A Baltimore judge has opted not to sentence a local man to prison for illegally certifying that hundreds of homes in Maryland were free of lead paint.

This case presented “a dilemma of gargantuan proportions,” Circuit Court Judge Sylvester B. Cox said in a Tuesday hearing, but he decided to limit Rodney Bryan Barkley’s sentence to two years of supervised probation. A total of five years of incarceration was suspended.

Maryland environmental regulators first began looking into Barkley’s record of lead inspections in the spring of 2024, eventually invalidating some 1,500 certificates he’d issued that had deemed homes in Baltimore and across the state safe from toxic lead paint.

The state filed civil charges against Barkley in late 2024 and followed up with a criminal case last July. In October, Barkley pleaded guilty to four counts of issuing falsified lead certificates — misdemeanors that each carry a prison sentence of up to two years and a fine of up to $50,000 — and another count of using a lead paint scanner without a license.

Since filing charges against Barkley, 43, the Maryland Department of the Environment has said at least three children in homes certified by Barkley and his business, Green Environmental, have tested positive for elevated levels of lead in their blood.

Cox told the court Tuesday that he’s used to overseeing the devastating consequences of Baltimore’s scourge of guns, drugs and assaults in his courtroom, but that Barkley’s case felt different. He likened it a “horror show,” in which someone tinkers with chemicals in a lab, yielding devastating impacts for children and families.

It’s particularly rare, the judge added, to sit in front of a defendant with no prior criminal record, whose decisions nonetheless have had consequences “almost like assault.”

Attorneys with the Maryland attorney general’s office had asked Cox to sentence Barkley to a year behind bars, with another five years deferred.

Assistant Attorney General Kory Lemmert characterized Barkley’s errors as intentional, “bald falsifications” and “business decisions” designed to benefit Green Environmental. In one case highlighted by prosecutors Tuesday, Barkley had altered the results of dust samples from a Baltimore apartment from a failing grade to a passing grade.

Lemmert acknowledged that, compared to the typical regulatory-related infractions associated with environmental crimes, the penalties the state was seeking for Barkley were “relatively severe.”

But Barkley had obtained the highest class of lead inspection license, and Lemmert argued that by illegally deeming homes across the state as free of toxic lead paint, the inspector had dealt a “generational impact.”

Lead paint once poisoned thousands of children a year in Baltimore. Regulators have dramatically reduced these risks since the 1990s, but in many old buildings where paint peels and chips off the walls, the neurotoxin remains a hazard.

In Baltimore alone, the number of housing units still containing dangerous levels of lead may be over 85,000, according to a 2022 report by the Abell Foundation.

Baltimore, where Green Environmental is based, accounts for nearly half of the company’s invalidated certificates. But Barkley issued faulty inspections across the state, from Bethesda to Middle River and from Hagerstown to Ocean City.

Patrick Seidel, Barkley’s attorney, pushed back on the state’s arguments that his client somehow falsified lead certificates to benefit himself financially.

He ran through a list of errors and alterations in Barkley’s lead reports, painting them as largely clerical. At the same time, Seidel said his client had emerged from a difficult upbringing, stayed out of trouble before this case, and worked hard, getting into lead inspection because of his own family’s experience with the toxin.

At one point, Cox interrupted to ask whether Seidel was arguing that his client’s mistakes weren’t “willful.”

Seidel said Barkley was cognizant of his mistakes but rejected the idea that they were performed for financial gain. Barkley already faces a steep price for his errors — including through the potential for millions in penalties from the state’s civil case. Meanwhile, his lead inspection business is over, Seidel said.

He didn’t understand the state’s demand for “a pound of flesh,” the defense attorney said.

Since entering his guilty plea in October, Seidel said, his client has voluntarily performed 100 hours of community service.

In brief remarks at the end of the hearing, Barkley expressed remorse. He was saddened and apologetic for his actions, he told the court, and he stressed that he got into the lead inspection business for good reasons.

Growing up in Baltimore, he said, six of his siblings were poisoned by lead paint.

“I am deeply ashamed of myself, and I want to take the opportunity to give back to my community,” he said.