The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • A13

WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 2013 NEWS THE BALTIMORE SUN 13 'Russians' who spied on NATO, EU sentenced German media have said Andreas Anschlag was an engineer in the automobile assembly industry. His wife posed as a housewife, and they had a daughter, the reports said. Although documents that were passed on were classified at the lowest grade of confidentiality, and no damage to German, Dutch, NATO or EU interests was established, judges said the betrayal was "considerable." Frank Simons, Reuters carefully crafted cover stories the defendants posed a significant, abstract danger to Germany," said the judges, sentencing Anschlag and her husband, Andreas not their real names to S's and 6V2 years in prison, respectively. The couple, in their 50s, entered Germany in 1988 and 1990, posing as Austrian citizens from South America Investigators have failed to uncover their real names. From their home in the university town of Marburg, they passed on political and military secrets from the EU and NATO obtained from a contact in the Dutch Foreign Ministry's visa section, and sought recruits.

From 2008, the main task became managing the contact, who was paid at least $94,100. The Dutch man was arrested in March 2012 and sentenced to 12 years. STUTTGART, Germany A middle-aged, middle-class couple presumed to be Russian were sentenced Tuesday for passing on hundreds of NATO and European Union documents in two decades of spying for Moscow At the moment of her arrest in 2011, Heidrun Anschlag was receiving a coded radio transmission from Moscow, the court in Stuttgart said. "Through their excellent training and step up to run rec centers Groups REC CENTERS, From page 1 city-run centers this summer. Another 780 children are enrolled in privately run camps at former city facilities.

Nakiya Holliday, 10, was one of about 50 students signed up at Liberty when the center opened this summer. She knew it would be good between the pool, the dancing, the computers and the horses. "It's pretty fun," said Holliday, a rising sixth-grader, before bounding across the gym floor to get back to the action. Not all rec centers have fared as well as Liberty, however. At least one closed soon after it began private operation and others remain closed as neighborhoods wait for a third-party partner to come along.

Councilman Bill Henry, who represents North Baltimore, said the city should remember that it must strike a balance between youth development and criminal justice. For about 20 years, Henry said, the city has pumped more and more money into crime-fighting initiatives. He and many others say Baltimore must include robust investments in children as part of its public safety strategy. "It's all important," Henry said, "and right now we just don't bring in enough tax revenue to cover all of the important things that we need to be providing." In 199L the city spent roughly $8.7 million to operate 76 recreation centers. The budget for police that year was $182 million.

This year, the city will spend $10.6 million on its recreation centers and $324.9 million on comparable law enforcement programs. The administration notes that much of the growth in the police budget stems from salary increases. The city continues to operate about 35 rec centers, down from 55 this time last year. The centers served about 1,600 kids in 2012. No more closures are planned by the city, Rawlings-Blake said.

She commended the private organizations that have stepped up to run the centers. "We're making tremendous progress in transforming the system of dilapidated, small centers with inconsistent programming, inconsistent staffing, into a network of larger, high-quality community centers that people want to go to," the mayor said. Rawlings-Blake said the city plans to build 10 recreation centers over the next decade, aiming to open many of them in new schools. She highlighted the Rita Church Community Center, named after a former councilwoman and scheduled to open this month. The building, which overlooks the Clifton Park pool, is a converted pavilion with Greek-style columns, exposed wooden beams, skylights and floor-to-ceiling windows.

The Church center is one of three new rec centers the city is building as part of a $19 million plan that includes renovating the Virginia Baker facility in Patterson Park. Kim Trueheart, one of the activists who ALGERINA PERN ABALTIMORE SUN PHOTO Dance teacher Adam Morris shows children how to move like cats at the Cahill Performing Arts Center in West Baltimore, which will be putting on a performance of "The Wiz" on Aug. 8. helps run the Liberty Rec and Tech Center, as it is now called, said the neighborhood centers are a community investment and the city has a responsibility to ensure that the facilities are successful. "Our hard work and dedication to serving our children is paramount," she said.

