BERNSTEIN & JESSAMY SQUARE OFF
FOR  SECOND  TIME  IN  EIGHT  DAYS

We’ve started putting all their information
up on Facebook. They’re excited about it.
— Patricia Jessamy, referring to her staff

CHALLENGER CRITICIZES ATTABOY LETTERS

SA's Office is 'judge, jury and executioner'
— Candidate Gregg Bernstein

By Alan Z. Forman and Stephen Janis

Employees in the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office may not have voicemail, but to improve morale their boss puts “all their information up on FaceBook,” the city’s top prosecutor revealed to a modest audience attending her debate Thursday night against a formidable challenger for the job she’s held for nearly 15 years.

That’s because she wants a human being answering the phone when people call about a case, the current chief prosecutor, Patricia Jessamy, told approximately 50 members of the Vanguard Justice Society, a group that represents the city’s black police officers, which sponsored the debate.

Held at the Mt. Washington Conference Center in Northwest Baltimore, it was the second time top prosecutor Jessamy squared off against her toughest opponent since taking office in 1995, local criminal attorney Gregg Bernstein.

A former Baltimore detective was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison today for stealing money meant for criminal informants along with property found during drug raids. 

Former narcotics detective Mark Lunsford received the sentence plus 3 years of supervised release from federal Judge William M. Nickerson.

BALTIMORE-BASED INVESTIGATIVE VOICE WEBSITE
GAINS  EUROPEAN,  CANTABRIGIAN  RECOGNITION

ALSO TOUTED IN THE BIG APPLE BY ‘FREAKONOMICS’

Move over, David Simon! Make way for Investigative Voice!

The television show "The Wire" is no longer the new millennium's most celebrated cultural export from America to the U.K.

Whereas England's University of York may be planning a college course based on Simon's “The Wire” to be offered this fall as part of its sociology curriculum, Investigative Voice is being touted by the prestigious British website journalism.co.uk as “a site dedicated to in-depth reporting and holding those in power to account.”

“The Wire” dramatizes crime in Baltimore; Investigative Voice reports it.

Not to be outdone, the quirky/clever New York Times blog “Freakonomics” linked to I.V.'s recent story about a Baltimore community activist who saw a correlation between the cutoff of free cable TV and an upsurge in the city's murder rate.