The Daily Times on the Trail of Frank White

This is something the Pocomoke people have been talking about for years, Frank White got off way to easy for selling confiscated drugs and guns while he was the Pocomoke City Police Chief.
Hopefully due to the investigation of the Daily Times White may have to finally own up to his illegal life style.

Ex-police chief no stranger to controversy


PRINCESS ANNE -- In the end, Frank White was sentenced to six months in jail. Confronted nearly 15 years later about the 1995 criminal conviction, the former Pocomoke City police chief snaps, "I did my time."

And so he did, for Count 5 -- obstruction of justice in office. In a plea bargain, four counts of misconduct in a Worcester County grand jury indictment were not prosecuted.

Most recently, as the elected Princess Anne Town Commissioners president, White stepped in for four months as acting town manager. In the wake of his short stint that ended in June, White's use of a town credit card is under scrutiny, following a Freedom of Information filing by the Somerset Herald.

White has not been charged with any wrongdoing as acting Princess Anne town manager, but he is no stranger to controversy. In Pocomoke City in 1995, indictments against White as police chief ranged from the unlawful acceptance of money and property, to false imprisonment and unlawful release of citizens, to interfering with a citation issued by a Pocomoke City police officer to the son of an elected official.

White dismisses the accusations that forced his 1994 resignation as chief in the months leading up to the Worcester grand jury indictment, claiming he paid for alleged wrongdoings by another police officer, who at the time faced similar charges but whose criminal record was since expunged.

An Alford plea of guilty to the fifth of five counts against White was entered -- that he "interfered and attempted to interfere" with the issuance of a complaint citation involving Dewayne Ellsworth Cane, son of Pocomoke City Councilman Honiss Cane. All but 10 days of White's six-month sentence was suspended, and he was ordered to serve out the remainder of the time during five consecutive weekends beginning October 1995 in the Worcester County Detention Center. He also was ordered to a year of supervised probation.

"What happened was that (police officer) Oscar Townsend fixed (traffic) tickets for Honiss Cane's son," White said last week. "I've been accused of several things that were not true. What went on happened on my watch -- I got railroaded."



"I paid (for) that"
White spoke about the ordeal, recalling that, "I paid (for) that; I spent two weekends in jail."



Court records also show that in early 1996, Judge Richard D. Warren granted White permission to vacation for a week in Cancun during his one-year supervised probation.

As a member of the Pocomoke City Council and a Worcester Sheriff's deputy, White won the job of Pocomoke police chief when the position became available in 1988. He served six years. In that role, special county investigators raided the Pocomoke City Police Department and City Hall, confiscating from White's desk drawer "a clear evidence bag containing a controlled and dangerous substance" and handguns described by investigators as a .22, two .32s and a .357.

A grand jury learned that in 1992, a 16-year-old Andre William Allen was released by White, rather than processed at the police department as an adult offender for allegedly carrying a loaded handgun, as ordered by Deputy State's Attorney Jeffrey Cropper. "Instead, Allen was released by Chief of Police Paul Frank White without any further due process," according to a statement entered into court record.

The handgun, the statement reads, "cannot be located and is presumed to be stolen."

Five counts
Another indictment log entry alleges that White collected $450 in Worcester school board funding that was slated to pay off-duty police officers working Pocomoke High School basketball games in 1989. White, accompanied by Councilman Cane, visited Vice Principal Jim Covington at the school and explained that the money instead "had gone into a drug fund to buy drugs."

White then presented Covington $180, saying he "realized it did not look right for him to have taken the money," reads the report.

"The remaining balance of $270 has not been accounted for by Chief White," the court submission also states.

Complaints led to a 1995 indictment by a grand jury for these criminal counts against White:


Count 1 -- Unlawfully, willfully and corruptly demanded, accepted and received currency, property, goods and services between March 1993 and September 1994.


Count 2 -- Caused the false imprisonment of citizens between March 1993 and September 1994.


Count 3 -- Unlawfully, willfully and corruptly caused the release of citizens who had been arrested between March 1993 and September 1994.


Count 4 -- Interfered with the disposition of ... citations issued to Dewayne Ellsworth Cane between August 1994 and October 1994.


Count 5 -- Obstructed, impeded and endeavored to obstruct and impede the due administration of justice by interfering and attempting to interfere with the deposition ... of citations issued to Dewayne Ellsworth Cane.

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