Maine man arrested in campaign office break-in

BALTIMORE – A tugboat operator from Maine, charged with breaking into Mayor Martin O’Malley’s gubernatorial campaign headquarters, remained in jail Monday after a judge reduced his bail from $5,000 to $350.

Jason Yereance, 32, of Walpole, Maine, asked Baltimore District Judge Jamey H. Weitzman to release him on his own recognizance, pleading, “I don’t know anybody down here. I work on a boat.”

It was unclear whether Yereance would be able to post the reduced bail, which the judge ordered paid in cash.

Yereance was arrested after police responded to a forced entry alarm about 3:40 a.m. Sunday in the Baltimore building where O’Malley’s campaign office is located.

Police said no signs of theft were immediately apparent. Rick Abbruzzese, a spokesman for O’Malley’s campaign, also said nothing appeared to be missing.

“We’ve been through the office and nothing appeared to be out of place,” said Abbruzzese, who went to the office about 7:15 a.m. Sunday after hearing about the break-in.

However, Yereance has been charged with two counts of second-degree burglary, a felony charge meaning that he allegedly was attempting theft, said Margaret Burns, a spokeswoman for the state’s attorney’s office.

She also said he has been charged with two counts of fourth-degree burglary, misdemeanors that do not involve an intent to steal.

Matt Jablow, a Baltimore police spokesman, said it did not look like Yereance targeted the campaign office.

“It appears he was intoxicated and was looking for someplace to go to the bathroom and he stumbled across this office,” Jablow said.

Lisa Clifford, who answered the Maine phone number listed as Yereance’s in the charging documents and identified herself as his fiancee, said he was traveling on business and wasn’t involved in politics.

“It seems like an unfortunate accident on his part,” Clifford told The Associated Press Sunday in a telephone interview.

O’Malley’s campaign office is located in a renovated industrial building in the Canton section of Baltimore, a nightspot with many bars and restaurants.

The first floor of the structure includes an Outback Steakhouse and Ray Lewis’ Full Moon Bar-BQ, and there are no indications from outside the building that the campaign office is on the second floor.

On Monday morning, a worker was repairing the double doors at the corner of Boston and Hudson streets, through which Yereance allegedly entered. The latch on the doors had been broken. The doors open into a stairwell that leads directly up to the campaign office. Abbruzzese said the office doors inside the building had been left unlocked, although the bathrooms were locked.

“The bottom line is, our doors should have been locked,” he said.

O’Malley, a Democrat, is running for governor against Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich.

In November 2005, Lt. Gov. Michael Steele’s new campaign headquarters for his U.S. Senate bid was broken into and computers were stolen.