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Gay former College Park mayor sentenced to 30 years in child porn case

Family, friends testify at emotional sentencing hearing in P.G. County

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Former College Park Mayor Patrick Wojahn was sentenced to 30 years of incarceration on Monday. (Photo courtesy of the Prince George's County Police Department)

A Prince George’s County Circuit Court judge on Monday, Nov. 20, sentenced gay former College Park Mayor Patrick Wojahn to 30 years of incarceration at an emotional three-and-a-half-hour long sentencing hearing that took place more than three months after Wojahn pleaded guilty to 140 counts of child pornography-related charges as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors.

In agreeing to carry out the plea agreement, Judge Karen Mason sentenced Wojahn to 150 years in prison, with 120 years suspended, requiring that he serve 30 years. 

The judge and prosecutors pointed out that under Maryland’s sentencing rules Wojahn will be eligible to apply for release on parole after serving 25 percent of the 30-year sentence, which could result in his release after seven and a half years.

The sentencing followed news that surfaced in March of this year, which shocked Wojahn’s friends and longtime political supporters, that he had been arrested after police raided his College Park home and confiscated multiple cell phones, a tablet, computer, and a storage device containing video and still images, leading to two indictments alleging possession and distribution of child pornography.

The 140 counts to which he pleaded guilty include 60 counts of distribution of child porn, 40 counts of possession of child porn, and 40 counts of possession of child pornography with intent to distribute it.

He announced his resignation as mayor, a position he held since 2015, shortly before his arrest.

Wojahn’s husband, mother, sister, and 13 friends testified at the sentencing hearing. Most told the judge they understood the seriousness of the charges against their loved one and friend but called on the judge to take into consideration the good that Wojahn has done as a family member, friend, and elected official over his lifetime. Several of the friends said mental health issues and an addiction problem had played a role in Wojahn’s actions and urged the judge to arrange for him to receive mental health related services.

Among those who testified were Sister Jeannine Gramick, a Roman Catholic nun who co-founded the LGBT Catholic support organization New Ways Ministry, and Francis DeBernardo, the current executive director of New Ways Ministry. Also testifying was Thomas Bower, an official with the LGBT Catholic organization Dignity Washington, of which Wojahn has been a participant.  

Judge Mason said she would refer Wojahn, who has been held without bond since the time of his arrest in March of this year, to the Patuxent Institution, a maximum-security correctional facility located in Jessup, Md., that specializes in providing mental health services for its male and female inmates.

Mason also included in her sentencing a requirement that Wojahn serve five years of supervised probation upon his release from incarceration, register as a sex offender, and have no unsupervised contact with minors.

The testimony from family members and friends came after P.G. County Assistant State’s Attorneys Jessica Garth and Monica Meyers argued that those who possess and distribute child pornography are responsible for the suffering of victims of child sex abuse who are forced to take part in the production of child porn video and still images, even though, as in Wojahn’s case, the perpetrators do not produce the images and don’t directly come into contact with the children depicted in the images.

Police and prosecutors have alleged in charging documents that Wojahn had uploaded and/or shared dozens of videos or still images on the social media app Kik depicting explicit sexual acts between adult men and prepubescent boys, depicting prepubescent boys engaging in sex with each other, or engaging in masturbation.

In a development that surprised some attending the sentencing hearing, the two prosecutors disclosed that with the help of law enforcement officials and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, they identified 52 of the juveniles who were depicted in the video or still photo images that police had confiscated from Wojahn’s home. At a press conference following the sentencing hearing, prosecutor Meyers said the 52 then children who were identified, most of whom are now adults, were from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and several European countries, including Germany, Russia, Portugal, and the United Kingdom.

Through information obtained from law enforcement officials in the U.S. and internationally, the two P.G. County prosecutors said they obtained statements from or case reports for about 42 of the individuals listed as victims and presented those statements at the sentencing hearing by projecting them on two large screens in the courtroom. Meyers read each of the statements as they were projected, with most of the victims saying they suffered long-lasting harmful effects from being forced as children to take part in the production of pornographic images.

Meyers said while prosecutors presented victim impact statements for about 40 of the juveniles who were identified in the porn videos and still images, Wojahn had possession and helped to distribute images of “hundreds more on his devices” who were not identified.

In an effort to highlight the large numbers of sexually abused juveniles in the videos or still images in Wojahn’s possession, Meyers pointed to a photo that the prosecutors displayed on the large video screen in the courtroom during Monday’s sentencing hearing of a junior high school in College Park located near where Wojahn lived.

“That his own elementary school a half a mile from his house has less than 500 students who attended, he had more victims than that on his telephone,” Meyers said at the press conference. “And on his device, he had memorialized more than 500 victims who were sexually abused, raped, and tortured,” she said.  

“These are not victimless crimes, even though the victim is separated from the person who’s abusing them by a computer screen,” Assistant State’s Attorney Garth said at the press conference. “They are real people. They experience real damage, psychological and physical damage,” she said. “And they have to live with what happened to  them for the rest of their lives.”  

P.G. County State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy, who called the press conference, thanked the team of prosecutors and police investigators who worked on the Wojahn case.

“No child deserves to be sexually abused,” Braveboy said. “No child deserves their images to be displayed on the internet or any platform for hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of people to view,” she said. “And so, in accepting this plea agreement, we are satisfied that Mayor Wojahn understood the seriousness of his actions and wanted to take responsibility.”

Wojahn, who was dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, was the last to speak at the hearing before Mason issued her sentence. Due to the fact that Wojahn and many of the others who spoke at the hearing were not using microphones, much of what was said could not be heard clearly.

