Baltimore County man pleads guilty to bribing state employee to secure cleaning contracts
Mark Anthony Sykes, 51, pleaded guilty to one count of bribery of a public employee in Baltimore County Circuit Court. Prosecutors said Sykes paid approximately $20,000 in bribes to the former Director of General Services for the Maryland Department of Labor in exchange for steering state contracts to his company, Building Enterprises LLC.
Between July 2020 and March 2021, Sykes' company received $174,903.25 from the State of Maryland for COVID-related facilities cleaning services through what investigators described as a fraudulent procurement scheme.
Sykes' sentencing is set for April 29.
On March 10, a
73-year-old Maryland man
was charged with lying about his citizenship, misusing social security and committing passport fraud, according to the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office.
Days later, Nichelle Henson, a
former Baltimore City Council Candidate
was found guilty of COVID-19 relief fraud, after federal prosecutors proved she submitted fraudulent applications for Economic Injury Disaster Loans and Paycheck Protection Program loans for several non-operational businesses.
Earlier this month, Baltimore City officials were alerted to the
theft of $1.5 million
by a fraudulent vendor. A bank alerted the city after an account received two payments, once for $803,000 and another for $721,000. While the money was approved for a vendor, it was directed to an unrelated bank account.
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Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump seizes control of Washington DC police and deploys national guard
Donald Trump has ordered the national guard to Washington DC and seized control of the city's police force, describing a 'lawless' city in ways that are sharply at odds with official crime statistics. The US president's move was swiftly condemned as a 'disgusting, dangerous and derogatory' assault on the political independence of a racially diverse city. The federal takeover is expected to be in effect for 30 days, the White House confirmed to the Guardian. Speaking at a White House press conference on Monday, Trump said he was taking 'a historic action to rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor and worse. This is liberation day in DC and we're going to take our capital back.' He described Washington DC as 'one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world', claiming its murder rate is higher than Bogotá or Mexico City, even though violent crime is at a 30-year low. The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, who was among officials joining Trump on the podium, said 800 national guard troops would take to the streets of Washington over the coming week. 'They will be strong, they will be tough and they will stand with their law enforcement partners,' he said. Trump, who lost the presidential election in DC to Democrat Kamala Harris by 86 percentage points, added that he may send in the military 'if needed'. By invoking section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, the president is federalising DC's Metropolitan police department for the first time in its history. He said he was declaring a public safety emergency and putting the police under the control of the attorney general, Pam Bondi. Trump vowed to allow police to 'do whatever the hell they want' in the face of provocations. 'That's the only language they [alleged criminals] understand. They like to spit in the face of the police. You spit, and we hit, and they get hit real hard.' Section 740 requires the mayor, Muriel Bowser, to provide 'such services of the Metropolitan Police force as the President may deem necessary and appropriate', when the president determines that there are 'special conditions' requiring it. The president can only exercise such control under the act for 30 days without Congress passing a law extending it. After the former General Services Administration staffer Edward Coristine – a 19-year-old on the so-called 'department of government efficiency' team nicknamed 'Big Balls' – appeared to have been attacked by a group of young people last week near his car, Trump began discussing a return to federal control of the city and the use of national guard to quell street crime. Washington DC was hit hard by the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, recording more homicides in 2023 than in any year since 1997. At that time it was among the top five homicide rates in major population centres – those with more than a million residents – behind only Memphis in Tennessee, St Louis in Missouri and Baltimore in Maryland, according to the non-profit USAFacts. But violent crime in Washington DC has fallen sharply since 2023, shaking off the pandemic increases to reach a 30-year low on the day Trump took office, and has fallen 26% further this year according to weekly reports from the Metropolitan police department. The change in crime rates is consistent with dramatic decreases in violence in large cities across the country. The capital is much safer than it used to be. In 1991 it was branded the murder capital of the US with the killing of 482 people. By last year the total number of homicides had fallen to 187. This year the rate is on course to be lower. Nonetheless, Trump ordered a range of federal law enforcement agencies to deploy on to DC streets over the weekend in a surge. About 450 officers from the United States Capitol police, the Federal Protective Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and other agencies were present into the city's quadrants over the weekend. At the press conference on Monday morning, Trump painted a nightmarish portrait of a city 'overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people'. The US attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro, a former Fox News host only confirmed to her role on 2 August, said she saw 'too much violent crime being committed by young punks who think that they can get together in gangs and crews and beat the hell out of you or anyone else'. Pirro expressed her frustration with what she views as excessive leniency when it comes to the way juveniles are prosecuted. 