Ahhh. Another. Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon was charged yesterday with 12 counts of felony theft, perjury, fraud and misconduct in office. She of course issued the standard statement that she has done nothing at all wrong. Yadda yadda yadda.
The case stems in part from at least $15,348 in gifts Dixon allegedly received from a former boyfriend who is also - go ahead guess - a city developer, Ronald Lipscomb, while she was City Council president. She also is accused of using as much as $3,400 in gift cards, some donated to her office for distribution to "needy families". She is alleged to have bought stuff like a Playstation and other things for her and her staff.
Another part of the indictment covers presents from Lipscomb, whom Dixon has said she dated briefly in late 2003 and early 2004. They include a $2,000 furrier certificate that she used to buy a Persian lamb coat and a "burnt umber mink coat"; $3,200 for a New York City trip that included a stay at the Trump International Hotel; a $1,518 plane ticket from Baltimore to Chicago; and thousands of dollars in cash to pay credit card bills built up during a Chicago shopping spree.
The indictment also alleges that Lipscomb passed Dixon thousands of dollars of cash - some of which she handed off to a staff member in a wad of 40 $100 bills while being driven around the city. The staff member, who is not named in the indictment, deposited the cash into his personal checking account and paid part of Dixon's American Express bill, the indictment says. Read the full story in the Baltimore Sun here.
Reality goes something like this. Rules that are more strict about public officials and stuff from people won't do any good. More required reporting of gifts won't do any good, either. At some point, some public officials don't care about rules, reporting or anything else. We need to assign actual persons to public officials to act as their brain for when the you're-so-special-you-won't-get-caught syndrome takes over otherwise functioning intellects.
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