“I want to give an apology,” he could be heard saying. “I don’t know what happened. I can’t explain what changed me,” he continued, weeping while speaking. “I want to apologize to all my friends. I apologize to my family,” he said. He then turned to look at his husband, Dave Kolesar, and expressed his love for his husband. Both were crying as Wojahn spoke.

“I hope what I went through will help others who need help, get help,” he said. “I do hope I will be able to recover fully myself. I hope others will know recovery is possible.”

Wojahn’s attorney, David Moyse, pointed out that Wojahn had cooperated fully with the investigation into his actions as soon as P.G. County police entered his house with a search warrant in March. Much of what Moyse said couldn’t be heard due to the faulty sound system in the courtroom, but he urged the judge to take into consideration all the positive aspects of Wojahn’s life.

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Maryland

A Baltimore theater educator lost jobs at Johns Hopkins and the Kennedy Center

Tavish Forsyth concluded they could not work for Trump

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Tavish Forsyth, a queer artist and educator, posted a nude video on YouTube in protest of the Trump administration’s takeover of the Kennedy Center earlier this year. (Photo by Jessica Gallagher for the Baltimore Banner)

BY WESLEY CASE | Tavish Forsyth had come to a conclusion: They could not work for President Donald Trump.

So the 32-year-old Baltimore resident stripped down, turned on their camera, and lit their career on fire.

“F—— Donald Trump and f—— the Kennedy Center,” a naked Forsyth, an associate artistic lead at the Washington National Opera’s Opera Institute, which is run by the Kennedy Center, said in a video that went viral. The board of the nation’s leading cultural institution had elected Trump just weeks prior as its chairman after he gutted the board of members appointed by his predecessor, President Joe Biden.

The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.

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Maryland

Md. schools plan to comply with federal DEI demands

Superintendents opt for cooperation over confrontation

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(Bigstock photo)

By LIZ BOWIE | Deciding not to pick a fight with the Trump administration, Maryland school leaders plan to sign a letter to the U.S. Department of Education that says their school districts are complying with all civil rights laws.

The two-paragraph letter could deflect a confrontation over whether the state’s public schools run diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that the Trump administration has called illegal. The Baltimore Banner reviewed the letter, which was shared by a school administrator who declined to be identified because the letter has not yet been sent.

Maryland school leaders are taking a more conciliatory approach than those in some other states. Education leaders in Minnesota, New YorkColoradoOregon, Vermont, and Wisconsin said they will not comply with the federal education department’s order, the demands of which, they say, are based on a warped interpretation of civil rights law.

The rest of this article can be found on the Baltimore Banner’s website.

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Maryland

FreeState Justice: Transgender activist ‘hijacked’ Moore’s Transgender Day of Visibility event

Maryland Commission on LGBTQIA+ Affairs describes Lee Blinder’s comments as ‘call to action’

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Lee Blinder, founding executive director of Trans Maryland, speaks to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore during a ceremony for the International Day for Transgender Visibility. Blinder called out the governor for not backing up his words with action. (Photo by Jessica Gallagher for the Baltimore Banner)

FreeState Justice on April 11 released a statement criticizing the way that Trans Maryland Executive Director Lee Blinder treated Gov. Wes Moore during a Transgender Day of Visibility event.

FreeState Justice was extremely disappointed with the criticisms of Moore on the Transgender Day of Visibility, saying it was “hijacked by public hostility” by Blinder. The Baltimore Banner reported how Blinder “laid out how the Democratic governor has let down transgender Marylanders by not putting money in the budget and not backing needed policy changes.”

The Washington Blade interviewed Blinder after the March 31 event.

“The intention of what I shared is to show to the governor that this is a community in distress. You know, we are in a real state of emergency for the trans community and there are very few opportunities that the community has to share this directly with the governor.” Blinder told the Blade. “We’re really grateful to the governor for everything that he’s done in the past for this community, but the circumstances have changed and we really need to see very specific actions taken in order to ensure this community has the ability to exist in public space.”

FreeState Justice said Moore did not deserve such criticisms during the event and added in a Blade oped it is “time for new leadership on the Maryland LGBTQIA+ Commission. Leadership that values and prioritizes coalition over conflict. Leadership that invites feedback and shares power. Leadership that understands how Annapolis operates, how budgets are constructed, and how community victories are won.”

“We’re not saying don’t challenge power. We’re saying do it with purpose. Do it with facts. Do it with a strategy. If you’re going to call yourself a leader in this movement, show us the policy platform. Show us the data. Show us the budget line. Show us the work,” wrote FreeState Justice.

The Maryland Commission on LGBTQIA+ Affairs has met to address FreeState Justice’s statements. 

“During the Transgender Day of Visibility ceremony at the State House, the commission’s chair offered remarks reflecting the real fears, concerns, and hopes of the trans community. These remarks were not a call-out, but a call to action,” the commission said in their call to action statement it sent to the Blade. “The chair’s words echoed the thousands of voices we’ve heard across the state through phone calls, emails, and messages on social media to our staff, commissioners, and their affiliated organizations.”

The statement outlines what the call to action entails, addressing what the commission found to be the most pressing issues for transgender Marylanders. They include a lack of dedicated funding, barriers to affirming healthcare, housing insecurity and homelessness, discrimination in education and employment, and escalating violence, harassment, and hate.

“We remain deeply committed to working in partnership with the Moore-Miller administration, the General Assembly, state agencies, nonprofit organizations, and community partners to ensure LGBTQIA+ Marylanders are seen, protected, and supported in policy, budget, and in practice,” reads the statement.

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