Correction:
An earlier version of this article about the trial of state Sen. Ulysses Currie (D-Prince George’s) on bribery charges misquoted Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert). Miller said he thinks Currie did not intend to commit a “criminal offense,” not a “criminal defense.” This version has been corrected.
The reception that Maryland Sen. Ulysses Currie received was not unlike those during his days as chairman of his chamber’s budget panel: a series of hearty handshakes and warm pats on the back.
But the Prince George’s Democrat was taking a seat not in front of a familiar legislative committee room but behind the defense table in a courtroom where he is expected to spend the next several weeks fighting federal bribery charges that could send him to prison for years.
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As they finalize preparations for his trial, which begins Monday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, Currie’s attorneys face a considerable challenge: convincing a jury that Currie could ascend to one of the most powerful posts in the General Assembly and yet make what they say were puzzling but not criminal mistakes in representing a grocery chain — a relationship he did not disclose on ethics forms for five years.
To that end, Currie’s attorneys are preparing to call a parade of character witnesses to help jurors better understand the 74-year-old senator, who has a reputation as an even-tempered — though not particularly detail-oriented — consensus builder and who has battled prostate cancer in recent years.
The witness list has not been made public, but there are indications it could include some familiar faces from Annapolis and Currie’s legislative district.
Maryland’s Democratic governor and lieutenant governor and its Republican former governor are among those whom Currie’s attorneys have approached about taking the stand, their associates said. Spokesmen for Gov. Martin O’Malley and Lt Gov. Anthony G. Brown declined to comment, while an aide said former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., with whom Currie had a friendly relationship despite party differences, is willing to testify.
Some veteran State House staffers also have been contacted, and the judge in the case hinted during a pretrial hearing Friday that some of Currie’s legislative colleagues are likely to appear in court as well.
“Most people would say this man’s led a good and honorable life,” said Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert), who appointed Currie chairman of the Budget and Taxation Committee in 2002 and recently played golf with him. “He served in the U.S. military, rose to become a principal in the Prince George’s school system, was elected to the House of Delegates and Maryland Senate, all without a blemish on his record. . . . He’s very well liked and very well respected in his community. These young prosecutors should walk in his shoes.”
Prosecutors contend that Currie’s actions will be impossible to explain away and that he crossed a “bright line,” as U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein put it after Currie was indicted a year ago.
They allege that under the guise of a consulting relationship, Currie abused his position to benefit Shoppers Food Warehouse in several ways, and that the more than $245,000 that he received in payments amount to bribes and extortion.
The indictment against Currie cites several specific instances in which he is alleged to have pressed state officials to help Shoppers with land acquisition, road improvements and stoplights and to delay energy-efficiency standards for commercial refrigerators, saving the company money.
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