Dan Rodricks: It’s the 50th anniversary of Maryland’s biggest year of corruption | STAFF COMMENTS

The Orioles finished second to the Yankees in the American League East this year, but Baltimore remains well ahead of New York City when it comes to political corruption.

Has the mayor of The Big Apple been indicted?

Pfft.

Been there, done that – twice.

And that’s just the rotting tip of the iceberg lettuce.

I will meet with your indicted mayor and appoint you as a tax fraud police commissioner and a perjured chief prosecutor.

Of course, we have to admit that New York City had a mafia that Baltimore never had—too many rats here, not enough omerta, according to the FBI—and that the Big Apple periodically suffers from financial crimes that have global consequences. Plus, New York gave us the criminal Donald Trump.

None of us can compete with that.

When it comes to corruption, however, the Big Apple has nothing to do with the Queen City of the Patapsco Drainage Basin. And while New York State has three times the population of Maryland, pound for pound, we have a richer history of racketeering, bribery and fraud.

New York produced Trump.

Maryland produced Spiro T. Agnew.

He was executive director of Baltimore County, governor of Maryland and an alliteration-ridden vice president of the United States during the Nixon era. Agnew received kickbacks for government contracts while holding all three of these offices.

But he didn’t get away with it.

In October 1973, he pleaded guilty to tax evasion in what was then the federal courthouse (now one of two city courthouses) on Calvert Street. He then resigned the vice presidency and went to dinner in Little Italy. (I don’t know what he ate, but I bet he didn’t pay for it.)

Yet Agnew’s great downfall was overshadowed by what happened the following year.

Before I go there, one thing: After the indictment of New York Mayor Eric Adams, I heard a talking head on cable refer to the current scandal as marking “the golden age of political corruption.”

Nonsense. The golden age of political corruption took place fifty years ago between Towson and the White House.

By the summer of 1974, Richard Nixon and his gang had been under investigation for the Watergate burglary for almost two years. Nixon’s impeachment seemed imminent, so he resigned as president in August.

Meanwhile, that same year in Maryland, a federal grand jury indicted Dale Anderson, Agnew’s successor as county executive, on corruption charges.

Then Anne Arundel County Executive Joe Alton was charged with corruption.

In Towson, Baltimore County State’s Attorney Sam Green went on trial on corruption charges.

It was a corruption trifecta.

In addition, former Maryland Governor Marvin Mandel was under federal investigation, and the following year he was indicted along with some of his accomplices.

There were more charges against politicians before and after 1974. A Washington Post reporter found that from 1969 to 1977, there was only one brief period (about five months in 1975) when no corruption charges were pending against a Maryland politician.

Since that time, there has been a long line of politicians who left office after being found guilty of various charges, including two mayors of Baltimore.

So with the Adams scandal, New York is just catching up with us.

I mentioned this recently during a talk at an American Board of Trial Advocates dinner at Caves Valley Golf Club. I asked questions that I have asked before in this area: Why does political corruption continue to occur? Doesn’t anyone learn anything? Why do relatively intelligent people who have achieved a decent and stable level of success and comfort still decide to break the law?

None of the lawyers responded because they correctly assumed my questions were rhetorical. Moreover, most of them were deep into dessert at that point (it was a delicious apple crisp with ice cream.)

Don’t take this as naivety. I am fully aware that greed is a powerful motivator. But in this hyper-information age, I don’t understand the people – again, I mean the relatively intelligent people – who weigh risk versus reward and decide to risk the consequences.

In the past, paper trails often led to charges. Now the evidence is digital and, it seems, permanently available to investigators.

And so I wonder what’s going on with the otherwise smart politician or business leader who decides to take bribes or engages in fraud.

It strikes me as self-destructive, a slow form of career suicide.

Or maybe it’s pride. Maybe it’s right. Or perhaps journalist David Plotz hit the nail on the head when he pointed out what he described as widespread shamelessness. “Social defamation is usually much more powerful than law,” Plotz said. “(The reason) we don’t do things is not because there is a law against it, but because we would be embarrassed or ashamed.”

But if shamelessness rules, what then?

Fifty years ago, during that “golden age” of corruption in Maryland, the police officers who were caught spent minimal time in prison. (Agnew spent no time behind bars.) Presumably the loss of position and power—the public disgrace—was part of the punishment. Defense attorneys have argued that point, and I’ve heard one judge say he was considering the “fall from grace” of a politician facing prison.

But if we are dealing with ‘shame deficit disorder’, perhaps judges should stop including this in their sentencing calculations and take a tougher stance on violations of the public trust. Otherwise we will always have the corrupt people with us.