St. Mary’s States Attorney Richard Fritz had indicted labor law specialist Joe Ashworth in April, in retaliation, said Ashworth’s attorney Leslie McAdoo, for his having lost a significant case brought by Ashworth’s brother-in-law.
Judge Femia ruled the statute, which Fritz charged Ashworth under, was overly broad and unconstitutional and tossed out extortion charges filed by Fritz against Ashworth.
McAdoo told the court that Fritz and Sheriff Richard Voorhaar and seven deputies had been likened by the United States Court of Appeals to Ku Klux Klansmen and had lost all the way to the Supreme Court in a civil rights case which has been decided against them.
McAdoo argued that Fritz’s actions were retaliatory for the federal civil rights violations case brought by St. MARY’S TODAY publisher Kenneth Rossignol.
McAdoo argued that case law in Maryland demands that Fritz would have disqualified himself from prosecuting any member of the family of person who has sued him in civil proceedings and instead refer the case to the Attorney General or ask the court to appoint a special prosecutor, neither of which Fritz did.

Judge Femia told Deputy States Attorney Teddy Weiner, who works for Fritz, that if Fritz didn’t remove his office from prosecuting the case by July 21st, he would do so himself.

Fritz decided to comply and Weiner told Judge Femia that they would refer it out the office that day.

Femia said he would not grant the motions of the defense at that time on the other pending motions by McAdoo to drop charges of theft, which she said were nothing but a fee dispute between Ashworth and a client.