"We're putting in lots of hard work." Trueheart's group took over the center in November under an agreement with city schools. A $20,000 grant from the Annie E. Casey Foundation helped make the summer camp possible, Trueheart said. Trueheart said the goal is to make the center a comprehensive community resource that will provide workforce development, health screenings and a food bank. The horseback riding program is run by City Ranch a nonprofit that also operates a separate camp at Liberty.

But not all of the rec centers taken over by private groups have succeeded. The Lillian Jones center at Gilmor Elementary reopened in October for an after-school program, but Jeannette Wilson, a mother of two, said it closed in February. She found a sign on the door with the news. 'The center is closing until further and that's it," Wilson said. "We didn't know what happened." City officials say they intend to reopen the Lillian Jones rec center in the coming months.

The transition has hit West Baltimore particularly hard. Four centers, Crispus Attacks, Central Rosemont, Hilton and Harlem Park, were closed permanently. But Councilman William "Pete" Welch, who represents parts of the city's west side, said he is encouraged by talks that are under way to reopen the Central Rosemont and Hilton centers. The details for both are preliminary. Councilman Nick Mosby, who represents Northwest Baltimore, said community activists came forward to serve children in his district.

The Baltimore chapter of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity reopened the Easterwood center, which had been closed for three years. "Rec opportunities are critically important," said Mosby, an Omega Psi Phi brother who said he "grew up" in a Baltimore rec center. The local fraternity chapter took over the center last June and opened an after-school program in November. "We can all rant and rave about what's not being funded," said Zanes Cypress the chapter president. "That's why groups like ours have to step up.

It takes volunteer-ism and some fundraising and a willingness to get your hands dirty." Sabrina Weaver of Northeast Baltimore's Cedonia neighborhood said her son Tristen Kenan, 8, found a spot at the nearby Furley rec center, where the nonprofit Youth Sports Program now serves 150 children. But Weaver wonders how many other kids will have no place to go this summer or in coming years. "That's sad that private groups had to step up," Weaver said. "I want my son to be somebody. We need the city to help them with the beginning of their lives.

We need these centers." Shantel Thigpen, who started Youth Sports a decade ago with her husband, said she supports the mayor's plan, because it gives groups like hers the chance to provide new opportunities for children. Her nonprofit offers sports such as lacrosse and soccer, games, dance, and arts and crafts. By partnering with private groups that allow the city to pump its limited resources into fewer centers, recreational opportunities are enhanced, Thigpen said. "The change was good and I think the vision is great," she said. "We are a throwback to what recreation used to be in Baltimore." ywengerbaltsun.com twitter.comyvonnewenger Women gain majority on highest Md court Shirley M.

Watts AGE: 54 NEW JOB: Judge, Court of Appeals HOME DISTRICT: Baltimore City EXPERIENCE: Judge, Court of Special Appeals and Baltimore City Circuit Court; assistant state's attorney in Baltimore; assistant federal public defender; federal administrative law judge and chief administrative law judge for the Social Security Administration. LAW DEGREE: Rutgers University School of Law, 1983. Appeals judge. Watts, 54, was appointed to the Court of Special Appeals in 201L following nine years as a Baltimore City Circuit Court judge and stints as an assistant state's attorney and federal public defender. Neither judge agreed to be interviewed in advance of the announcement.

More than three-fourths of the women on top courts across the country were appointed since 2000. "That's the progress that's been made: Enough women have had the opportunity to prove themselves," said Sheila K. Sachs, a Baltimore attorney who is chair of the judicial nominating commission. That panel recommended Watts along with four other candidates three of whom were men to represent the Baltimore area, a position Bell has held since 1991 "I graduated law school when no woman had been hired by a major law firm in Baltimore," said Sachs, who earned her law degree from the University of Maryland in 1964. "Decades afterward, women began to come out of law school in greater numbers, they proved themselves, and now you're seeing the result of that.

