Annapolis Capital Punishment

Did Democrat activists "Break" The Zina Pierre Story? The honest answer--which is the only kind you'll ever get from me, is I don't know. Does it matter? Maybe. I think that it could matter a whole lot, depending on which "theory" of the day--or hour that you the reader are following.

I will recount the chain of events from what I know. I received a call on Friday afternoon from a reader who also happens to be active in city politics--that's three days after the election. I think my source may be a Democrat, but I do know that the person is a lawyer and she helped me understand the legalese of the state court documents so I could determine the severity and impact. Together we reviewed the online, easily-available, public records together, both wondering why it had just come to light. This person told me that it was mainly Democrats who were aware of this and talking about it--it was not coming from elsewhere. I immediately contacted Zina Pierre's spokesperson, who as mentioned, was already aware of the situation but I did not get any kind of comment. I was contacted by another journalist who was asking me if I knew what was going on and provided some information about the candidate's background and address.

That was all I knew on Friday afternoon. Period. I published a brief post about the candidate's long history of court and financial problems--again--all of which was public record, was newsworthy and relevant. These were not just tiny little things. Taken as a whole they raise important questions about the candidate's ability to manager her personal affairs as well as show a certain level of disrespect for the legal system. At the same time, one had to wonder how a supposedly high-level presidential appointee--and presumably a well-paid one at that, could have such a history. Furthermore, there appeared to be at least one open case for a Failure to Appear at a court for a traffic violation. That, my lawyer friend advised me, meant there could possibly be an outstanding bench warrant on Ms. Pierre.

I informed many people of the story by sending an email as soon as I posted the story and I called the editor of The Capital as well. And by the way--that was the extent of my involvement with The Capital in this matter--period. Hours later, Nicole Fuller of the Baltimore Sun reported her version of the story. In an email after that, Ms Fuller told me she had been working on the story and was simply waiting for some court papers to arrive from Prince Georges County.

So clearly, this story was quickly becoming known to many. I was not part of any kind of "leak" or any kind of insider situation in any way. If I had known of the candidate's background before the election, you know I would have done the same thing--to publish it. And I'd do it again--about Ms. Pierre or any other candidate.

Then, out of the blue, I receive an email from Sean O'Neill of Admiral Heights informing me that he posted information about Pierre's legal background on his Facebook page--on Wednesday, September 16. Therefore, as far back as I am able to now reconstruct this, O'Neill broke the story and he should take the credit. I do not know why he waited to tell me this AFTER I posted my story. In fact, he tells me that he sent it first to Arundel Muckraker and Muckraker appears to have been hot on the trail of this story as well. O'Neill by the way, is president of the Admiral Heights Improvement Association and from what I have been able to gather, an active supporter of Josh Cohen. 

Since Mr. O'Neill's account on Facebook is as widely available to the public as is the Maryland court records, any reader with a Facebook account can look it up for themselves as easily as I did it for the court records. Despite this, since it might considered an invasion of Mr. O'Neill's privacy, and to protect the privacy of those who responded to him, I'll not post it all here but I will extract a few choice pieces to shed some light. Hopefully Mr. O'Neill will keep it all public for you as I found it Sunday morning--but in case he takes it down--get there fast!

About 24 hours after the election results were posted, O'Neill wrote: 
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