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A judge in Maryland sentenced a man to life without parole plus 20 years in prison for shooting a cashier at a 7-Eleven in Waldorf in October 2020.

Gregory Deshawn Collins, 23, of Waldorf entered the store in the 3300 block of Middletown Road about 1 a.m. Oct. 1, 2020, grabbed a bottle of tea and approached the cashier, 49-year-old Lynn Marie Maher of White Plains, prosecutors said. He showed a gun and announced a robbery.

Maher gave him all the money in the register — $249.69 — and Collins shot her in the head, prosecutors said. She died at the scene.

Surveillance video and DNA evidence linked Collins to the murder, prosecutors said. Collins confessed to the robbery and shooting during the investigation.

A jury convicted Collins in May of first-degree murder and related charges.

“Collins permanently erased a life from this earth,” Charles County State’s Attorney Tony Covington said. “In my view, when you take someone’s life as this defendant did, you should forfeit your right to live the rest of your life as a free man. So, the sentence was fair and reasonable.”

Maher was a mother of four who was married to her high school sweetheart. She and her husband went to Seneca Valley High School in Germantown. They went their separate ways but later reconnected, a family member told News4.

Originally Posted on The Maryland Independent: 

A Maryland man has been sentenced to one year in jail and fined $5,000 for throwing two large parties in violation of the state’s ban on gatherings of more than 10 people.

The man, Shawn Marshall Myers, 42, was convicted on Friday of two counts of failure to comply with an emergency order, the Charles County State’s Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

Judge W. Louis Hennessy of Charles County District Court, who heard the case without a jury, sentenced Mr. Myers to the maximum penalty on one of the counts. He will be on unsupervised probation for three years after his release, prosecutors said.

Mr. Myers was arrested in late March, after the police responded to reports of two large parties five days apart at Mr. Myers’s home in Hughesville, a town of about 2,000 people in Southern Maryland.

The first time, on March 22, Mr. Myers had around 50 people in his home, prosecutors said. They said he was “argumentative” with police officers, but eventually agreed to disband the gathering.

On March 27, the police were called back to Mr. Myers’s house, where more than 50 people had gathered.

“Officers told Myers to disband the party, but again he was argumentative, claiming he and his guests had the right to congregate,” the statement said. Prosecutors said that Mr. Myers was arrested after telling his guests to stay in defiance of the order and refused to cooperate with law enforcement officials despite attempts to reason with him.

Health officials say practicing social distancing is among the most effective tools for stemming the spread of the coronavirus, and many states have prohibited large gatherings to limit contact between groups of people who do not live together.

But that hasn’t stopped people from partying, and as the virus continues to spread — often tied to large gatherings — officials have gone further to stop them in recent months.

Last month, the Los Angeles city attorney charged two TikTok stars, Bryce Hall and Blake Gray, with misdemeanors, contending they threw mega-parties at their Hollywood Hills mansion in defiance of California’s social distancing orders. The charges came shortly after the city shut off the TikTokers’ water to stop the parties and promised to do the same to others who violate the orders.

“It isn’t just about the party,” Mike Feuer, the Los Angeles city attorney, said at a news conference last month. “These individuals who attend your parties could leave and spread it to siblings, to parents, to grandparents, to co-workers, to others in the public.”

Originally posted on the The New York Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/28/us/maryland-coronavirus-parties-jail.html 

A judge sentenced a Maryland man to a year in the Charles County Detention Center for throwing parties that exceeded capacity restrictions at the beginning of the governor’s coronavirus emergency order.

Shawn Marshall Myers, 42, of Hughesville was arrested in March when officers found more than 50 people hanging out around a bonfire at his home.

At the time, Gov. Larry Hogan’s emergency order prohibited gatherings of more than 10 people.

The Charles County Sheriff’s Office said it was the second time Myers hosted a large gathering at his house and he was accused of being argumentative with officers in both times.

“He was given a warning,” Charles County State’s Attorney Tony Covington said. “It’s not like the police just swooped in there and said you’re going to jail. They gave him a warning. He had at least 50 people the first day and then two, three days later, he’s doing the same thing. And the second day he’s of a mind that he’s not going to cooperate, he’s going to tell people to keep the music playing.”

On March 22 officers went to Myers’ home in the 15200 block of Lukes Lane after the report of a large party, according to the state’s attorney. Myers was argumentative but eventually agreed to disband his party.

Then on March 27, officers returned to the home for another report of a large party, according to the state’s attorney. This time, Myers claimed they had a right to congregate, refused to comply and was arrested.

