Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Baltimore Brewing: Police Say Failed Mayoral Candidate, Circuit Court Clerk Brandished Gun at Local Blogger During Fight

UPDATE: The Sun follows up on the Conaway-Meister fight with news of potential criminal charges:
State police said Baltimore Clerk of Circuit Court Frank M. Conaway Sr.'s permit to carry a concealed handgun expired in March, raising the possibility that he could face criminal charges after Monday's altercation with a blogger.... Conaway said he had a permit to carry the weapon, but state police spokeswoman Elena Russo said records show it expired in March.

Carrying a handgun without a permit is a misdemeanor that carries a minimum penalty of 30 days in jail and a maximum of three years. But there's a major sticking point: Even if Conaway's permit lapsed, he would be allowed to possess the gun on his own property, and there were differing accounts of whether Conaway stepped off the property.

Conaway, 78, said Tuesday that he remained inside the fenced-in portion of his yard....
Conaway says he did not attempt to punch Meister and countered with a claim that Meister tried to "karate kick" him.

City police officers who were in the area on other business witnessed the incident, but the Police Department withheld its report Tuesday as prosecutors deliberated over whether to bring charges against the two men....

But Conaway would not be in danger of losing the elected office he has held since 1998 — the Maryland Constitution says an elected official must step down only if convicted of a felony, or a misdemeanor related to his work in office....

Conaway said he believed he should have been alerted that his permit had lapsed: "I was never notified. I think there's an obligation on the part of the state police to notify" permit owners, he said....

Meister has vowed to continue writing about the Conaway family and said his actions were protected as free speech.

Some of the city's black leaders were rallying around Conaway on Tuesday, saying Meister had crossed the line and was harassing Conaway.
WBAL Interviews B'more Blogger Adam Meister
Maryland Juice this morning received an unusual email from feisty Baltimore political blogger Adam Meister. The subject of his message was "Clerk of Circuit Court of Baltimore City may have pulled gun during argument." Mr. Meister writes Charm City Current's "Politics Meister" blog, and he has often tangled with the Conaway family of elected officials. His past blog posts about the property tax issues of recently defeated City Councilmember Belinda Conaway led to lawsuits and apparently lingering bad blood. Mr. Meister's email today noted:
The political family that sued me is at it again! Apparently the father who is Clerk of the Circuit court of Baltimore at the very least had a gun when he argued with me on the sidewalk yesterday!

Mr. Meister provided a series of links to additional coverage, but I wanted to excerpt some noteworthy snippets. First, the Baltimore Sun article he highlights provides some additional background:
One of Baltimore's most bizarre political sideshows took an ugly twist Monday, with police acknowledging that they were investigating a morning altercation between Clerk of Circuit Court Frank M. Conaway Sr. and blogger Adam Meister....

Police said Conaway "brandished a firearm" during the altercation. Conaway, who has been the clerk of court since 1998 and lost a bid for mayor this year, denied that he displayed a gun but declined to say whether he was carrying one at the time...

Meister, whose blogs are often peppered with observations from his daily jogs, said he was running back from a grocery store on Cold Spring Lane when he passed by Conaway's Ashburton home.

The address is well known to Meister: He has been digging through property records related to the Conaway family, exposing inconsistencies on documents related to the Homestead Tax Credit. His writings prompted City Councilwoman Belinda Conaway to sue him for libel and defamation, a suit that was decried by Meister as an effort to silence him and was later dropped.

Belinda Conaway lost her re-election bid in the September primary, and Meister has vowed to continue investigating the political family.

"I encourage all of you to jump on the anti-Conaway bandwagon because being anti-Conaway is being pro-Baltimore," Meister wrote on Nov. 9....

It was about 10:30 a.m. when Meister said he saw Conaway outside his home, and he said he began yelling at Conaway....

Meister said Conaway then took a swing at him, which Meister said he avoided and then continued on his way....

Meister, for his part, said Conaway did not pull a gun....

"Something's obviously wrong with this man," Conaway said. "Anything he can find nasty to say about my family, he'll do...."
You can watch a WBAL interview with Adam Meister's side of the story. At one point in the interview he states:
I saw [Frank Conaway] walking down his path. He was leaving his house at 10:30.... He's the Clerk of the Courts and he's leaving his house at 10:30, wearing a suit on a Monday morning. And I thought this is odd, but I immediately started bringing up the lawsuit. I'm not gonna let people get away with suing me for $21 million and thinking its a big joke or something like that. These are public officials. We live in a "Twilight Zone" city where our public officials sue people for millions of dollars frivolously for no reason. That doesn't leave me with a good taste in my mouth. So, this is my first time encountering Frank Conaway on the street, so I shared some words with him and I kept running. I was never on his property....
You can also watch a WBAL interview with Frank Conaway's side of the story too. Mr. Conaway's interview includes this comment:
Adam Meister made a visit to my property and started making threats against me and my family. I resented it and told him that I did. And then it became heated; we're getting ready to fight. He decided to run, that's what he did....
WBAL Interviews Circuit Court Clerk Frank Conaway Sr.

Mr. Meister provides additional details in an article on his blog today, titled "Frank Conaway Sr. Took a Swing At Me Today."

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