You are on page 1of 6

This is Google's cache of http://www.stmarystoday.com/dorsey_blasts_fritz_over_failing.htm.

It is a snapshot of the page as it


appeared on Sep 16, 2010 10:02:51 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime. Learn more

Text-only version
These search terms are highlighted: fritz dorsey drug fund

Dorsey Blasts Fritz Over Failing To Account For


Drug Funds, Lying About Gambling Hall
By Kenneth C. Rossignol

ST. MARY’S TODAY

COMPTON (October 1998) --- St. Mary’s States Attorney Walter


B. Dorsey accused Richard Fritz, his former deputy who is
running as a Republican to succeed him, with maliciously and
falsely attacking his political enemies while serving as deputy
states attorney as well as failing to account for thousands of
dollars in drug funds administered by Fritz in 1992. Dorsey also
called Fritz’s attempt to convince citizens that would be a tough
antidrug prosecutor a "masquerade" and he promised to "unmask"
Fritz as the election nears, starting with last weeks’ rally for
Assistant States Attorney Joe Mattingly, the Democratic nominee.

At the political fund-raiser for Joe Mattingly Jr., Dorsey was


joined by Sen. Roy Dyson and Maryland Senate President
Thomas V. Mike Miller in turning out a large crowd of over 300
people at Breton Bay Inn on Thursday night as Hurricane Bonnie
meandered towards the Maryland coast with forecasts of bad
weather for this area.

With Walter being the designated name of this year’s last


hurricane, it was clear that the longtime and immensely popular
states attorney grabbed the attention of the crowd after being
introduced and as if he were Hurricane Walter, Dorsey spoke
forcefully to the crowd which became hushed and silent, listening
carefully to his every word.

Dorsey stormed across the front of the room with the glare of
spotlights following him as he waved a sheath of papers over his
head for emphasis, displaying some of his legendary courtroom
persona to the crowd of Democrats.
"I want to tell you some things that I could not tell you before when
I was a candidate," said Dorsey, "But I can tell you now, but first I
want to say that I am very proud of my office and we have a good
staff of professionals, of which Joe Mattingly is a part. Joe
Mattingly has been a part of it for 16 years. He has helped to
develop our key programs of child support enforcement, bad
check collections for local merchants and project graduation."

Dorsey said, that in addition, Mattingly has been the most


successful prosecutor in the region, debunking the campaign
rhetoric of the overconfident supporters of Richard Fritz.

"Joe Mattingly had the highest conviction rates of any prosecutor


in Southern Maryland for the years he was chief of our District
Court Office," said Dorsey. "I think it is important that we have
career prosecutors, we have over 4,000 cases a year to handle."

"I am not a candidate and therefore there are some things I can
now bring to the public’s attention," said Dorsey. "The Office of
States Attorney of St. Mary’s County is very important and it
should not be used as a way to attack political enemies or to
attack anyone and hold them up to public ridicule. One cannot talk
about what took place in a Grand Jury room if an indictment is not
forthcoming, in order to protect the Grand Jury process. The same
is true if an investigation does not yield an indictment or criminal
charges."

Dorsey continued to command the total attention of the crowd


and thundered over the room in a loud booming voice, completely
overshadowing the fact that he had lost most of one lung to
successful cancer surgery two years ago. The microphone that
Dorsey used seemed almost frivolous as the five-term prosecutor
made his points, repeatedly punctuating the air with the devise
while bounding from one place to another.

"Fritz is not my opponent now and I am going to say some things


tonight that I could not before," warned Dorsey. "You may
remember some articles in the paper a few years ago, they
surfaced because Richard Fritz misrepresented to the local press
that he had evidence that Sheriff Wayne Pettit and Commissioner
Eddie Bailey were gambling with drug dealers and prostitutes in
an illegal gambling hall."
"Fritz later told me he knew nothing about it when the articles
were published," said Dorsey. "I met with the officials of the
Maryland State Police and they reported to me that they had no
evidence of Bailey and Pettit playing cards or being in the
Cinderblock Building."

"The only evidence that Fritz had was a drug dealer named Gary
Lee Stanley, whom he gave $4,000 in drug fund money to
probably play cards with," said Dorsey. "Fritz misrepresented to
the press that these public officials were gambling in there, he
used this office to embarrass Pettit and Bailey for political
purposes because he supported their opponents."

Dorsey said that Fritz knew that the state police reported to him
that they had not been able to collaborate the information from the
drug dealer after they sent an undercover investigator in to
gamble at the Cinderblock Building. When Fritz then turned
around and gave out information about the gambling investigation,
which the state police say did not produce any incriminating
evidence against the two officials, Dorsey equated that act with
revealing Grand Jury testimony.

Following the publication of several articles about the alleged


presence of the sheriff and the county commissioner in the
Cinderblock Building the two filed a $1.5 million libel suit against
the newspaper. Prior to publication of the articles, Pettit and
Bailey failed to comment on the allegations when asked for
comment, an act that contributed to their plight.

