Federal Raids On Democrat Mayor Of Baltimore Catherine Pugh Causes Her To
Flee State, by Tim Brown, 4/25/19.
Democrat
Mayor of Baltimore Catherine Pugh has reportedly fled the state of Maryland in
the midst of FBI and IRS raids on her home and office at City Hall.
That's not all, she and five of her staffers are on paid leave amid a scandal
over sales of her children's book "Healthy Holly," even as Governor
Larry Hogan has called on her to resign.
The Baltimore Sun reports: Hauling out boxes of
“Healthy Holly” books and documents, dozens of federal law enforcement agents
Thursday struck businesses, homes and government buildings across Baltimore as
an investigation into Mayor Catherine Pugh’s business dealings widened.
FBI
agents and IRS officials executed search warrants
at her City Hall office, Pugh’s two houses, and offices of the mayor’s allies,
as the growing scandal consumed the city’s attention, generated national
headlines and provoked fresh calls for the embattled Democratic mayor’s
resignation.
“This
is too much for our city,” Democratic City Councilman Zeke Cohen said. “It puts
all of us under a tremendous strain, and again it is not fair either to the
people that live here, or the people that work here.”
Dave
Fitz, an FBI spokesman, confirmed agents from the Baltimore FBI office and the
Washington IRS office searched at least six addresses. The U.S. attorney’s
office confirmed the location of a seventh search. The actions were the first
confirmation that federal authorities, as well as state officials, were
investigating the mayor’s activities.
Pugh remained inside her Ashburton home
during the raids, a police source confirmed. Pugh, 69, did not respond to
messages seeking comment.
Shortly
after the raids began, Maryland Gov. Larry
Hogan called on Pugh,
who has taken a paid leave of absence as mayor, to resign. The Republican governor
had asked the Maryland Office of the State Prosecutor on April 1 to investigate
Pugh’s sales of her self-published “Healthy Holly” children’s book series to
the University of Maryland Medical System while she was on its unpaid board of
directors.
“Today,
agents for the FBI and the IRS executed search warrants at the mayor’s homes
and offices,” Hogan said. “Now, more than ever, Baltimore city needs strong and
responsible leadership. Mayor Pugh has lost the public trust. She is clearly
not fit to lead. For the good of the city, Mayor Pugh must resign.”
NBC 4 reports: The mayor's attorney, Steve Silverman, said
federal agents came to his city law firm Thursday morning to serve a subpoena
for her original financial records. They were directed to a sequestered area
where Pugh's documents were kept, he said, and they did not seek any
attorney-client privileged communications.
And University of Maryland Medical
System spokesman Michael Schwartzberg disclosed that the medical system
received a grand jury witness subpoena seeking documents and information
related to Pugh.
For years, Pugh had somehow negotiated
lucrative deals to sell her "Healthy Holly" books to customers that
included the hospital network she once helped oversee and a major health plan
that does business with the city. She sold $500,000 worth of the illustrated
paperbacks to the University of Maryland Medical System, on whose board she sat
for nearly 20 years. She also made $300,000 in bulk sales to other customers
including two major health carriers that did business with the city.
The revelation of a major federal
investigation comes amid a criminal investigation by the state prosecutor's
office, which probes public corruption in Maryland. Other probes include a
review by the city ethics board and the Maryland Insurance Administration.
CBS
Baltimore also reported that at least six locations were raided: City Hall, Pugh’s home on
Ellamont Avenue, Pugh’s second home on Dennlyn Avenue, Pugh’s attorney’s
office, the Maryland Center for Adult Training and Pugh’s former aide Gary
Brown Jr.’s home.
However,
it appears that Mayor Pugh has "left the building."
“No
one has seen the mayor and her own spokesperson doesn’t know where she is even
though she’s supposed to be recovering from pneumonia,” according to WJZ13. “However, a source tells WJZ however Pugh was at her home
when the raid began, but has since left the state.”
Big League Politics reported: Pugh
is currently being investigated by the Maryland State Prosecutor’s Office in
connection to sales of her “Healthy Holly” children’s books. On April 1, she
announced that she would be taking a leave of absence for “health reasons” as
the scandal grew.
“The
Baltimore Sun reported
last month that Pugh was paid $500,000 by the University of Maryland Medical
System for 100,000 of the books to distribute to schoolchildren,” according to
Thursday’s Baltimore
Sun report. “The
no-bid arrangement was made while she was on the hospital network’s unpaid
board. Health provider Kaiser Permanente later acknowledged that it paid Pugh
more than $100,000 to buy about 20,000 copies of her books during a period when
the company was seeking a lucrative contract to provide health insurance to
city employees.”
Honestly,
Pugh appears as if she is on some form of medication. I wonder if that
will prove to be fatal in this situation.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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