
that the agency followed the rules. A spokesman for Gov. Parris N. Glendening
said the governor declined to comment.
Townsend said she was concerned that
the inquiry might have political roots. U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio
received the strong backing of Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., Townsend’s likely
Republican opponent in the race for governor, before being appointed by
President Bush in September.
“I think this is a bunch of political garbage,”
said Townsend, angered both by news of the probe, first reported in The
Washington Post yesterday, and by a call from Ehrlich yesterday for DiBiagio to
increase gun crime prosecutions in Baltimore. Townsend said she
and others have been making gun-prosecution pleas for months.
“It makes me
think that all these Republicans are engaged in political garbage,” she said.
“They are playing politics with gun violence. They are playing politics with
children’s lives.”
Ehrlich said he was incredulous that Townsend would
question DiBiagio’s motives in investigating the grants, saying he had not
spoken with the U.S. attorney since DiBiagio was sworn in December.
“When you
start questioning the integrity of the United States attorney, that’s meltdown,”
he said. “How would I know anything about a grand jury investigation? She’s
really left the ballpark.”
Ehrlich said his campaign had not focused on the
crime control office, and that he had little
knowledge of its operations. The office oversees millions of
dollars yearly in federal grants that pay for many of the programs Townsend
champions, including her HotSpot initiative that helps communities fight
crime.
DiBiagio did not return phone calls about the
investigation. A spokeswoman for his office, Assistant U.S.
Attorney Virginia Evans, said she could not confirm or deny accounts of a grand
jury probe.
Special Agent Barry A. Maddox, a spokesman for the FBI’s
Baltimore field office, declined to comment yesterday on the
investigation.
The Diamonds of Opportunity program was created after Safe
Streets, the Prince George’s group with connections to area lawmakers, had been
rejected for an earlier grants request.
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Crime
office employees encouraged Safe Streets to partner with a
national group with more experience, and the organization formed an alliance
with National Homes Trust, based in Los Angeles, officials said. The governor’s
crime office then approved $503,000 from a
federal Juvenile Accountability Block Grant for the program.
Townsend said
that she had no involvement in the awarding of the grant. She said she did not
speak with Lawlah or other elected officials about it.
“This is a federal
grant, and there are rules and regulations about how they should be awarded,”
Townsend said.
The partnership between Safe Streets and National Homes Trust
quickly dissolved, however, leaving behind claims of unpaid bills that were
eventually settled in an unorthodox fashion that appears to be a target of the
federal inquiry.
Amos said the crime agency cut off funding
and recouped money from the grantee after less than a year because of problems
with how it was working.
The move left Bruce W. Branch, a communications
consultant and former journalist, unpaid. In an effort to recoup $31,000 he said
he was owed for more than a year’s work on the project, Branch launched an
aggressive letter-writing campaign that included threats of political damage to
Townsend.
“I am an honorable man, a Christian leader, but my patience has
worn thin and I am about to unleash a Holy War against the demonic spirits that
seem to have taken over officials at National Homes Trust and SafeStreets 2001,”
wrote Branch in a letter to Benson, the delegate and Safe Streets president.
In a May 25, 2001 letter to Townsend, Branch asserted that “Republican State
Chairman Mike Steele has found out about this and wants me to talk publicly
about these issues, no doubt to embarrass the Glendening-Townsend
administration.”
But Steele, who was selected last month as Ehrlich’s running
mate, said yesterday he had not spoken with Branch since 1999. Branch said in an
interview that he raised Steele’s name as “just a threat,” and had not contacted
the party official directly.
Monique Daviss, executive director of the
National Homes Trust, acknowledged receiving a harshly worded letter from Branch
in April last year for “hours and hours of free work” that included meeting with
juveniles, writing press releases, promoting stories in the media and writing
letters to public officials.
Daviss did not dispute that Branch had performed
the work but said the group’s national headquarters had never authorized his
employment or signed a contract with him.
After the series of letters, state
officials examined invoices and determined that Branch and two other contractors
who worked on Diamonds of Opportunity should be paid.
“[I]t has been
determined that compensation for the services you rendered are appropriate,”
reads an Aug. 20, 2001 response to Branch bearing Townsend’s signature in state
files.
Because the initial grant was no longer active, crime office offices
decided to pay Branch and two others by passing money to an unrelated not-for-
profit group, Quiet Fire Repertory Co.
Branch received $20,000 from Quiet
Fire; Carol McCreary-Maddox got $15,700 and Bert Smith received $6,250.
“We
had a contractual obligation we had to live up to in support of the Diamonds of
Opportunity project,” Amos said.
Amos said federal rules do not allow his
office to use grant money to pay individuals or consultants directly; payments
must be paid through a nonprofit.
“Quiet Fire is a legitimate organization
and an appropriate vehicle with which to make the payment as a sub-grantee,”
said Robert W. Weinhold, a spokesman for the GOCCP.
Asked if Branch’s threat
of embarrassing Townsend politically was a factor in the unusual way he was
paid, Weinhold said: “Political threats are of absolutely no relevance. What is
relevant is the proper administration of these funds.”
Staff writers Gail Gibson and Sarah Koenig contributed to this article.