Real-estate probe charges focus on Brown

Investigation rebuked by candidate for state's attorney Mattingly has spared him so far

Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2009

A jailed Leonardtown man has been indicted on more forgery charges, authorities report, in a grand jury probe that his business partner has long criticized, but which has not yielded any charges against him.

Daniel Jason Brown, 31, the lone defendant taken into custody thus far, remains in jail in lieu of a $50,000 cash bond from five original indictments issued against him earlier this month from the grand jury probe of real-estate transactions.

St. Mary's detectives reported Friday that Brown will face another court hearing this week on four new warrants that include 68 criminal counts involving false and forged land deeds, a felony theft scheme and the illegal transfer of a firearm.

Leonardtown lawyer John A. Mattingly Jr., at the office of the two men's Graydon Sears LLC business on Courthouse Drive, revealed early last month a police raid at his mother's house that he said was part of an investigation launched to discredit his bid for the job of St. Mary's County state's attorney.

Mattingly said at the time, "Nothing better illustrates what I'm running against, and what I'm running for, than this action. There has to be respect for the law. If they can do this to me, they can do this to anybody, and it's scary."

Mattingly later filed a lawsuit seeking the return of some client files seized during the raid, and the complaint included the raid's search warrant application with its allegations of a witness-bribery scheme and claims of a series of real-estate improprieties.

The application referred to ongoing investigations of the notarizing of real-estate transactions involving Brown and Mattingly's corporation, Graydon Sears, and states that Mattingly "immediately encouraged" a client receiving a $500,000 settlement in a lawsuit to hire Brown to do work on her home that cost her $184,000 and was never completed.

The application also alleged that Brown and Mattingly negotiated the purchase in 2007 of three acres of land in St. Mary's from a woman living in a Baltimore nursing home.

The search warrant application states that her relatives told investigators that the price agreed upon was $5,000.

The application states that all but $600 of the purchase price was paid in cash, in the transfer of the land to Graydon Sears.

The first five indictments filed against Brown charged him with offenses dating back to 2007 including making false entries in public records, falsely affixing a public seal to a deed and procuring notaries public Jena N. Delozier and Jonathan Kramer to make a series of false affirmations.

The indictments accuse Brown of using "deception [and] intimidation" to obtain an interest in the property of Dorothy N. Hall, a vulnerable person.

An indictment also charged Brown with corruptly trying last February to influence Emily Balanger, a witness in a case of a crime of violence, and with endeavoring to obstruct and impede justice in a grand jury investigation.

The search warrant application states that $20,000 delivered in late 2007 to Mattingly's office was from Terry Anthony Clarke, a 45-year-old California man identified by authorities at that time as an owner of the Tiki Bar in Solomons.

Clarke, who pleaded guilty 20 years earlier to a felony cocaine charge, was arrested after a December 2007 incident in which he allegedly fired a rifle across a pond at people who were retrieving birds from the water where they had been hunting.

Police were told that the money was to be used to bribe a witness, the application states, and although the money's whereabouts later became unclear, Brown acknowledged last month that he tried to resolve the charges against Clarke and was candid in his approach to witnesses in the case, without wanting to do anything outside the law.

Clarke pleaded guilty last winter to three charges of second-degree assault, one count of reckless endangerment and eight weapons violations, and he remains free on $25,000 bond as he awaits sentencing of up to 75 years in prison through a plea agreement.

St. Mary's Assistant State's Attorney Daniel White said Monday that the witness-influencing charge against Brown in the original batch of indictments stems from an alleged "continuing course of conduct" related to Clarke's assault case.

The prosecutor and Brown's lawyer, Robert Harvey, were trying to arrange Monday morning for Brown to receive a bond hearing on the new charges that detectives report were served Friday.

The charging documents remained sealed at press time.

Brown lived at the house owned by Mattingly's mother that law officers raided in September, and an inventory of the items seized there included two handguns, a shotgun, ammunition, a notary seal belonging to Delozier, land records and the 12 boxes of files belonging to Mattingly.

Brown said last month that he has a handgun permit, and that the weapons should not have been seized during the police "fishing expedition" at the residence.

While no one other than Brown has been arrested in the ongoing investigation, St. Mary's detective Capt. Daniel Alioto reiterated Friday that "more charges and more arrests" are forthcoming.

Detectives report that they are still seeking information on Brown's business activities through various entities, including the Graydon Sears firm he operated with Mattingly.

The detectives listed other businesses of interest in their investigation as Smythington Lowell, LandCad, Blackistone Residue, Cainwood Landing and Mason Road Consortium.

Mattingly has filed as a Democratic candidate in next year's state's attorney's race. Republican Richard Fritz is the incumbent, elected in 1998.

jwharton@somdnews.com