Grand jury queries of Johnson, staff continue

Thursday, Nov. 3, 2005

Four more members of Prince George’s County Executive Jack B. Johnson’s staff have been subpoenaed for a grand jury investigation this week, according to a source close to Johnson’s administration.

Johnson and three of his top officials were previously called before the grand jury Oct. 26, according to sources in the court system and law enforcement, as well as a former elected official.

‘‘We’re not confirming that anybody has done anything with a grand jury,” said James P. Keary, Johnson’s press information officer. ‘‘Even if we knew about it, we couldn’t tell you.”

Last week’s summons was for Iris B. Boswell, deputy chief for the Office of Finance; Jacqueline F. Brown, Johnson’s chief administrative officer; and Pamela Piper, director of Central Services. Piper oversees the awarding of contracts for the county.

The subpoenas came only about a month after Robert L. Isom, a deputy director in the Department of Environmental Resources, pled guilty to soliciting a $250,000 bribe from a security company looking to win contracts from the county for DER.

Isom, who worked for the DER until May, confessed to conspiring with Robert L. Thomas, a deputy director in the Office of Central Services, to deliver a county contract for service to ADT⁄TYCO and its subcontractor Interior Systems Inc.

Asked if the state was considering other county officials who may have been involved in the bribe beyond Isom, State Prosecutor Robert Rohrbaugh said he could not comment on that, but added that the investigation is continuing.

According to the statement of facts in the Isom case, Piper appointed a review team to analyze proposals for a security contract in the spring of 2004. Several months after the group recommended another company receive the contract, Piper had the proposals re-evaluated and replaced several members of the review team, adding Thomas and Floyd Holt, who were both directors on her staff.

Isom, according to the statement, acted as a go-between for Thomas and solicited the money from Interior Systems.

Isom was fired from his position after the state’s investigation became public in May. He is cooperating with authorities on the investigation and is scheduled for sentencing in January. Thomas had resigned a few weeks earlier.

E-mail Tiesha Higgins at thiggins@gazette.net.