Worcester County interim States Attorney Bill McDermott speaks during a Pocomoke City Council meeting on Monday.

Visiting Pocomoke Council Bill McDermott announces ‘exceptional’ court outcome

By Josh Davis, Associate Editor

(March 8, 2018) Interim State’s Attorney Bill McDermott took the occasion of his visit to the Pocomoke City Council Monday night to publicly announce a significant prosecutorial outcome.

“Laquan Townsend, who was arrested some time ago … had a lot to do with a lot of the burglaries that were going on down here,” McDermott said. “Townsend pled guilty today with possession with intent to distribute marijuana [and] possession with intent to distribute cocaine. He was also found guilty of being a felon in possession of numerous different weapons, having stolen those weapons during some of the burglaries” in Pocomoke.

McDermott said Townsend was sentenced to 15 years in jail “to spend all but 10 in the department of corrections, so he’ll be in prison.”

He said five years of the sentence fell under mandatory minimum sentence laws and a violation of probation count was in addition to the other charges.

“That was something directly attributable, I think, to the great partnership between the council, certainly the combined bureau of investigation, mayor’s office and the office of the state’s attorney,” McDermott said. “That literally just happened today and I was really excited about the timing of it, to come down here and tell you guys about it, because that was an exceptionally good result.”

McDermott, who is running to fill state’s attorney position that was vacated when Beau Oglesby was named a circuit court judge, said he was going “all around Worcester County to all the town governments and city governments [to] just introduce ourselves.”

He briefly discussed how the office, based in Snow Hill, works and said there is an “open door policy.” McDermott encouraged visits.

“We love visitors. If you ever have an opportunity, if you’re ever in Snow Hill and you want to stop by to the office, we’d love to show you around,” he said.