Last October, Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski and Inspector General Kelly Madigan used the fiftieth anniversary of the resignation of Spiro Agnew as vp of the United States as a possibility to replicate on how a lot Baltimore County authorities has modified since Agnew, who accepted bribes from contractors throughout his time because the county government and resigned in shame in 1973.
Olszewski touted transparency as a “key pillar” of his administration. Madigan mentioned the county has made “nice strides” in policing itself towards corruption because the creation of her workplace in 2020.
Both claims are positioned doubtful by info that has come to mild within the aftermath of the Eagle Transfer Station scandal in 2022, together with the letter despatched final week to members of the County Council from Michael Beichler, as detailed in The Brew.
Beichler is the previous chief of the Bureau of Solid Waste Management for the Department of Public Works and Transportation (DPWT).
There is a line that, to my information, not even Agnew crossed: County officers dedicated to openness, transparency and accountability don’t use their police departments to conduct unjustified felony investigations of suspected whistleblowers.
And for my part that’s precisely what the Olszewski administration did with Beichler.
Initiating a Witch Hunt
On June 14, 2022, the Baltimore Sun reported that Madigan had opened an investigation into a grievance that a fundraiser held for Olszewski by Jack Haden, the possible proprietor of the Eagle Transfer Station, influenced Olszewski’s determination to search approval of the power.
As acknowledged in his latest letter, that particular person turned out to be Beichler.
Patrick Murray, on the time Olszewski’s chief of employees, met with former county Police Chief Melissa Hyatt the following day and advised her that Beichler, who retired a number of months earlier, was noticed getting into a DPWT facility after odd enterprise hours on two days.
He requested Hyatt to open a police investigation into “his unauthorized entrance into a county facility and his departure from that facility with County property.” Video from a safety digicam appeared to present Beichler carrying paperwork.
According to the police report, the knowledge got here from D’Andrea Walker, Beichler’s former boss at DPWT.
Beichler had retired from DPWT in February 2022 due to his dispute with Walker over Haden’s trash switch station. Although his key card to the constructing had been deactivated, he was not barred from getting into the constructing and, in accordance to workers, was a frequent customer.
I see no justification for involving the county police, particularly when no property was reported lacking.
If both Walker or Murray had bothered to ask him, Beichler would have advised them that he was given permission by a senior DPWT worker to enter the power on the 2 dates in query to make copies of data, and that he had phone data to present calls on each dates to a cellphone quantity listed for that worker on an inner DPWT listing.
Ask your self this query:
Did Walker or Murray actually imagine that Beichler had dedicated a crime? I see no justification for involving the police, particularly contemplating that no property was reported lacking.
Needless to say, Beichler was cleared of any wrongdoing by the police, however not earlier than quite a few county workers had been interviewed by a detective, together with the staff who let Beichler into the constructing on the times in query. Interestingly, the detective by no means interviewed Beichler.
After the detective described the proof, the existence of the IG grievance and the likelihood that Beichler was the complainant to a senior assistant state’s legal professional, the legal professional suggested the detective to shut the case with out interviewing Beichler.
Perhaps the prosecutor was understandably reluctant to implicate himself (or the detective) within the harassment of a whistleblower.
Redacted Report of Investigation Baltimore County Police Department by Fern Marie on Scribd
Trepidation by Police
There are indications that a number of people throughout the county police division additionally had been involved concerning the ramifications of investigating a whistleblower. I requested a copy of the “incident report” below the Public Information Act.
The response from the division clarified that no incident report had been filed, however that there was an “investigative file” responsive to my request.
The file that I used to be supplied was initially labeled a “confidential felony intelligence report.” That label was crossed out within the copy despatched to me, which I discovered uncommon.
An incident report usually is accomplished by the police officer to whom a crime is reported.
If Murray was not reporting a crime to Hyatt, then what was he doing?
Why file the investigation of an alleged trespassing and theft in a confidential felony intelligence report?
Was it the investigation of a crime. Or wasn’t it?
Those are questions that Inspector General Madigan ought to have answered.
Fly within the Ointment
I imagine that anger overcame the great judgment of Olszewski’s appointees once they determined to provoke the felony investigation of Beichler.
The Eagle Transfer Station proposal was doomed as quickly because the objections raised by Beichler had been made public in tales revealed by The Brew and Sun.
And the proposal’s demise put a goal on his again.
His actions saved county taxpayers thousands and thousands of {dollars}, however despatched him into early retirement after 28 years of service to the county.
Beichler’s actions saved county taxpayers thousands and thousands of {dollars}, however despatched him into early retirement.
The felony investigation requested by Olszewski’s high aide discovered no wrongdoing by Beichler.
But it ran his identify by way of the mud and delivered a message to county workers that they may count on the police to come calling in the event that they blew the whistle on the Olszewski administration.
Maybe that was all of the investigation was meant to accomplish.
In addition to his unique grievance concerning the switch station, Beichler filed a grievance with the IG workplace concerning the police investigation.
No IG report has been issued but on both grievance. I’ve a arduous time understanding that.
Suffice it to say that the story of the Beichler investigation doesn’t paint a image of an administration dedicated to the rules of transparency and accountability.
Rather, it portrays public servants obsessive about hiding info they don’t want the general public to know.
• David A. Plymyer retired as Anne Arundel County Attorney after 31 years within the county legislation workplace. He might be reached at dplymyer@comcast.web and Twitter @dplymyer.
