Former Hawaii senator resigns as Maryland county leader
FILE - In a Sept. 1, 2008 file photo, Maryland delegate John R. Leopold stands on the floor of the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. Judge Dennis Sweeney on Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013, found Anne Arundel county Executive John Leopold guilty of misconduct in office for using his security detail for political activity. Sweeney also found Leopold guilty of misconduct in office for making a secretary and members of his police detail empty his urine catheter bag. The judge called it "simply outrageous" and an example of "overbearing arrogance." The judge acquitted Leopold of spending $10,000 in overtime pay to use members of security detail for his benefit. Leopold also was acquitted of using some of that overtime money to conceal a personal relationship with a woman. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
ANNAPOLIS, Md. >> The chief executive of Maryland’s fourth-largest county has resigned days after being found guilty of misconduct in office for, among other things, having a secretary empty his urine catheter bag for months.
Sixty-nine-year-old John Leopold was automatically suspended when the judge convicted him Tuesday on two counts of misconduct for also using members of his security detail to perform political activities.Leopold announced his resignation in a letter to the acting chief executive of Anne Arundel County.
Leopold was a Hawaii state senator, representative and Board of Education member before he moved to Maryland. Leopold ran for Hawaii governor as a Republican in 1978 and lost to Democrat George Ariyoshi.
Judge Dennis Sweeney described Leopold as “predatory and cruel” for requiring his secretary to empty the urine bag on her hands and knees up to three times a day for nine or 10 months in 2010.
Leopold said in his resignation letter that he made “serious errors in judgment.”
