Recent public corruption convictions of eight Baltimore police officers on federal racketeering charges and the guilty plea for fraud of former city Del. Nathaniel Oaks may make Marylanders forget that it was public graft in the suburbs that led to the creation of the Maryland State Prosecutor’s office 42 years ago.

“Eyes of Justice,” the memoir of the office’s longtime investigator, James Cabezas, provides a concise summary of the embarrassing scandals in Maryland that transpired as President Richard Nixon was nearing his resignation in 1974. This is The Sun’s third peek into Cabezas’ book, written with journalist Joan Jacobson, and its rich insider’s history of catching politicians abusing their powers.

“Back in 1973 I was fascinated by the federal investigation of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew for taking kickbacks from engineers who got no bid contracts when he served as Baltimore County executive. He kept taking payoffs after he became governor and vice president,” writes Cabezas, who retired two years ago.

Agnew resigned after pleading no contest to a single felony tax evasion charge.

For the next four years, other high-profile political corruption cases were prosecuted in federal court, before Maryland had an office to focus on corruption.

• In 1974, Baltimore County State’s Attorney Samuel A. Green Jr. was convicted of “conspiring to take money from a man who wanted his arrest record expunged.” (Gov. William Donald Schaefer pardoned Green 20 years later.)

• Also in 1974, “Baltimore County Executive Dale Anderson, Agnew’s successor, was convicted of conspiracy for extorting almost $40,000 from contractors,” and former Anne Arundel County Executive Joe Alton pleaded guilty in federal court “for extorting kickbacks from consultants.”

• In 1976, Del. George Santoni was “convicted in federal court of attempting to extort almost $15,000 from a contractor in exchange for his help getting ... contracts from Baltimore City.” The contractor was a phony company set up by the FBI.

In 1977, Gov. Marvin Mandel “was convicted ... of pushing legislation to benefit his friends, who gave him hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and gifts.”

The following year Cabezas was assigned as a city police officer to work with the new state prosecutor’s office as an investigator. It’s a job he would take on full time and remain at until 2017.

“After so many high-profile convictions of politicians, there was a clamor from the Maryland General Assembly and the public to create a state office exclusively dedicated to flushing out political fraud, bribery and influence peddling, as well as maintaining integrity in government and the election process,” he writes.

— Doug Donovan