F'd Up Local MD Politics - Richard Fritz (TW-rape, murder)

[wawa]

This story....it's got it all.  It's pretty intensely local but...yeah, I mean, read it. Links at the bottom.

My cliff notes summary:
Rural county state's attorney is SO FUCKING CORRUPT and yet just keeps on getting elected. He has run unopposed last round, and this time a fairly high profile challenger is finally running against him so fingers crossed for the people of St. Mary's County to finally unload this guy.  Our current governor's step-daughter, used to work in his office and quit very publicly citing that she'd been demoted for bringing up ethics and financial issues and had to quit because she actually has ethics. 

His most recent and arguably most egregious fuckery is shrugging away a state trooper murdering a teen, Peyton Ham, because the kid "lunged at him with a knife" despite no evidence to that end (and plenty of evidence against). Family is suing for wrongful death because he refused to prosecute after letting the state cops investigate their own with no unbiased oversight.  I could have sworn we talked about this story here, but wasn't able to find the old thread.

Prior to that he intimidated an opponent for office by making up a bullshit prosecution against him, including withholding evidence, which was dismissed as soon as a prosecutor WITHOUT huge conflicts of interest in the case stepped in but by then the other guy's campaign was already tanked.

Prior to THAT he tried to suppress a news story about his criminal history by literally running around town with a bunch of sheriff's deputies STEALING NEWSPAPERS. 

and prior to THAT....oh yeah, that criminal history he tried to bury is that he and two friends gang raped a girl in high school, which years later when the story came back up during a campaign played it off as consensual and heavily implied the girl in question was just a slut.

First link has a very complete rundown from a website I'm not familiar with.  Following links have sources for the stories mentioned above. Last link is a very short news story about the challenger running against him.

defector.com/meet-richard-fritz-americas-most-unelectable-elected-official/

www.washingtonpost.com/local/who-to-believe-its-just-another-day-of-secrets-andlies-in-st-marys-county/2014/04/18/f0102da8-c709-11e3-bf7a-be01a9b69cf1_story.html
(the tone of this older story is SO WEIRD. but the details match the defector story.)

www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/02/22/peyton-ham-shooting/

baltimore.cbslocal.com/2022/03/16/jaymi-sterling-daughter-of-gov-hogan-announces-run-for-states-attorney-of-st-marys-county/

Small town rural places are just so WHOLESOME aren't they....

[hbtk]

I just moved away from St. Mary's after living there for three years, and fuck that guy for real. We could not WAIT to get out of there.

For perspective on this nowheresville area, the week we moved there we received KKK recruitment fliers in our mail. The only meaningful employment in the area is really the Navy base.

I hope Peyton's family wins.

[tacokick]

This is so wild. I’ve been in MD my whole life and never been in this area. The stories I’ve heard!! I hope they can get some new people in there.