Case Goes to Jury in Ex-Schools Chief's Retrial

This from the Washington Post:

The witness list was virtually unchanged. The judge and lwyers were the same. So, too, was much of the evidence, as former Prince George's County schools chief Andre J. Hornsby, whose last trial ended in a hung jury, was tried again on public corruption charges.

Yesterday, after a familiar round of closing arguments, the case was turned over to the participants whose presence set the current prosecution apart from the first one: the jurors.

In closing arguments at U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, the prosecution and the defense drew competing portraits of Hornsby, who resigned in 2005 and was indicted the following year. The government depicted Hornsby as a liar and a cheat, and the defense cast him as a hard-charging educator determined to do right by his students.

"Andre Hornsby was paid $250,000 a year by the people of Prince George's County, plus a car, plus a bonus," Assistant U.S. Attorney Stuart A. Berman said. "But that wasn't enough."

"He's aggressive," Hornsby's attorney, Robert C. Bonsib, told the jurors. "Maybe he ruffles feathers, but he ruffles them for the right reasons."

Hornsby, 54, is accused of taking kickbacks in exchange for steering school system contracts to his girlfriend and a longtime business associate. Jurors in his first trial deadlocked in November, and prosecutors brought the case a second time. ...

A frightened girl asked the driver to slow down ...But he didn't

This from The Washingtron Post

Raw Video: School Bus Crashes in Maryland

School Bus Overturns in

Prince George's County Maryland

44 Students Hospitalized

With Minor Injuries;

Driver Is Accused of Speeding

School bus 1156 was going too fast. That much was clear to the 44 students heading to William Wirt Middle School in the Riverdale area just before 9 a.m. yesterday.

A frightened girl asked the driver to slow down, four passengers recalled. But he didn't, the four said. And the students received an unpleasant lesson in physics: The top-heavy bus, whipping into a left turn from Riverdale Road onto 61st Place, tipped over onto its side, grinding to a halt and throwing screaming children into a heap.

The students and the driver were sent to hospitals with injuries that were not life-threatening, police and school officials said. Antonio Nate Robinson, 46, was charged with speeding, negligent driving and not wearing a seat belt, said Officer Henry Tippett, a spokesman for the Prince George's County police. The violations could result in a total fine of $435 and six points on his driver's license.

Robinson, of Hyattsville, had five traffic violations in Maryland from 1985 to 1992, according to court records. The violations included failing to obey a stop sign and driving the wrong way down a one-way street. In Virginia in 1998, he was ticketed for going 70 to 74 mph in a 55 mph zone.
The Maryland violations were considered minor and old enough not to prevent him from being hired as a bus driver by the Prince George's County school system in August 2006.

Robinson's record "certainly came up during his screening," said John White, a spokesman for the school system. "There were no traffic accidents, so to speak. . . . He had 14 years between '92 and 2006. We thought that was a significant time with a clean driving record, and we thought with training he could be a responsible driver." ...