ST. MARY’S TODAY

LEONARDTOWN --- Two weeks ago, readers were told "The Fix is In" in a bold front page headline.  Now the fix is revealed.

Facing demotion, suspension for thirty days and even firing for his role in the Loot scandal, the former Assistant Sheriff of St. Mary’s County, Lt. Steven Doolan, put in his retirement papers and left the department, according to St. Mary’s Sheriff David Zylak.
"He has retired, he is vested in the system, he has paid into it and under the rules of the retirement board, he can do this," Zylak told ST. MARY’S TODAY.

Zylak was asked if he had delayed the investigation or making a decision on the trial board’s recommendation, which was that Doolan be busted in rank to sergeant and suspended without pay for 30 days and the Sheriff said that he had not.

Did the Sheriff threaten to fire Doolan as one informed source says?
"No, I did not threaten to fire Lt. Doolan in order to get him to retire."

Doolan will now receive a retirement of about $50,000 a year which he would not have been eligible for had he been convicted of official corruption and sent to prison.

Doolan’s wife was the election campaign treasurer for States Attorney Richard Fritz and Fritz. Doolan and Fritz are longtime political associates with Doolan taking an active part in his election campaigns. Fritz and Doolan are co-defendants and lost a major civil rights lawsuit brought by this newspaper after they, Sheriff Voorhaar and 7 deputies seized all available copies of the newspaper from stands before voters went to the polls on election day 1998 in order to prevent voters from reading coverage critical of Fritz and Voorhaar before they voted.

Fritz, even after he was given a report one year ago by the State Prosecutor, which reported that his investigation discovered that property which had been in secure storage as evidence had been authorized by Doolan to be released to Doolan’s stepson and Doolan’s friend, failed to either charge Doolan, refer the case to a special prosecutor or to the Attorney General for prosecution.

Instead, Doolan got off scot free without any charges and only some of the "Loot" was recovered.

Fritz, who had dropped theft charges against Wendell Ford, from whom the St. Mary’s Sheriff’s deputies had seized the property in a court authorized raid in January of 1999, last year asked the court to appoint a special prosecutor to decide whether to refile the charges brought against Ford but dropped by Fritz.
Attorney Robert Moreland, a longtime friend of Fritz, was appointed Special Prosecutor and brought new theft charges against Ford.

Those charges are pending against Ford but Circuit Court Judge C. Clarke Raley has canceled a scheduled criminal trial and ordered the prosecutor to show why he has decided to bring charges six years after the alleged incident took place.
Doolan’s exit from the department leaves Zylak appearing as if he covered up for his longtime colleague and fellow officer, and may permanently taint Zylak and completely remove him from any chance of being re-elected.