Maryland State Police Superintendent Edward T. Norris resigned today after he was indicted in connection with his personal use of an off-the-books expense account when he was Baltimore’s police commissioner. Norris abruptly resigned from his city job late last year to head the state police.
Also indicted was his former chief of staff on the Baltimore Police Department, John Stendrini, the Associated Press reports.
“The defendants repeatedly used the fund as if it were their own ATM,” U.S. Attorney Thomas DiBiagio said.
The Baltimore Sun reports that federal authorities began checking Norris’ use of the little-known expense fund called the supplemental account in February and have subpoenaed records and questioned witnesses before a grand jury. The investigation followed disclosures in The Sun last year about Norris’s financing thousands of dollars in gifts, meals, and trips, many to his hometown of New York, through the fund. The city audited the fund and deducted $7,663 in personal and questionable expenses from the Norris’s $137,000 severance payment.
Link: http://www.sunspot.net/news/local/bal-te.md.norris10dec10,0,7207908.story?coll=bal-home-headlines