Posted on April 21, 2011 in Criminal Defense

STSW attorneys Andrew White gained a high stakes victory in the Baltimore City Circuit Court in a case in which an STSW client was charged with multiple felony counts involving the possession of a handgun. The client had been charged after a car in which he was riding crashed on a northern Baltimore City roadway. According to witnesses at the scene, a handgun was thrown from the vehicle after the car flipped over multiple times and came to rest on its side. The witnesses described how the driver of the vehicle threw the gun from the car, which witnesses told police was being operated at a high rate of speed prior to the crash. The driver testified as a prosecution witness and testified that the STSW client gave her the firearm after the crash occurred. She also testified that the client possessed the firearm because he wanted to confront persons who had reportedly hurt his son. At trial, Mr. White and Ms. Murphy discredited the cooperating witnesses and used the physical evidence from the crash scene to show that the prosecution’s version of events was not possible. In issuing the "not guilty" verdict, the Circuit Court Judge agreed that the prosecution’s version of the case was undermined by the evidence adduced by Mr. White and Ms. Murphy at trial as well as by the extensive cross-examination of the cooperating witness.

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 Posted on April 18, 2011 in Divorce

Currently, Maryland law regarding divorce involves two different waiting periods in order to obtain a no fault divorce. The one year waiting period applies when BOTH parties are seeking the divorce, i.e. the separation is MUTUAL and voluntary. The two year waiting period applies when only one of the two parties would like the divorce. We had previously discussed this distinction in our October 2010 blog. The Maryland legislature has passed a bill eliminating the two year waiting period, and now no fault divorces can proceed with only a one year separation, eliminating the need for the Court to consider if one or both parties is seeking the divorce for grounds purposes. The Maryland Daily Record reported on April 17, 2011 that this new legislation will go into effect October 1, 2011. The chief sponsor of the bill, Senator Bobby Zirkin believes that the two year separation period is only extending volatile situations and allowing parties to drag the litigation out in order to bargain for those items they want in the divorce. He also believes that this is a step in the right direction in his effort to reduce the waiting period to only six months, as we discussed in our February 17, 2011 blog .

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 Posted on April 13, 2011 in Personal Injury

WBAL is reporting in an online article that the worker killed Tuesday at the Dundalk Marine Terminal has been identified as 46-year-old James Mills Gillus of Dundalk. Mr. Gillus was tragically killed when he was attempting to climb back into his vehicle after he noticed it was rolling backward and was struck by the vehicle. The vehicle he was operating is used to haul dumpsters around the marine terminal. State and Federal Workplace officials are investigating this accident. Mr. Gillus’ family will be entitled to Workers’ Compensation Death Benefits because he was killed during the course and scope of his employment. Additionally, under certain situations, they may be able to recover in a wrongful death action.

For more information or a free consultation, please contact the Maryland personal injury lawyers of Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin & White, LLC. or contact Andrew G. Slutkin with further questions or inquiries at 410-385-2786

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 Posted on April 13, 2011 in Personal Injury

Baltimore personal injury attorney, Craig Zissel, of the firm Silverman Thompson Slutkin & White won a contested auto accident case in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County last Tuesday. Mr. Zissel’s client was injured when the vehicle he was riding in was struck from behind while stopped at a stop light. GEICO denied liability for the accident claiming there was no way our client could have been injured due to the minor nature of the accident. Additionally, they pointed out the many prior accidents our client had been involved in. After deliberating for an hour, the Montgomery County jury returned a verdict in favor of the Plaintiff for the full amount of his medicals plus an award for non-economic damages to compensate him for his pain and suffering. Prior to trial, GEICO had offered no money to settle the case. This verdict represents a great result for Montgomery County, which is historically a defense-oriented, conservative jurisdiction.

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 Posted on March 25, 2011 in Federal Crimes & White Collar Crimes

The demise of the mandatory federal sentencing guidelines in 2005 has given rise to amazing opportunities for skilled federal criminal defense attorneys to achieve tremendous results for their clients. Nowhere is this truer than in federal bank fraud, mail fraud, and wire fraud investigations and prosecutions. Federal "white collar" fraud prosecutions typically involve persons with little or no criminal background and with substantial ties to the community and strong family support. Surprisingly, many federal criminal defense attorneys do not take advantage of these factors in defending their clients. Under the old mandatory federal sentencing guidelines, family circumstances, family support, and community ties were generally prohibited as bases for sentencing reductions. Such circumstances were only to be considered if they were "extraordinary" and, even then, federal judges were hesitant to reduce sentences by any significant amount based on these factors.

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 Posted on March 16, 2011 in Medical Malpractice

As I stated in an earlier post, eye doctor Dr. John Kiely has been sued by the federal goverment for fruad for allegedly performing unnecessary procedures. Several people have asked me for a copy of the Federal Goverment’s civil fraud lawsuit againat eye doctor Dr. John Kiely. Here it is: Download file

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 Posted on March 16, 2011 in Medical Malpractice

A Baltimore eye doctor has been accused by the U.S. government of committing fraud by billing thousands and thousands of dollars for hundreds of unnecessary eye procedures that he performed on dozens of people at an outpatient clinic owned by Bon Secours Hospital. The accusations are set forth in a federal lawsuit which claims that between 10/29/02 and 4/14/09 Dr. John Arthur Kiely performed laser eye surgery on patients who did not need the procedure, and thus falsely billed Medicare and Medicaid for the unnecessary procedures. Dr. Kiely also has offices on St. Paul Street and Mercy Medical Center.

