Sheriff and Deputies Raid on Newsstands
On election eve, 1998, a raid of newsstands sponsored by the Sheriff of St. Mary's County, the man who is now States Attorney and conducted by 7 deputies, swept newstands of all available copies of this newspaper. Some were stolen, others were bought by deputies who demanded that clerks sell them the entire stack of papers intended for readers before they voted that day.  A lawsuit was filed nearly a year later and news coverage from the Washington Post, ABC News 20/20, syndicated columnist James J. Kilpatrick and the AP appears below:
Federal Judge Rules in Favor of Newspaper; Against Sheriff Voorhaar, States Attorney Richard Fritz and St. Mary's Deputies
In a long standing lawsuit charging violations of the civil rights of ST. MARY'S TODAY publisher Kenneth Rossignol, the Federal District Court Judge hearing the case issued a 22 page ruling in favor of the newspaper and publisher and against St. Mary's County, seven deputies, the former Sheriff Richard Voorhaar and States Attorney Richard Fritz. 
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Read Federal Court Ruling NOW

News stories on Fritz-Voorhaar raid of newsstands on election eve 1998
--- Washington Post article May 12, 2004
Publisher Wins Press-Rights Suit
Read what the Fourth Circuit United States Court of Appeals had to say about Richard Fritz, the Sheriff and his deputies when they raided newsstands --- "The whole purpose of the Ku Klux Klan Act was to prevent public authorities from violating constitutional rights through the use of nominally private means. Whether the rights be those of small papers and their readers or those of freedmen is not dispositive. The unlawfulness of private infringement of those rights under color of state law remains the same. We would thus lose sight of the entire purpose of § 1983 if we held that defendants were not acting under color of state law. Here, a local sheriff, joined by a candidate for State’s Attorney, actively encour-aged and sanctioned the organized censorship of his political oppo-nents by his subordinates, contributed money to support that censorship, and placed the blanket of his protection over the perpetra-tors. Sheriffs who removed their uniforms and acted as members of the Klan were not immune from § 1983; the conduct here, while dif-ferent, also cannot be absolved by the simple expedient of removing the badge. 3"
Read the entire ruling:
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Ruling

--- Associated Press story

--- ABC News 20/20

--- James J. Kilpatrick column
--- Stop the Press
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