It's all a recent phenomenon. Thank God, it's happening." When Barbera graduated from law school in 1984 and when Watts graduated in 1983, roughly 40 percent of law students were women up from 23 percent a decade earlier, according to data compiled by the American Bar Association. Baltimore attorney M. Natalie McSherry, one of the finalists to replace Bell, called the majority female court "inevitable, I would like to think. "It obviously has some historical significance, every first does, but I'd like to think that we're past that," McSherry said, "It shouldn't be a question of how many men and how many women.

It should be a question of who is the best qualified. When will there be enough women? When we stop talking about it." In 1979 Judge Rita Davidson was the first woman appointed to the state's top court. Davidson's five-year tenure ended nine years before the next woman, Judge Irma Raker, was appointed. Raker served nine years before a second woman, Judge Lynne A. Battaglia, was appointed to join her on the court in 2002.

"Studies show that if you have one woman in isolation that her influence is quite limited, because she's just a token," said researcher Joan Williams, a law professor who has specialized in gender and employment for 20 years and currently works at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law. "The important point is that we're not there anymore." In 1989, Maryland's legal community launched a commission to study gender bias in court rulings, law school educations, and judicial appointments. It found only one woman on an appellate court, and 19 Maryland counties with no female judges at all. When the Select Commission on Gender Equality issued its second report in 200L it found that between 1989 and 200L women went from 9 percent of Maryland judges to 23 percent. Bell, then the chief judge, wrote that despite the progress, "We have yet more to do." The report found no women serving on district or circuit courts in 14 Maryland counties.

'Tor everyone in the legal system, to see a judiciary or a professional staff that looks like their community, I think that emphasizes trust and confidence that they are going to get a fair shake," said retired Montgomery County administrative judge WOMEN, From page 1 member court the first time women would hold a majority in the court's more than two -century history. Watts also is the first African-American woman to be appointed to the court Legal observers say the expanding role of women in Maryland courts represents the culmination of a trend that began 40 years ago when female enrollment in law schools spiked. "We've made some historic strides, but really that's attributable to the women in the legal profession here in Maryland who have demonstrated such outstanding skills in the courtroom and as lawyers and judges," said O'Malley, whose wife, Catherine Curran O'Malley, is a Baltimore district judge. The appointments come at a time when most American power centers, including courts, are still dominated by men. Nationally, only 36 percent of judges in top courts are women.

State legislatures are 24 percent women. Corporate board rooms: 15 percent women. Only eleven other states have a majority of female judges on their top courts, and 19 have women as the chief judge, according to data compiled by the National Center for State Courts. "Hopefully it will become the norm," said Joan Churchill, president of the National Association of Women Judges and a retired U.S. immigration judge who lives in Montgomery County.

Barbera and Watts are "just great, great appointments," Bell said Tuesday. Bell is required by law to retire from the Court of Appeals when he turns 70 on Saturday. Barbera, 6L was appointed to the Court of Appeals in 2008 after jobs as an assistant attorney general, as legal counsel to Gov. Parris N. Glendening and a Court of Special Ann Harrington, who chaired the commission in 2001 "Our past four administrations have been very focused on making sure that our appointments reflect our community.

There were a lot of minorities appointed, a lot of women appointed, and the sky didn't fall. Everyone did well," Harrington said. Nancy A. Sachitano, president of the Women's Bar Association of Maryland, called the appointments of a majority of women to the state's highest court "only significant in the fact that it has not happened before." In late April, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg remarked at a conference about women on the Supreme Court: "Sometimes I'm asked the question When will there be and I say, Well, when there are For most of the country's existence, there were nine of the same sex and they were all men, and nobody thought that that was out of order." Could the same be said of Maryland's Court of Appeals? "That will probably be a question for the next governor to answer," O'Malley said. ecoxbaltimoresun.com.