St. Mary’s County judge to face first public reprimand hearing since rules change

By Madeleine O'Neill

A St. Mary’s County Orphans’ Court judge will face a first-of-its-kind hearing Monday over a potential reprimand being considered by the Maryland Commission on Judicial Disabilities.

The details of the allegations against Judge Michael R. White have not been made public, though Monday’s hearing will be open to the public.

Under a 2019 change to the rules of judicial discipline, a judge can request a hearing if he or she contests the facts underlying a proposed reprimand. Monday’s proceeding in Annapolis will be the first public reprimand hearing since the rules change.

Reprimands are generally kept confidential and are a lower-level sanction than a public censure. Before the rules change, when judges refused to accept a private reprimand, the commission either had to file public charges or drop the case.

Now, a judge can challenge a reprimand privately if they are questioning whether it is the appropriate discipline for his conduct; if a judge is disputing the facts underlying the proposed reprimand, however, the commission holds a public hearing.

No information is publicly available about what preceded the upcoming hearing in White’s case. White could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

White is embroiled in a messy legal battle involving several members of his family and an Annapolis-based e-commerce company called Compass Marketing. The company’s executive chairman is Michael White’s brother John White.

Compass Marketing sued Michael White and another of John’s brothers, Daniel White, in February 2022. Daniel White was a prosecutor in the Office of the State’s Attorney for St. Mary’s County when the lawsuit was filed. The suit also named Michael White’s son, George White, who heads the Forestville Barrack of the Maryland State Police.

Compass Marketing’s suit, which has since been dismissed, accused Michael and Daniel White of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the company through a series of secretive financial maneuvers.

The brothers both held leadership roles at Compass Marketing, which was founded in 1998 to help large companies sell “consumer-packaged goods,” or items that customers use and replenish regularly.

Compass added online services and began helping clients sell their goods on Amazon as the internet gained popularity, according to the complaint.

The complex 80-page lawsuit also claimed that other members of the company stole Compass Marketing’s trade secrets and used insider information to form a competing company called Flywheel Digital. Flywheel picked off many of Compass Marketing’s clients and was ultimately sold to a British company for $400 million, according to the suit.

After the sale, Compass Marketing fired Michael and Daniel White and launched an investigation into their conduct, the complaint claimed.

The complaint charged that Michael and Daniel White opened secret bank accounts into which they deposited Compass client checks and used the money for personal gain; that they added family members to the company’s payroll but hid them as “ghost employees” by falsifying records; that they embezzled millions of dollars by paying large “tax checks” to the IRS, knowing that those checks would result in substantial refunds; and that they repaid themselves with company money for personal loans that were never actually made.

U.S. District Judge George L. Russell III threw out the Compass Marketing lawsuit in February. Russell found that the company’s trade secrets claims were expired under the statute of limitations and that Compass Marketing failed to state a claim against Daniel, Michael and George White.

The company has appealed to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The dispute has also spurred other lawsuits among the family members.

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St. Mary’s County judge to face first public reprimand hearing since rules change