Spotted in court
He was an interested party, and he was supporting a friend in court on a traffic charge.
Those are the reasons offered by John Vontran to explain why he was present during Carroll “Roy” Bond’s illegal slot machine trial yesterday.
Vontran, who was formerly the president of Baltimore-based Amusement Novelty, has had his own run-ins with the law related to owning and operating alleged illegal slot machines (though no convictions). In an article I wrote last month, Vontran said he is out of the business and is now a real estate developer.
In September, the county sold him a 9.8-acre parcel of land formerly known as the Yorkway Apartment complex for $1.6 million. That’s less than 10 percent of the nearly $21 million in taxpayer money the county spent to acquire the troubled property which county officials said was plagued with as many as 4,000 calls for police service annually. (You can read that story here.)
Vontran showed up just before the beginning of Bond’s trial. He stood in the front of the courtroom behind the defendant’s table exchanging small talk for several minutes with Bond and Steven Tully, Bond’s attorney. During the short hearing, Vontran sat in the back of the courtroom, on the aisle near the door.
Afterwards, Vontran chatted with police detectives outside the courtroom, telling them he showed up because he was “an interested party.”
I had a chance to chat with Vontran before he left. He told me was there “with a friend who had a traffic case in court.” He didn’t name the friend, and he left alone.