According to the lawsuit, Dr. Kiely sometimes performed the unnecessary procedures multiple times on a single patient, which clearly is medical malpractice. The procedures are alleged to have caused people to suffer unnecessary medical complications, including blindness in one woman. Dr. Kiely has had offices on St. Paul Street and at Mercy Medical Center.

The allegations of against Dr. Kiely sound similar to those against two other Maryland doctors. The first is Dr. Mark G. Midei who has been sued in hundreds of cases for allegedly placing unnecessary cardiac stents into patients at St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson. The second is Dr. John R. McLean, a Salisbury doctor who was criminally indicted for fraud resulting from allegedly placing unnecessary stents in patients at Peninsula Regional Medical Center.

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 Posted on March 16, 2011 in Family Law

I recently defended a modification of child support case (the father was seeking a decrease) in the Circuit Court for Howard County and after a hearing the Court determined there was not a material change in circumstance to warrant a modification of the child support currently being paid to my client.

I believe the concept of a ‘material change in circumstance’ can often be misinterpreted to mean ANY change in circumstance, and that is not the case. In this particular situation the parties divorced late 2009, and child support and non-modifiable alimony were calculated and agreed upon. At the time of divorce, the parties agreed to leave the alimony payment outside of the child support calculation and agreed to a slightly higher amount of child support as they believed it was in the children’s best interest. Less than a year later, the father (ex-husband) filed to modify child support, seeking a lower amount, alleging that he changed jobs and was earning less (about 5% less), his ex-wife was earning a small income, and alimony should now be incorporated into the child support guideline worksheet.

In the State of Maryland, the Court may modify a child support award subsequent to the filing of a motion for modification and upon a showing of a material change in circumstance, See Annotated Code of Maryland Family Law Article 12-104. The issue becomes what is a ‘material’ change in circumstance. A change has been determined to be ‘material’ when it meets two requirements (1) the change must be relevant to the level of support a child is actually receiving or entitled to receive, and (2) the change must be of a sufficient magnitude to justify judicial modification of the support order. Oftentimes, a change that affects the income pool used to calculate child support obligations upon which the child support award was based; incarceration of a parent; increase and/or decrease in parenting time; are all relevant to whether there has been a ‘material’ change in circumstance.

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 Posted on March 12, 2011 in Criminal Defense

As an Aggressive Baltimore Maryland Criminal Attorney, I have successfully defended hundreds of individuals who have been charged with assaulting police officers. The garden variety assault on a police officer case usually involves a defendant who is being arrested for another reason and the police officer claims that the defendant resisted that arrest and assaulted the officer in the process. These cases are usually relatively easy to deal with so long as the police officer was not seriously injured as most judges are aware of the tendency to exaggerate these incidents by the police.

I successfully defended a client who has charged in a not so typical assault on a police officer in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City this past week. The client was found not guilty in spite of the fact that my client had in fact punched a police officer who was sitting on a bar stool in a bar and the fact that the entire incident was caught on the establishment’s security video system.https://www.silvermanthompson.com/lawyer-attorney-1300820.html Here are the facts:

My client and several of his friends went into a bar in Baltimore City at roughly 1:30AM one night last year to purchase beer to go. My client, who had admittedly been drinking that evening, got into a verbal dispute with two individuals who were sitting at the bar drinking beer. My client’s friends pulled him away from the dispute and seemingly avoided an altercation. However, a few moments later my client went back over to these individuals and the argument resumed. Eventually my client punched one of the individuals in the face, knocking him from the bar stool to the ground. These individuals, who turned out to be Baltimore City Police Officers, pursued my client as he fled outside. Eventually my client ended up in the hospital with multiple abrasions, bruises and a concussion. Neither officer was injured in the incident.

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 Posted on March 12, 2011 in Driving Under the Influence

As a Baltimore Maryland Criminal and DUI Attorney, I defend people charged with DUI and DWI almost every day. It takes many years of experience to determine which cases should be taken to trial and which cases should be plea bargained. I had a case falling into the former category last week in the District Court for Baltimore City.

My client was found not guilty after I attacked the credibility of the MDTA Police Officer’s depiction of my client’s performance on the field sobriety tests and perhaps more importantly, pointed out the court what he left out of his report. Here are the facts:

My client is a 57 year old woman who has owned and tended a local bar for 28 years. She had never before been in trouble with the law and had certainly never been charged with DUI or DWI. Those facts together caused me to be predisposed to believe her version of the events as I found it difficult to believe that someone who had worked in the bar industry for that many years could have avoided being charged with DUI if she weren’t very careful about her alcohol intake while working. Few industries have higher instances of DUI and DWI arrests than does the bar and restaurant industry for the simple fact that these workers are around alcohol so often.

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