'I can't arrest them. I can't prosecute them,' she said. 'They go to family court, and they get to do yoga and arts and crafts. Enough, it changes today.' Pirro called for changes to the law to allow a wider range of juvenile cases to be heard in adult court. Again taking to social media on Sunday, Trump demanded that unhoused residents of the capital leave, posting images of encampments ostensibly taken from his motorcade. 'The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,' Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday morning, shortly after being driven from the White House to his golf club in Virginia. 'We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital.' Homelessness rates in the nation's capital have also been falling, with the most recent point-in-time count showing a decrease from 2024. Related: Trump orders homeless he passed en route to golf course to leave Washington DC Monday's announcement by Trump, who pardoned his supporters who attacked the US Capitol in Washington on 6 January 2021, was criticised by Democrats and civil rights leaders. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a non-voting delegate representing DC in the House of Representatives, said the decision 'is an historic assault on DC home rule, is a counterproductive, escalatory seizure of DC's resources to use for purposes not supported by DC residents, and is more evidence of the urgent need to pass my DC statehood bill'. Ken Martin, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, said: 'Trump is once again playing political games using service members and federal law enforcement officials. Trump doesn't give a damn about keeping DC residents safe. 'When rioters violently stormed the Capitol and there were repeated requests for the national guard, Trump failed to act. To add insult to injury, he released from jail those 1,500 violent insurrectionists who assaulted police officers and broke local and federal law.' Al Sharpton, the founder and president of the National Action Network, suggested that the intervention was motivated by a desire to distract from criticisms over the administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. 'Donald Trump was inspired to take this disgusting, dangerous, and derogatory action solely out of self interest,' he said. 'Let's call the inspiration for this assault on a majority Black city for what it is: another bid to distract his angry, frustrated base over his administration's handling of the Epstein files.' Later Muriel Bowser, the mayor of DC, who has pursued a non-confrontational relationship with Trump, described the intervention as 'unsettling and unprecedented' but declined to criticise the president directly. 'I've said before, and I'll repeat, that I believe that the president's view of DC is shaped by his Covid-era experience during his first term,' she told reporters. 'It is true that those were more challenging times related to some issues. It is also true that we experienced a crime spike post-Covid but we worked quickly to put laws in place and tactics that got violent offenders off our streets, and gave our police officers more tools.' Bowser said her office plans to follow the law and cooperate with the federal government, though 'I don't want to minimise the intrusion on our autonomy'. She has requested a meeting with Bondi, who will temporarily oversee the Metropolitan police department. Flanked by Pamela Smith, the DC police chief, and other city officials, Bowser added: 'While this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can't say that, given some of the rhetoric of the past, we're totally surprised. I can say to DC residents that we will continue to operate our government in a way that makes you proud.' Asked about Trump's hint that he could deploy the US military if required, the mayor replied: 'I think I speak for all Americans. We don't believe it is legal to use the American military against American citizens on American soil. I am not a lawyer, but I think that is a fairly widely held fact.' Meanwhile Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader in the House, described Trump as a 'wannabe king' and argued his plan to 'unleash the national guard on the city's youth and homeless population has no basis in law and will put the safety of the people of our nation's capital in danger'. He added: 'We stand with the residents of the District of Columbia and reject this unjustified power grab as illegitimate.'Shrai Popat contributed reporting • This article was amended on 12 August 2025. Jeanine Pirro is the White House-appointed US attorney for the District of Columbia, not the elected 'DC attorney general' as an earlier version said. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
How Trump is using ‘pure lies' about high crime in US cities to justify federal takeovers