After a year and a half of legal proceedings, the newspaper


proved it’s reliance upon Fritz, as a public official, as the source
of information on Pettit and Bailey being in the building. Fritz gave
a affidavit certifying he supplied information about the sheriff and
commissioner frequenting the gambling hall to the newspaper.
Upon discovering that fact, the two plaintiffs were forced to drop
their suit as the newspaper had every right to report to it’s readers
the information it relied upon from Fritz, as deputy states attorney,
to be accurate and true, and therefore, did not act in a malicious
manner.

While the newspaper had done nothing wrong, never apologized,


paid any money or issued a retraction in return for Pettit and
Bailey to drop the suit, the two officials nonetheless had to spend
thousands of dollars in their attempt to clear their names and they
both lost the next election while the newspaper initially struggled
without legal representation to defend itself, prior to obtaining pro-
bono attorneys in Washington.

Fritz Lied To Newspaper, Public

Dorsey said after the speech last Thursday that he felt Fritz’s
misuse of prosecutorial powers was outrageous, in that he
apparently deliberately misled the newspaper about the truth
concerning Bailey and Pettit; that not only did the former
prosecutor lie and hurt them, but he also lied to everyone in St.
Mary’s County.

"We have just seen this vividly demonstrated that when the
president admitted that he lied to the nation when he spoke on
television in January, that when a public official lies to a
newspaper about a material fact, that he is lying to the entire
community as well when that information is published and relied
upon by the publisher and the readers to be true," said Dorsey.

"A public official, which is what Fritz was when he was a member
of my office," said Dorsey, "has to tell the public the truth, and in
this matter he did not. He thrived on manipulating, lying and
misleading and therefore, by having the newspaper, Pettit and
Bailey all fighting each other, he was able to stand aside with
amusement at the results of his political manipulations with ST.
MARY’S TODAY taking the sheriff and the commissioner to task
for being in the gambling hall when they actually were not."

Dorsey said that when he confronted Fritz about the information


contained in the articles; that Fritz denied having contacted the
state police about the alleged activities in the Cinderblock Building
and the alleged presence of the sheriff and the commissioner.

Dorsey said that Fritz claimed the state police probe at the
Cinderblock Building began as an offshoot of a gambling
operation in Charlotte Hall.

That operation was later halted after state police conducted a raid
and made several arrests.
When Dorsey went back to the state police about the matter, they
gave him a copy of the letter Fritz had sent them as an official
request for an investigation, after having it typed by his wife who
works in the prosecutor’s office, requesting the state police
investigate the presence of the two officials in the gambling hall
which formerly was located next to the Sign of the Whale Liquors
in Lexington Park.

Dorsey said when he confronted Fritz about lying to him that


there were also other issues taking place at the same time which
led to Fritz walking out, quitting his job with no notice or regard for
the several drug cases he was handling and returning to the
practice of law which has led him to become the principal attorney
for all of the local drug dealers.

Fritz ran for election as states attorney in 1994, a race he lost in


the Democratic Primary and is running once again this year, but
now as a newly minted Republican.

Fritz Repeatedly Failed To

Give Accounting For Drug Fund

Fritz was also accused by Dorsey on Thursday of failing to ever


account for thousands of dollars that passed through a drug fund
over which the deputy prosecutor had control.

"We had a drug fund that was not audited by the county, but was
administered by Fritz," said Dorsey. "He would not account for
the money. I told him to give an accounting of the money and
instead, he quit."

"I repeatedly asked Fritz for a proper accounting of the money,


thousands of dollars, and he never provided any such
accounting," explained Dorsey in an interview after the rally. "He
would direct that checks be issued to him and not to any specific
person. No record was ever furnished as to what then happened
to the money. $3,200 in supposedly ‘flash money’ which is never
spent and always returned has never been accounted for."

Fritz, at the time, responded to the warning of the state police that
they would not trust him with secret information, by saying he
would drop cases in which they failed to give him prior
information.

"Fritz has masqueraded as being tough on drugs long enough


and it is time to unmask him," said Dorsey. "He is the attorney for
all the drug dealers in the county. He portrays himself as if he is
the opponent of drug dealers, but the facts prove otherwise."

"In the last few years that he was my deputy and in charge of the
narcotics division, there were 302 drug distribution cases, serious
cases, and there could reasons to drop a few cases, but not the
201 cases that Fritz personally dropped," pointed out Dorsey
about Fritz’s record.

"But now that Fritz is campaigning, he has the audacity to say he


will fight the drug dealers," said Dorsey at the meeting.

Later, the chief prosecutor stated bluntly; "Fritz has lied


repeatedly about these matters. His record as a prosecutor was
certainly not what he portrayed to the public and now he makes a
very good living off the drug dealers, many of whom, pay their
attorney fees in the same cash they make from those who are
addicted to and use illegal narcotics --- the very same cash
generated from the two-thirds of crime, chiefly burglaries of
homes and businesses."

Richard Fritz did not return a call requesting comment on Dorsey’s charges
prior to press deadline.

You might also like