The un-surprising news came yesterday around noon, broken by either Marc Steiner or WBALTV’s Jayne Miller. Sheila Dixon, our fiery first-female in chief, stepped down before sentencing wiped out her chances of future politicking and an $83,000 pension. Her plea agreement includes 500 hours of community service and a planned auction on eBay of the X Box “Need for Speed” game and camcorder purchased with BestBuy gift cards meant for poor Baltimore City children. It was a measly $500 in gift cards that won the prosecution the embezzlement conviction but a litany of other perjury and theft charges threatened to sink her later if gift card-related appeals failed. Reactions have varied.
“It’s a little disappointing,” said Dixon in a wandering article published in the Baltimore Sun yesterday. “It’s a sad and difficult time for Baltimore,” she said in a published statement quoted in today’s top story in the Sun about Dixon’s decision to step down. The Sun pointed out that she was indicted a year ago for other charges, and that she has of late “vowed to fight the jury’s guilty finding, which would have forced her from office.” Yet, “cracks in that stance have been forming.” (more…)
A Baltimore Block 