McDonough Calls For Firing Of State Prisons Head

The head of the state prison system should be fired after federal indictments of 25 guards and inmates were made public last week, according to Del. Pat McDonough.

"Gary Maynard should be fired, like two weeks ago," McDonough, a Middle River Republican, said. "This has been going on for years. It's widespread and it's institutional."

Raquel Guillory, a spokeswoman for the governor, said O'Malley "has repeatedly expressed confidence in Secretary Maynard."

Earlier this week, O'Malley called the indictments a positive development in the fight against gangs, according to a WMAR television report.

The governor praised Maynard during a May 1 Board of Public Works meeting.

"You do good work rooting out corruption," O'Malley told Maynard.

The governor later told Maynard he had his support in continuing to expose corruption in the prisons and noted that some of the issues date back before his administration.

"We have a lot of work to do but there's a lot of progress that has been made," O'Malley said.

McDonough Thursday said problems in the prison system that houses 25,000 inmates spans O'Malley's two terms in office and has resulted in the deaths of inmates and Marylanders who were not incarcerated.

In July 2007, Carl Lackl was killed outside his Rosedale home. Lackl was killed because he was to testify in a case involving Patrick Byers, a member of the Bloods gang.

Byers was convicted of ordering the hit on Lackl from his prison cell using a smuggled cell phone.

Last week, 13 female correctional officers in a state prison in Baltimore were accused in indictments of working with members of the Black Guerrilla Family gang to smuggle in drugs and other contraband.

Tavon "Bulldog" White, the alleged leader of the gang, is accused of fathering five children with four female corrections officers, according to the indictments.

"Bulldog White did a better job of running that institution than Maynard or O'Malley," McDonough said.

Maynard also called for O'Malley to set up a commission to look into corruption in the system and to have the FBI or another independent agency to more fully investigate the prison system.