Remember how David Smith’s company, Sinclair Broadcast Group, was going to air a documentary highly critical of John Kerry and how they were going to have their 62 stations to preempt regular programming to air Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal, a documentary about Kerry’s anti-war activities? Then it backed off. Well, according to an 8 year-old news story Smith was caught with a prostitute in his Mercedes.
From the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 1996: The president of Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., which owns the local Fox television affiliate, was arrested Tuesday night and charged with committing a perverted sex act in a company-owned Mercedes, city police said.
David Deniston Smith, 45, of the 800 block of Hillstead Drive in Timonium, who also is Sinclair’s chief executive, was arrested in an undercover sting at Read and St. Paul streets, a downtown corner frequented by prostitutes, Baltimore police said yesterday.
Smith and Mary DiPaulo, 31, were charged with committing an unnatural and perverted sex act. Smith was held overnight at the Central Booking and Intake Center and released on personal recognizance at 2 p.m. yesterday. DiPaulo’s bail status was not available.
Officials at WBFF-TV (Fox 45) and Sinclair, one of the fastest-growing broadcasting companies in the nation with 28 television and 34 radio stations, would not comment yesterday. The company had $126 million in sales in the first half of this year.
Police said undercover Officer Gary Bowman, on a prostitution detail, was talking to DiPaulo about 9: 15 p.m. in a car at St. Paul and Read streets. She left the undercover car after telling Bowman that “she had just seen her regular date driving in the area,” according to court documents.
Police said DiPaulo ran across the street to a 1992 Mercedes, registered to Sinclair, and got in on the passenger side. Police followed the car onto the Jones Falls Expressway, where they said they witnessed the two engage in oral sex while Smith drove north.
Police said they followed the car back to Read and St. Paul streets, where they arrested Smith and DiPaulo, who lives in the 700 block of Washington Blvd.