A judge convicted Myers of two counts of failure to comply with an emergency order Friday after a bench trial and sentenced him immediately after the trial.

In addition to jail time, Myers was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine and undergo three years of unsupervised probation after his release.

“These decisions were made for the public good, for people’s safety,” Covington said. “We’ve got 200,000 people dead because of the attitudes that Mr. Myers demonstrated that particular day.”

Currently, the governor’s emergency order allows gatherings up to 50 people.

Originally posted on the NBC Washington:

Maryland Man Gets Year in Jail for Hosting Parties Violating COVID-19 Crowd Restrictions

A news release from Charles County State’s Attorney Anthony Covington states that — in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19 in detention centers — some inmates in Charles County will be released prior to the expiration of their sentence.

Proceeding Gov. Larry Hogan’s (R) executive order released on April 18, which stated that some inmates in the Division of Corrections may be released from confinement based on a number of factors, Covington (D) followed suit.

More serious crimes involving domestic abuse, sex offenses and crimes of a violent nature are excluded from the list of potential inmates to be released.

Although the order applies to inmates in the DOC, Hogan’s order does not apply to local detention centers, such as the Charles County Detention Center. Therefore, Covington took it upon himself to invoke the core of the order for the inmates in Charles County.

In the news release from Covington released on April 20, he specified the intent of his decision: to do everything possible to “help prevent the spread and impact of COVID-19.”

The contradiction of “public safety based on a pandemic and public safety based on crime,” the release states, is the main reason the decision making of which inmates to release is a delicate and intricate ordeal.

Covington told the Maryland Independent that there are two competing interests, both involving public safety: the health crisis and the criminal aspect.

“This is very difficult,” Covington said. “We have never really had to face health issues in the justice system. An individual inmate may have health issues and ask for leniency. You have the confluence of two strong competing interests.”

The release states that the Charles County community should feel confident of the selection of inmates that are set to be released.

“All of the decision-makers in the Charles County Criminal Justice System are making fully informed and well-considered decisions that they sincerely believe are in the best interest of everyone in our community,” Covington wrote.

He said that this is a unique situation because normally, inmates’ individual health issues do not affect other inmates in the prison population; but due to the nature of COVID-19, the entire prison population could be impacted.

“[Health issues] usually don’t damage anyone else in the jail,” Covington said. “With corona, if this guy stays in the jail, this guy may contract it and give it to someone else. [The decision making] is difficult for prosecutors and judges.”

Covington said that the final decision on which detainees get released is ultimately made by the judges and the courts. At the time of the press release, “at least one” inmate has been released from the detention center.

“It is done on a case-by-case basis,” Covington said. “We review everything … we look at the factors. It is ultimately the judge’s decision. … I am trying to protect the public safety. … If someone is charged with murder, I am not going to agree for them to come home.”

He said that there is one “complicated factor” in the decision making process. That factor is referred to as an “agreed upon sentence.”

“Everyone agrees … in that situation, that state, the state defendant and the judge agree,” Covington said. “The state has to agree to the change that is going to be made. Ordinarily it is the judge who makes the decision after hearing form both parties. That is the only time the state has any control.”

Covington added that although the population of the detention center is only 20% to 30% full, Charles County is doing the best it can to make sure everyone inside is protected.

“Charles County is not like the stuff we are hearing about on television; our jail is less than 30% capacity, probably about 20%,” Covington said. “The environment of everyone sitting on top of each other just doesn’t exist here.”

He followed by saying the final decision is “two-pronged,” boiled down to two main factors. Factor number one is if the inmate is a threat to the community or themselves, and factor two is if they are going to show up in court.

“Right now, we aren’t overly concerned about people showing up, but we are concerned about the danger to the community,” Covington said.

He followed by making reference to an inmate who was recently released and went on to commit another crime briefly after his release.

“We had a guy who was arrested for domestic violence, released, and two or three days later he killed his intimate partner,” Covington said. “He killed her, and then killed himself.”

He told the Maryland Independent that part of letting the inmate out of incarceration was based on the virus, and that, unfortunately, a negative impact can happen when you take that chance on someone.

“Every time a judge makes a decision, they are taking a chance,” Covington said. “The impact on the community can be very bad. We are serious in handling every single case.”

He went on to tell the Maryland Independent that courts are handling two or three cases a day, and that the inmates who commit non-violent crimes are more likely to be released.

