Former Baltimore mayor gets 3 years
BALTIMORE — Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, who held elected offices in Baltimore for two decades, was sentenced to three years in federal prison Thursday for a fraud scheme involving a children’s book series.
U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow described Pugh’s crimes as “astounding” and said she took advantage of a career spent doing good works to mislead organizations who purchased her “Healthy Holly” books.
“I have yet, frankly, to hear any explanation that makes sense,” the judge said. “This was not a tiny mistake, lapse of judgment. This became a very large fraud. The nature and circumstances of this offense clearly, I think, are extremely, extremely serious.”
Pugh, 69, tearfully asked Chasanow for mercy and apologized in court “to anyone I have offended or hurt through my actions.” She said she had “turned a blind eye” and “sanctioned things I should not have,” but did not intend to cause harm.
Pugh’s political fall began in March when The Baltimore Sun revealed she had entered into a nobid deal with the University of Maryland Medical System, where Pugh sat on the board of directors, to buy 100,000 copies of her sloppily self-published “Healthy Holly” books for $500,000. She later resigned from the board and as mayor amid multiple investigations into her finances and the book sales. In total, she netted more than $850,000, prosecutors say.
At the same time, she failed to print thousands of copies, double-sold thousands more and took many others to use for self-promotion, according to prosecutors.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin Clarke, the lead prosecutor on the case, said Pugh “deliberately and cunningly set out to deceive people” and to “rig an election to her advantage and cover it all up,” referring to the 2016 Democratic mayoral primary.
Chasanow ordered Pugh to pay restitution of $400,000 to the medical system and nearly $12,000 to the Maryland Auto Insurance Fund, which also paid Pugh for books. She will have to forfeit nearly $670,000, including her Ashburton home and $17,800 in her campaign account. Also, Pugh agreed that all of her copies of “Healthy Holly” books, collected by the FBI in raids on her houses and offices, will be destroyed.