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Our reporter Doug Donovan is sending updates from the coutroom throughout the corruption trial of Mayor Sheila Dixon.
A second Dixon boyfriend entered the picture Friday during Mayor Dixon’s trial.
Edward Anthony, an official with Baltimore’s housing department, took the stand as a witness for the prosecution, but ended up sounding more like a character witness for Dixon. He told the jury that he has been dating the mayor since 2006 and that they have traveled together to Miami, the Dominican Republic, Hawaii, and Las Vegas. Prosecutors claim that Dixon gave him a Giant gift card that was given to her by her former boyfriend, developer Ronald Lipscomb.
What’s curious is that Lipscomb and Dixon have acknowledged publicly that they had a relationship in 2003 and 2004, but her defense attorneys now say the gift cards he gave her in 2006 were part of his ongoing courtship. But the mayor and Lipscomb were no longer together and, according to Anthony, Dixon was otherwise preoccupied with him at that time.
Anthony told the jury what a wonderful “mother and parent” Dixon is to her children, how she cooks them dinner and helps with homework despite all of her duties as mayor.
“I talk to her every night before I go to bed,” Anthony said. “By the time she gets in, I’m exhausted.”
He said he himself would bring gifts to Dixon at City Hall “so I could be acknowledged.”
In August 2007 Anthony’s name became first connected with Dixon when The Sun reported that he got a new job in the housing department weeks after Dixon became mayor. At the time, Dixon said she had no involvement in his hiring. Neither Dixon nor Anthony would state the nature of their relationship, except to say they are friends.
Later at trial, Dixon attorney Dale Kelberman effectively questioned John C. Poliks, an investigator with the Maryland State Prosecutor. After Poliks described what he found when Dixon’s home was searched for seven hours on June 17, 2008, Kelberman referred to the affidavit that was prepared prior to the search.
The search, Kelberman said, was being executed as part of an investigation into the possible bribery of Dixon with the very gift cards given to her by Lipscomb and others.
Yes, Poliks said.
The defense has alleged that prosecutors stopped pursuing Lipscomb for bribery charges when the developer agreed to cooperate in a case against her for theft of gift cards he had given to her.
