For nearly two decades, Scott Shellenberger has been the face of the Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s Office. And not just that, but the office’s face at community meetings, its presence on social media, and a symbol of its law-and-order crime-fighting strategy.
Now, two younger but experienced prosecutors are arguing that it’s time for a change. At an often-contentious and pointed debate Thursday at the Towson Armory, Deputy State Prosecutor Sarah David and Baltimore City Prosecutor Lauren Lipscomb each presented their case for replacing Shellenberger, 67, in the top job.
For an hour, the candidates sparred over increasingly relevant issues in a county of 856,000 residents; among them, juvenile crime, the manner in which the office prosecutes sexual assaults, the lack of available data about prosecutions, and turnover in the office.
The three are running in the June 23 Democratic primary. No Republicans are running in the race.
The Banner and WJZ-TV hosted the event, which was moderated by the news station’s Mike Hellgren and Banner reporter Céilí Doyle.
The news organizations are partners, and the journalists formulated most of the questions, with one question coming from the audience
David, who lives in Towson, has been campaigning to be the county’s top prosecutor for nearly two years and has raised $431,000 – more than three times what Shellenberger has brought in. Lipscomb, who lives in Owings Mills and entered the race late, has raised only $16,600. David has also racked up dozens of endorsements, including from Gov. Wes Moore.
Lipscomb attacked Shellenberger for his record and David for what Lipscomb described as her inexperience with criminal cases. She said Shellenberger represented the “status quo” while David would mean “amateur hour.” She emphasized her experience — 20 years as a prosecutor — and said she was the only one who could be trusted to prosecute juvenile crime and violent offenders.
“This is not a bake sale,” Lipscomb said repeatedly during the debate. She called David a “nice lady” whose experience investigating corrupt public officials was not adequate to the job of prosecuting violent offenders.
“If Towson residents are concerned about being publicly corrupted as they get out of their car and go shopping at Towson Town Center, then she is the person for you,” Lipscomb said.
Lipscomb also said Shellenberger had turned the race into “a personal vanity project,” which in part explained why he was prominent on social media and at community events while his staff was not. Shellenberger said his prosecutors belong in court.
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David and Shellenberger mostly ignored Lipscomb’s shots. But after several instances of Lipscomb attacking her lack of experience, David responded that she was the only person on stage who had managed budgets, appealed to the state for increased funds for her office, and prosecuted cases in the courtroom.
“I am the second in command for an independent state agency. I manage our litigation, our budget, our strategic partnerships, our legislation,” David said. Among her prosecutions: former Gov. Larry Hogan’s former Chief of Staff Roy McGrath (who later died during a confrontation with law enforcement), a police officer having sexual relations with teenagers while on duty, and a city prosecutor using his access to obtain his ex-girlfriend’s phone records.
“I would just like to take brief issue with the statement that political corruption and police misconduct cases are not serious cases,” she said. “They are, and the work that we do in prosecuting political corruption and police misconduct cases is extremely important and something Baltimore County doesn’t have.”
Asked after the debate about the bake-sale comment, David smiled and said, “I don’t bake.”
Shellenberger, of Towson, spent much of the debate on the defensive, arguing that he’s kept the county safe for nearly 20 years and deserves four more to deliver those consistent results. But David said the public doesn’t know those results because Shellenberger does not keep statistics. The police statistics, she argued, do not tell the whole story.
Both David and Lipscomb argued that the Baltimore County State’s Attorney office needed to be modernized. The office does not have a website separate from the page the county operates. When Shellenberger replied, as he has before, that all of his prosecutors have laptops and cellphones, David countered that wasn’t enough.
“Modernization is not questioning the laptops or cellphones in the office,” she said. “Modernization is about how the office approaches leadership.”
Shellenberger likes to promote from within, so many of the more than 60 attorneys who work for him are former law clerks. Some stay for years until they depart for higher-paying private-sector or federal jobs. David said her office is different: She hires from law firms, the public defender’s office, other agencies and other states, which she said provides a diverse perspective on how to present cases.
Shellenberger again came under fire for how he has prosecuted and investigated alleged sexual assaults. His challengers brought up the Anna Borkowski lawsuit that ultimately cost taxpayers $100,000. After Shellenberger’s office declined to charge three male UMBC baseball players who Borkowski said raped her, Borkowski — then a Towson University student — asked a district court commissioner to file charges. Shellenberger sent police officers to her home to dissuade her.
While the state Board of Public Works approved the settlement in 2022, members also voiced their displeasure at “paying for something that shouldn’t have happened.”
David also compared Shellenberger’s handling of decades-old Baltimore County rapes to the way Detroit handled similar cases. The Michigan city quickly tested 11,000 kits and secured convictions of 853 serial rapists. Baltimore County’s evidence came from slides that a doctor at Greater Baltimore Medical Center preserved; they are not exactly rape kits, but some included DNA and other evidence.
“Here in Baltimore County, those kits were being destroyed early, they were not being tested, and our state’s attorney failed to lead and make sure they were,” David said.
Baltimore County is still testing that evidence. Shellenberger said his office proceeded diligently and that they have convicted 49 rapists; the county has tested about 2,200 slides.
“I run a very good office. We do a great job,” Shellenberger said. “We’ve been keeping you safe for 19 years. I want to keep you safe for another four.”
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