The State Prosecutor's office says a Baltimore housing official has pleaded guilty to the theft of gift cards also mentioned in the indictment of Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon.
Lindbergh Carpenter Jr. of Owings Mills has admitted to stealing seven Toys R Us gift cards worth $140 that he had purchased with the city’s money in December 2007. Carpenter is an assistant commissioner in the Community Action Partnership office of the Baltimore Department of Housing and Community Development.
The gift cards were supposed to have been handed out during the Mayor's ‘Holly Trolley Charitable Tour.’ After the tour, there were some gift cards left over. Carpenter has admitted that several months later, he took some of those cards, and used them to help purchase a Nintendo Wii video game system for his family.
Last week’s he indictment of Baltimore City Mayor Sheila Dixon accused her of keeping some of the cards from that same Holly Trolley tour. Her attorney, Arnold Weiner, played down the charges at a news conference last week. He said Dixon's only one of the cards was not handed out on the tour -- he said the mayor gave it to a member of her staff who was in danger of losing her home because of a foreclosure. ‘There was a huge number of needy people who unquestionaby received all but one of these gift cards,’ he said.
Today’s guilty plea directly counters that statement, because Lindbergh Carpenter has admitted to keeping several more gift cards.
In a statement, State Prosecutor Robert Rohrbaugh said, ‘Under the terms of his plea, Mr. Carpenter is required to cooperate fully with the office of the state prosecutor in any on-going investigations and prosecutions.’
Carpenter could have faced 18 months in prison. Under the terms of his plea he'll get a year of probation and 250 hours of community service.
