The Democratic mayor of Baltimore has just resigned less than a week after the FBI and IRS raided her home and offices over a scandal involving self-published children’s books:
REUTERS – Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, whose home and offices were raided by federal law enforcement last week amid questions over her financial dealings, abruptly resigned on Thursday, announcing her departure in a statement read by her attorney.
Pugh, a Democrat, apologized in the statement for harming the city’s image.
“I am confident that I have left the city in capable hands for the duration of the term to which I was elected,” Pugh, 69, said in her resignation letter.
Apparently she was using a hospital network to enrich herself:
Federal authorities executed search warrants at Pugh’s home and offices last week following reports in the Baltimore Sun newspaper that she had been paid $500,000 by the University of Maryland Medical System for her series of children’s books at the same time she served on the system’s board.
Here’s more on that from NBC Philadelphia:
A federal grand jury has been empaneled and the mayor’s City Hall offices, homes and multiple other locations were raided last week by FBI and IRS agents who carried off boxloads of documents.
The scope of their investigation is not yet clear, but the federal criminal investigators joined state and city probes of murky arrangements that somehow earned Pugh roughly $800,000 over years selling her obscure self-published “Healthy Holly” children’s books in bulk to customers including a hospital network she once helped oversee as a state senator and major health carriers with business before the city.
They say she’s been in self-imposed seclusion for the last month, claiming that she was recovering from pneumonia.
Now I guess that self-imposed seclusion will last a lot longer, with a cloud of guilt hanging over her head.
No charges have been filed against her yet, but no doub they are coming…