U. of Maryland Prof. Convicted of Bribery

Al-Tony Gilmore, the former Afro-American studies program director at the University of Maryland was sentenced to three years in prison for accepting further from a student in return for good grades.

Gilmore was also ordered by circuit court judge Arthur Ahalt to pay to the university the nearly $21,000 he received in bribes.

Gilmore had pleaded guilty to the bribery charges two months ago, but the sentencing did not occur until later. He went to jail last Monday.

Gilmore's attorney, Edward Mance, told Ahalt that the associate professor would also resign from the university and withdraw his appeal to a Campus Senate committee to save his job.

Ahalt in his sentence ordered Gilmore to pay the university $20,952 in funds he received since 1976, when he first arrived, there. He is accused of making his first arrangement in 1976 with graduate student Sonja Watson--and later with Glen Harris and Linda Holiday--to grade and receive payment for work they did not do.

"This is an offense against the people of the state of Maryland of the highest character," Ahalt said after handing down his judgment, which includes five years of probation.

Mance, in his pre-sentencing statement said Gilmore's crime was not planned. "There was not a preconceived calculated plan by Dr. Gilmore to get involved in this kind of activity," he said. "I think this is a serious issue in his favor."

But Ahalt rejected that argument. "Your attorney's suggestion that your conduct is not preconceived is repugnant to this member of the bench and will not be accepted by this member of the bench," he said to Gilmore. "This took place over a five-year basis.

Earlier in the trial prosecutors, who had been monitoring Gilmore's phone since 1982, played copies of tapes of telephone conversations he had with the students. The students had been given immunity of prosecution in return for testifying against Gilmore.

In one such call, a panicked Harris asked Gilmore how to deal with questioning from the campus provest's office.

"But the thing about it, whether I know or didn't know or whatever, I'm getting fucking checks from these fucking white folks man and these mother fuckers gonna say, know what I mean, they gonna say I took fucking money from them," Harris told the associate professor. "No, no, no, listen," Gilmore responded. "You were actually doing the school work for me. You just weren't enrolled in school."

Meanwhile, in another case of corruption at Maryland, university president John Toil has recommended that the Board of Regents fire jailed mechanical engineering professor Shao Ti Hsu became Hsu's perjury conviction constitutes a violation of the faculty conduct code.

Hsu was sentenced to 20 months to seven years in jail April 6 by a Washington, D.C., superior court judge for lying under oath about receiving documents ordering him to make repairs to rental properties he owned there. --The University of Maryland Diamondback