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