When Donald Trump announced a federal takeover of the Metropolitan police department in Washington DC on Monday, he left room for the possibility of making a similar move in other cities across the US, alluding to their high crime rates. 'You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad,' Trump said. 'We're not going to let it happen, we're not going to lose our cities.' But both experts and elected officials have been quick to counter Trump's claims, pointing out how major cities are in fact experiencing dramatic decreases in violent crime rates since they peaked during the pandemic. Related: Trump will ignore crime reduction data for the political value of a show of force 'Every category of crime and every population group that the FBI covers is reporting a drop pretty much nationwide,' said Jeff Asher, an analyst who studies criminal justice data, adding that there was no disparity in the trend between red and blue cities or states. The downward trend has been consistent nationally since around 2022, as the country began to recover from the pandemic, experts said. 'It's clear that a lot of what we saw during the Covid-19 era has been reversed,' said Ames Grawert, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice who researches crime trends. While it's impossible to isolate the exact causes of the spike in crime during the pandemic, several experts point to the collapse of social services as one cause. Since then, state and federal agencies poured money into communities for projects like gun violence prevention programs as well as more streetlights on local roads. These programs are the same ones being slashed as the Trump administration has prioritized shrinking federal spending. The Department of Justice canceled hundreds of grants earlier this year that funded violence prevention and victims' services programs, affecting organizations in 37 states. Elected officials were quick to slam Trump for floating a possible federal takeover of police in their cities, citing local data that matched the same trend in the FBI data showing public safety improvements as well as pointing out the recent funding cuts. In Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson said shootings were down by 40% in the last year alone. 'If President Trump wants to help make Chicago safer, he can start by releasing the funds for anti-violence programs that have been critical to our work to drive down crime and violence. Sending in the national guard would only serve to destabilize our city and undermine our public safety efforts,' he said. And in Maryland, local and state officials released a joint statement similarly criticizing the president for painting a false narrative about where they lived and worked. 'As leaders in Baltimore and the state of Maryland, we stand in strong opposition to the president's latest power grab, which is based on pure lies about our communities,' the statement said. Officials pointed to a 40% drop in violent crime since 2021 and said that progress was being made on public safety issues, despite the challenge of facing the Trump administration's funding cuts. Instead of calling in the national guard, Trump should be looking to partner with local officials, they said. 'We know from experience how to improve public safety: empower our community partners and violence interrupters, invest in our young people and prosecute repeat violent offenders in collaboration with law enforcement,' the statement said. In New York, officials also pushed back fast on Trump's rhetoric. 'New York is moving in the right direction in public safety,' the mayor, Eric Adams, said on Tuesday. While he added that he would be happy to accept more federal support, he added: 'We don't need anyone to come in and take over our law enforcement apparatus, we have the finest police department in the globe.' Even Trump's FBI director, Kash Patel, said on Joe Rogan's podcast in June that murder rates were on track to reach a historic low this year. 'If we, the FBI and our government partners, achieve the mission, we'll give the American people the lowest murder rate in decades,' he said. While crime rates are trending in the right direction, there's still work to do to improve public safety concerns, said Rachel Eisenberg, the managing director for rights and justice at the Center for American Progress. But, she said, communities are still best positioned to address these challenges rather than federal troops, echoing the concerns of local officials. 'What Trump is doing now is not about public safety,' she said. 'It's political theater.' Trump doubled down on his claims on Wednesday, suggesting that the crime statistics are a fraud, without specifying which statistics. 'Crime is the worst it's ever been,' he said. As national guard troops arrived in Washington DC this week, Thaddeus Johnson, a senior researcher at the Council on Criminal Justice, said that in the short term, it is likely arrests will go up. 'That can really capture the psyche of people and people can be sensationalized as it really plays on the fears of people,' Johnson said. Ultimately, he said, it's critical to address socioeconomic factors such as access to housing, unemployment rates and income inequity in order to improve public safety. 'Putting the feds in is not going to be the long-term answer,' Johnson said. Meanwhile, Trump has already declared his policy move a victory. 'People are feeling safe already,' he said on Wednesday. 'They're not afraid any more.'