Covington said that although the inmates may be released now, some may have to return to the detention center to finish their sentence at a later date. The ultimate determination of which inmates will be released permanently is based on the nature of their offenses and the length of their remaining sentence.

“Some people will get furloughed and have to come back, some will be released and have to go to drug treatment. We have even dismissed some cases,” Covington said. “It runs the gamut.”

He told the Maryland Independent that this is an “unprecedented circumstance” and that Charles County has never faced a situation like this before.

“I have never seen it,” Covington said. “The last time our nation has faced anything like this is 1919. I have never seen prosecutors look at every single case to determine if they should be released from jail; it just hasn’t happened before.”

He added that individual inmates ask for releases frequently, but it has never occurred as a mass wave of requests at a single time.

“People ask for early releases all the time for individual reasons,” Covington said. “Some for health reasons, but only individual health reasons. This is a brand new thing and it is tricky for sure.”

Covington told the Maryland Independent that the citizens of Charles County can be assured that the decisions are being handled very diligently and everyone involved is doing “what they should.”

“I think Charles County citizens can be rest assured everyone in the system is doing a very diligent job and sincerely looking at the situation and making the best decisions they can to protect the communities at large and protect the detention centers,” Covington said. “All you can do is sincerely look at things and have the right motives. They wont always agree.”

District Public Defender Michael Beach wrote in an email to the Maryland Independent stating that both public safety and the safety of the inmates “are important and not mutually exclusive.”

“Community safety is not inconsistent with having the vast majority of people who are pending trial and presumed innocent,” Beach wrote. “A Detention Center is one of the most dangerous places a person can be during a pandemic.”

He continued by saying over-incarceration and mass incarceration tears apart families and communities.

“Over-incarceration — which disproportionately impacts poor people and people of color — tears apart families, and tears apart communities, doing lasting damage,” Beach wrote. “An unprecedented moment like this is perhaps the worst time to err on the side of incarceration and punishment for punishment’s sake.”

He told the Maryland Independent that, in most cases, the inmates file a request to be released to their attorneys, although a few do handle the process on their own. He continued by stating there are a number of inmates who have been released since the pandemic’s inception.

“There are various categories of folks who have been released since the pandemic shut down the judicial system to emergency and bail hearings only,” Beach wrote.

Beach told the Maryland Independent that some examples of detainees who have been released include “new arrestees who have been released at recent bail hearings, and people serving short weekend sentences.”

Additionally, he noted that “incarcerated persons for whom our office filed motions seeking their release since the pandemic became a crisis that shut down most of [Charles] County” are being released in abundance. He wrote that 60 motions for release have been filed with approximately 30 detainees being released as of Tuesday, and currently, there have been two inmate deaths contributed directly to COVID-19 throughout Maryland.

Originally Posted on The Maryland Independent:

https://www.somdnews.com/emergency_notice/some-charles-county-detainees-released/article_8bf65b91-a62f-589e-a69d-851e74acf12d.html?fbclid=IwAR2uoyqocHSIFmReLJK0kaZz26s-FxmqBM1cmBbVuIYhz1Zdrk4N5YRihsA

CHARLES COUNTY, Md. — The Charles County man who was arrested and charged with violating a governor’s order limiting the size of gatherings is being held without bond after a Monday hearing.

A state’s attorney for Charles County, Anthony Covington, told the judge at the hearing that his request for no bond was because, “During this crisis, Myers is a menace to our society.”

According to to the sheriff’s office, Shawn Marshall Myers, 41, is accusing of hosted a gathering of approximately 60 people Friday night for a bonfire in the 15000 block of Lukes Lane in Hughesville, Maryland.

When he repeatedly refused orders to disperse the group, he was arrested and charged, said the sheriff’s office. This was believed to be the first arrest in the state for group size.

Following the arrest, Governor Hogan tweeted, “A Charles County man has been arrested after repeatedly violating the executive order banning large gatherings and hosting a bonfire party with 60 guests. I cannot begin to express my disgust towards such irresponsible, reckless behavior.”

Myers is also a registered sex offender.

Originally posted on WJLA.

A Bryans Road man received a life sentence with all but 30 years suspended on Wednesday for the March 2018 torture and attempted murder of his wife.

So many people turned out in support of 46-year-old former Prince George’s County corrections officer Armando Quispe Rodriguez that his sentencing proceedings had to be moved to a larger courtroom to accommodate the size of the crowd. Rodriguez pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder in March.

In court before Judge Amy J. Bragunier, Assistant State’s Attorney Sarah Freeman played the 911 call Rodriguez made the day he attacked his wife. In the call, he told the dispatcher, “She’s stabbed up and I’m stabbed up.” His wife was downstairs bleeding, he said.

