In her three years as mayor, Catherine Pugh was on a mission to burnish the image of her adoptive hometown, a city battered by rioting, a soaring murder rate, and a history of corruption at City Hall and in the police department.
Yet, as she was sentenced to 3 years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy, Pugh became a symbol of the dysfunction that has long permeated Maryland’s largest city and sown distrust among its beleaguered residents.
Pugh used her series of self-published “Healthy Holly” children’s books to orchestrate a scheme in which she generated more than $800,000 in income while failing to deliver tens of thousands of copies of the books to public schools.
The fraudulent sales to entities with business before city and state government helped fund Pugh’s political campaigns and allowed her to buy and renovate a second home in Baltimore, prosecutors have said.
“I accept total responsibility,” Pugh, 69, said in an unusual presentencing video that her attorneys submitted to U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow, excerpts of which were broadcast Wednesday by the Baltimore Sun.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Paul Schwartzman over at The Washington Post
