DISTRICT COURT DISCOVERY LEADS TO
FATHER AND SON INDICTMENT

Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran, Jr. announced today the indictment of Brian and Kevin Fitzgerald, the father and son owners of Patrick Investigations, Inc., a Timonium debt collection agency, on multiple counts of conspiracy, perjury and subornation of perjury.

The charges arose out of the discovery by the Towson District Court of literally hundreds of fraudulent affidavits of service where default judgments had been entered against civil defendants who had never in fact been served. Kevin Fitzgerald, 44, of West Lake Avenue in Baltimore, was charged in three counts of lying on affidavits of service that he personally served certain civil defendant, 134 counts of directing employees to lie on affidavits of service that a process server had served certain civil defendants, and one count of conspiring with his father, Brian, to have employees lie on affidavits of service. Brian, 70, of Chetwood Street in Timonium, was charged with a single count of perjury, for lying on an affidavit of service that he had served someone personally when in fact he had not.

The maximum penalty for each count is ten years incarceration. The charges are merely accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. No arraignment date is set yet in Baltimore County Circuit Court.

The case was referred to the Criminal Investigations Division of the Attorney General’s Office by the Towson District Court, and was investigated with the assistance of the Maryland State Police and the U. S. Postal Inspectors.