“Can you help your wife?” the dispatcher asked.

“No,” Rodriguez replied.

During the hours-long assault, Rodriguez bludgeoned his wife in the head with a gumball machine, stabbed her 22 times and attempted to suffocate her with different objects, Freeman said. When officers arrived at their Bryans Road residence, Rodriguez’s wife was discovered bleeding out on the landing of the basement stairwell, Freeman said. The woman had been handcuffed to the railing to prevent her escape, and first responders left her shackles in place when they moved her to the ambulance.

Anger over a failing marriage, Freeman contended, drove Rodriguez to the brutal assault on his wife.

That day, Freeman said, Rodriguez had also called his brother several times and said he was having “domestic problems with his wife.” He’d left their children with his mother, Freeman said, and Rodriguez asked his brother to pick up his children when possible. Shortly before the attack, he’d also searched online for the location of a “neck artery.”

“No person, no woman, should be left for dead on a railing due to a failed marriage,” Freeman said.

She also contested what she said would be Rodriguez and defense attorney Thomas Mooney’s contention that Rodriguez had “blacked out” during the assault, saying that was little more than attempted “mitigation in sentencing” and nothing else.

“He was self-aware enough to care for his own wounds, self-aware enough to call 911,” Freeman said.

Mooney did, in fact, contend that his client had been suffering from “mental anguish” that day that had led him to act out of character. Rodriguez isn’t a bad person, Mooney said, and the amount of people gathered in support of him in the courtroom is testimony to that. Mooney noted the crowd of people was “primarily coworkers” of Rodriguez’s from the Prince George’s County Department of Corrections.

“The information is not in line with the character of the person that many of these people have come to support,” Mooney said. He detailed, at length, his client’s upbringing in an abusive home. His client had led a “law-abiding life” despite the circumstances he was raised in, Mooney said.

The day of the attack, Mooney said there was “clearly a period where [Rodriguez] was acting in a way he really doesn’t recall,” but he “snapped out of it and got her aid. Rodriguez had abandonment issues from his childhood, Mooney said, and his wife’s stated desire to end the marriage was his worst nightmare.

“He feared it and it became his reality,” Mooney said. “It’s not a defense, but it’s certainly something to consider.”

Speaking to the court, Keyia Rodriguez said she blamed herself, in part, for not having ended the marriage earlier. Her husband, she said, “is not a horrible person. He made a horrible decision with horrible consequences.”

“I sincerely and genuinely forgive him, but I will never forget,” Keyia Rodriguez said. “I only feel terrible for our children, who lost their father in all of this. This is the beginning of a different life, one without you.”

Rodriguez’s brother, Pedro Bernal, said he was “begging” the judge for Rodriguez to be afforded the chance to see their dying mother. He also pleaded for his brother to have the chance to be able to see his children.

“I hope in my heart they can see their father very soon,” Bernal said. “So they know he’ll be there for them every day of their life.”

Another supporter of Rodriguez, Ellen DePerez, said she was asking the judge to “dismiss all charges and bring Armando home.” Rodriguez, she said, has learned life is precious and has a lot to offer. He’d “mastered hiding feelings” before, DePerez said, but this assault was a wake up call for him. He will now no longer let “provocation” rule his actions, she assured the judge.

“Forgive him and give him a second chance,” DePerez said. “He’s ready to pursue happiness.”

Fellow Prince George’s corrections officer Tammy Owens said the actions Rodriguez pleaded guilty to do not characterize the man she knows. Being a corrections officer is a stressful occupation, Owens said, one that comes with high rates of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and suicide.

“There’s no better role model in the workplace than him,” Owens said.

Another corrections officer, Maria Flores, said Rodriguez is “not what the media has portrayed.” Rodriguez had been like a mentor to her, Flores said, someone who “uplifted me with every challenge.”

Originally Posted on The Maryland Independent

https://www.somdnews.com/independent/news/local/rodriguez-gets-years-for-torturing-wife/article_f3ddc508-419c-5948-892a-3f5ea88afa5e.html

Originally Posted on The Maryland Independent:

https://www.somdnews.com/independent/news/local/trial-in-october-murder-underway/article_57045568-b2ae-5012-9025-6177cf262013.html

Originally Posted on The Maryland Independent:

https://www.somdnews.com/independent/news/local/swann-pleads-to-assault/article_63cdea54-048e-5315-8711-6369ed842527.html