14 hours ago
Qantas fined $59M for illegal pandemic layoffs
MELBOURNE -- A judge on Monday fined Qantas Airways 90 million Australian dollars ($59 million) for illegally firing more than 1,800 ground staff at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The penalty is in addition to the AU$120 million ($78 million) in compensation that Australia's biggest airline had already agreed to pay its former employees. Australian Federal Court Justice Michael Lee said the outsourcing of 1,820 baggage handler and cleaner jobs at Australian airports in late 2020 was the 'largest and most significant contravention' of relevant Australian labor laws in their 120-year history. Qantas agreed in December last year to pay AU$120 million ($78 million) in compensation to former staff after seven High Court judges unanimously rejected the Sydney-based airline's appeal against the judgment that outsourcing their jobs was illegal. The Transport Workers Union, which took the airline to court, had argued the airline should receive the largest fine available — AU$121,212,000 ($78,969,735). Lee ruled that the minimum fine to create a deterrence should be AU$90 million ($59 million), noting that Qantas executives had expected to save AU$125 million ($81 million) a year through outsourcing the jobs. Lee questioned the sincerity of Qantas's apology for its illegal conduct, noting that the airline later unsuccessfully argued that it owed no compensation to its former staff. 'If any further evidence was needed of the unrelenting and aggressive litigation strategy adopted in this case by Qantas, it is provided by this effort directed to denying any compensation whatsoever to those in respect of whom Qantas was publicly professing regret for their misfortune,' Lee said. "I do think that the people in charge of Qantas now have some genuine regret, but this more likely reflects the damage that this case has done to the company rather than remorse for the damage done to the affected workers,' Lee added. Qantas chief executive Vanessa Hudson, who was the airline's chief financial officer during the layoffs, said in a statement after Monday's decision: 'We sincerely apologize to each and every one of the 1,820 ground handling employees and to their families who suffered as a result.' 'The decision to outsource five years ago, particularly during such an uncertain time, caused genuine hardship for many of our former team and their families," she said. 'Over the past 18 months we've worked hard to change the way we operate as part of our efforts to rebuild trust with our people and our customers. This remains our highest priority as we work to earn back the trust we lost,' she added. Lee ruled that AU$50 million ($33 million) of the fine go to the union, because no Australian government agency had shown interest in investigating or prosecuting Qantas. 'But for the union … , Qantas' contravening conduct would never have been exposed and it would never have been held to account for its unlawful conduct,' Lee said. 'Hence the union has brought to the attention of the court a substantial and significant transgression of a public obligation by a powerful and substantial employer,' Lee added. A hearing will be held at a later date to decide where the remaining AU$40 million ($26 million) of the fine will go. Michael Kaine, national secretary of the union that represents 60,000 members, said he felt vindicated by Monday's ruling, which ends a five-year legal battle that Qantas had been widely expected to win. 'It is a significant — the most significant — industrial outcome in Australia's history and it sends a really clear message to Qantas and to every employer in Australia: Treat your work force illegally and you will be held accountable,' Kaine told reporters. 'Against all the odds, we took on a behemoth that had shown itself to be ruthless and we won,' Kaine added. Qantas has admitted illegally dealing with passengers as well as employees in its responses to pandemic economic challenges. Last year, Qantas agreed to pay AU$120 million ($78 million) in compensation and a fine for selling tickets on thousands of cancelled flights. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, a consumer watchdog, sued the airline in the Federal Court alleging that Qantas engaged in false, misleading or deceptive conduct by advertising tickets for more than 8,000 flights from May 2021 through to July 2022 that had already been canceled.
