PRINCIPAL STANDS BY TROUBLED TEACHER

Letter Asks Judge For Leniency For Convicted Felon

A Baltimore principal used school stationery to request leniency for
a teacher who had pleaded guilty in August to carrying 5 pounds of
cocaine in his car and was allowed to continue teaching until his
sentencing two weeks ago.

The two-page letter of support from Principal Edith M. Jones defended
Martius Harding as a talented but troubled teacher who shepherded his
special education pupils and served as a role model for children and
staff at Govans Elementary School.

"Judge Bennett, Mr. Harding is a very kind, caring man, with an
unbelievable spirit as a father and teacher," Jones wrote. "He is a
young man, A young man, who, as intelligent as he is, having gone to
some of the finest formalized schools, has done some very stupid
things in his life."

U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett made the letter public
yesterday at the request of The Sun.

The letter does not explain why Jones allowed Harding to teach at the
North Baltimore school when he arrived with a felony conviction from
2001. It also does not detail why Harding failed to receive his state
certification or why he continued teaching this year after an arrest
on cocaine possession charges in February last year and a drug
conviction in August. Schools officials have declined to say whether
Jones acted appropriately.

In August, Harding, 28, of Aberdeen, pleaded guilty in U.S. District
Court to conspiracy to distribute cocaine. His lawyer Lawrence B.
Rosenberg said yesterday that, at Bennett's request, he wrote a
letter to Jones at the time with news about the plea.

But Jones allowed Harding, who was hired in 2002, to continue to
teach for the entire school year. He was sentenced on June 16 to
serve seven years in prison.

In her letter, Jones said any punishment for Harding should be
tempered by his dedication to the school and his responsibilities to
his family.

"Mr. Harding has been devastated and perplexed since his arrest;
however, he has managed to perform effectively in spite of his
burden," Jones wrote to Bennett.

"I feel he has made some absolutely terrible mistakes and horrible
choices," she continued. " ... To take him from his five children at
home and the staff and students, who depend on him at the school as
well, will be a travesty for all. If there is some other way, I am
believing God for it."

Reached at her school office yesterday, Jones declined to comment.
She demanded to know how a reporter had obtained a copy of the
letter, and questioned whether it was legal for the newspaper to print it.

Harding, who was arrested during a traffic stop in Cecil County,
remains on home detention until his reporting date to prison, which
is no later than Aug. 16, according to court records.

Yesterday Harding did not return a phone message left with his
lawyer.

Rosenberg has said that Harding got into drug dealing as a way to
make money and support an expensive legal fight to secure visitation
with one of his children. That explanation is echoed in a letter
written by his fiancee to the federal judge.

"It is not a day that goes by that he does not talk about Ariel,"
Harding's fiancee, Jessica M. Evans, wrote to Bennett, in another
letter released yesterday. "She is the missing piece in his life.
Martius looks at Ariel's pictures daily, and I see the hurt in his
eyes when he looks at them. Getting Ariel back is his number one
priority."

But Harding's federal court case in Baltimore wasn't his first brush
with the law.

Records show that Harding pleaded guilty in May 2001 to participating
in an elaborate fraud using credit cards on the Internet, stealing
tens of thousands of dollars worth of goods, including a late-model
Jeep and two new motorcycles.

Harding, who had wrestled for the University of Virginia and West
Virginia University before his felony arrest, was sentenced to five
years' probation and an indeterminate period of home detention.

The next year, the Baltimore school system hired Harding as a special
education teacher at Govans.

Jones wrote in her letter that Harding taught 12 to 15 severely
emotionally disturbed pupils.

"Words can not express what his male influence has been on his
students, many of whom do not have fathers in the home or male figures
in their lives," she wrote.

She added that "his professional responsibilities were consistently
managed with care and efficiency."

But the state said it had no record of a teaching certificate for
Harding, a father of five who drove a Mercedes and oversaw a
character-building club for boys called Govans Gentlemen.

School system spokeswoman Edie House declined to comment on Harding's
case and Jones' letter, saying the issues are personnel matters. She
said only that the system follows Maryland law governing employment of
teachers with criminal backgrounds.

"Whatever the Maryland law says, that's where we are," House
said.

State law says that a school board "may" suspend or dismiss a teacher
for grounds including "immorality."

The law also says that a teaching certificate should be suspended or
revoked if a teacher pleads guilty to a "controlled dangerous
substance offense." But state officials have said that Harding did not
have a certificate.

School systems are required under state law to conduct criminal
background checks on employees before hiring them. Harding was hired
at Govans in 2002 despite a felony conviction for fraud during the
previous year.

A legislative audit released Friday concluded that the Maryland State
Department of Education has not implemented adequate safeguards to
prevent convicted criminals from working in schools.

State Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick said it is the responsibility
of local school systems to conduct criminal background checks for all
employees.

For Jones, Harding is not beyond redemption.

"I think that he has learned an invaluable lesson, in that what he
will lose (his profession, family, etc.) far outweighs anything else,"
she wrote to the judge.