It wouldn't be the first time in MD

"On October 10, 1973, Spiro Agnew became the second Vice President to resign the office. ...  Agnew resigned and then pleaded no contest to criminal charges of tax evasion,[25] part of a negotiated resolution to a scheme wherein he was accused of accepting more than $100,000 in bribes[26] during his tenure as governor of Maryland. Agnew was fined $10,000 and put on three years' probation.[27] The $10,000 fine covered only the taxes and interest due on what was "unreported income" from 1967. The plea bargain was later mocked by former Maryland attorney general Stephen H. Sachs as "the greatest deal since the Lord spared Isaac on the mountaintop."[28] Students of Professor John F. Banzhaf III from the George Washington University Law School, collectively known as Banzhaf's Bandits, found four residents of the state of Maryland willing to put their names on a case and sought to have Agnew repay the state $268,482, the amount it was said he had taken in bribes. After two appeals by Agnew, he finally resigned himself to the matter and a check for $268,482 was turned over to Maryland State Treasurer William S. James in early 1983. ...

As a result of his no-contest plea, the state of Maryland later disbarred Agnew, calling him "morally obtuse".[29] As in most jurisdictions, Maryland lawyers are automatically disbarred after being convicted of a felony, and a no-contest plea exposes the defendant to the same penalties as one would face with a guilty plea."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiro_Agnew

Why did Montgomery County, MD choose a public-private partnership to build the severely flawed Silver Spring Transit Center? Why wasn't the SSTC bid for construction, as has been standard practice for decades for public works projects? Why didn't Montgomery County use the decades' old, tried-and-true process for selecting professional services firms in selecting the engineer/designer and the concrete inspector/tester for the SSTC? Were political "contributions" part of the selection process? 

Is this Sprio Agnew all over again?

And, what has the news media been reporting on for the past year since the severe flaws in the SSTC were made public? Lately they've been running around measuring snow depths, reporting on whose streets have been plowed and whose haven't and counting potholes. Meanwhile, the hows and the whys of the $120+ million, overdue, overbudget, severely flawed SSTC remain unanswered. 

Nice job, news media!

Bottom line: Buying contracts is wrong. It was wrong in Spiro Agnew's day; and, it's still wrong today. ... So much for public private partnerships.