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Four months after she was sentenced, former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh is due to report to prison Friday at an all-female facility in Alabama. Pugh, who pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy and tax evasion in a self-dealing scheme involving her “Healthy Holly” children’s books, was en route Thursday to Alabama, according to her attorney Andrew White. The Democrat initially was scheduled to report in April, but won a delay that month as prison officials across the country tried to assess and contain the threat of the coronavirus. Justice Department officials limited the movement of inmates to minimize the spread...

<p>BALTIMORE (AP) - Baltimore’s disgraced former mayor will report to a federal prison in Alabama on Friday.</p> <p>Catherine Pugh was en route to the state Thursday, the Baltimore Sun reported. She was sentenced in February to three years in prison in a public corruption scandal over the sales of her self-published children’s books extolling exercise and nutrition.</p>

Baltimore's disgraced former mayor Catherine Pugh, who was embroiled in a scandal involving her "Healthy Holly" children's books pleaded guilty to perjury Friday, waiving her right to a trial.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Baltimore’s disgraced former mayor who already has been sentenced to three years in federal prison in a scandal over her “Healthy Holly” children's books touting exercise and nutrition is expected to plead guilty to a state perjury charge, Maryland's state prosecutor confirmed Tuesday. Catherine Pugh is expected to enter the guilty plea to the misdemeanor charge at a June 19 hearing in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court, said State Prosecutor Charlton Howard. “As indicated in the order of the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court scheduling a plea hearing on June 19th, I anticipate Ms. Pugh will enter...

Election results vanished from the state website. Officials discovered ballots misprinted. One candidate for mayor sent in his lawyer. Wednesday brought a rocky start to the canvass that should reveal Baltimore’s next mayor. By the afternoon, state lawmakers and the governor demanded elections administrators explain themselves. Maryland’s first statewide vote-by-mail election already meant that complete results would take longer than voters were used to, as ballots trickle in by mail and elections officials “quarantine" documents before opening them because of the new coronavirus. But add errors on ballots and problems in tabulating returns and the primary’s close races may well...

BALTIMORE (WJZ) - Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh was granted a 60-day extension for the date that she must report to prison in Alabama. Pugh, who pleaded guilty to tax evasion and fraud in the Healthy Holly children’s book scandal, asked for the delay so that she can “resolve” her state perjury charge as the coronavirus pandemic has led to the closure of courts. According to court records, she’s assigned to serve her sentence at a medium-security prison, Federal Correctional Institution, in Aliceville. Pugh had asked for another delay because she’s been “adversely affected” by the COVID-19 pandemic. Her perjury...

A federal judge who oversaw the recent criminal conviction of former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh has granted a request from Pugh to delay her incarceration until April 27, two months after she was sentenced to three years behind bars for her “Healthy Holly” book fraud. Pugh was to “self-surrender” and begin her sentence by April 13. In a motion filed March 2, defense attorney Andrew White said that an extension would allow her “to remain at her house until her niece, who lives with her at the residence, has completed the current school semester at the University of Maryland Law...

On the eve of her sentencing on federal fraud and tax charges, former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh is apologizing for her conduct in a video submitted by her attorneys to the court. “I accept responsibility,” Pugh says in the 13-minute video. “I accept total responsibility. I’ve pled guilty. And I’m sorry. I don’t know any other words that could be strong. I am so sorry.” The conclusion of the video shows Pugh, with her hands clasped in front of her face, with a voice-over of her saying: “When I think about me and my capacity and my capabilities and all...

Former Mayor Catherine Pugh, who pleaded guilty last November to federal charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States and two counts of tax evasion, is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court next week. Pugh announced last April that she would be taking an indefinite leave of absence for personal health reasons after The Baltimore Sun reported that she had engaged in unethical activity surrounding her children’s book series Healthy Holly. It was reported that Pugh exchanged city contracts for book sales and had received over $500,000 from the University of Maryland Medical System...

BALTIMORE - Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh has asked for a sentence of one year and one day in prison in relation to her guilty plea in the “Healthy Holly” book scandal that led to her fall from grace and resignation from office last year, with her attorneys arguing she has already suffered greatly. “Ms. Pugh has become a tragic figure - an inspiring person dedicated to helping her community who is now a disgraced, unemployed felon, and who has lost everything that she had,” her attorneys wrote in a sentencing memorandum Friday that included some redacted sections. “We submit...

The University of Maryland Medical System is seeking to recover hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to disgraced former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh for her “Healthy Holly” books, top officials of the hospital network testified Thursday in Annapolis. “We have recovered $100,000 of the $500,000,” James C. “Chip” DiPaula Jr., the new chairman of the system’s board, told the House of Delegates’ Health and Government Operations Committee. “We are working with the U.S. prosecutors to recover the balance.” Pugh, who resigned as mayor last spring as the book scandal unfolded, has since pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion charges...

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh was charged with perjury for failing to disclose her business interest in Healthy Holly, LLC, while she served as a Maryland state senator, the state prosecutor’s office said Wednesday. “She is charged with omitting to declare on her financial disclosure statements when she was a Maryland state senator in 2016, her relationship with Healthy Holly, LLC,” Maryland State Prosecutor Charlton Howard said. Charging documents filed in circuit court in Anne Arundel County said Pugh did not disclose her business interest in the company between 2012 and 2016 or her partial ownership of...

BALTIMORE — An 11-count federal indictment against former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh was made public Wednesday morning. Pugh, 69, is federally charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, seven counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and two counts of tax evasion. Pugh was charged on Nov. 14 and the charges were made public Wednesday.

**SNIP** This comes after a year of resignations and scandal, all centered around the “Healthy Holly” business dealings involving former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh and several board members and executives. The issues began after a report that Pugh filed disclosure forms with incorrection information and did not disclose her position with the UMMS board in city ethics forms, after making a deal in 2011 where she received $500,000 selling her self-published book series to the UMMS. Pugh, who became mayor in 2016, was among a third of the board who had UMMS contracts with their businesses. She resigned from the...

BALTIMORE (AP) — Property records show former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, who resigned in May, has sold her Maryland home for less than half of its assessed value. The Baltimore Sun reports records show she sold one of her two Ashburton homes for $75,000 to Boaz Alternative Energy and Technologies LLC in July. Property records list the home’s assessed value as $187,700. Pugh resigned in May under pressure amid a flurry of investigations into whether she arranged bulk sales of her self-published children’s books to disguise hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks. She’s still being investigated at the state...

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — The Baltimore City Council Monday unanimously passed new legislation requiring certain public servants to disclose all outside directorships, salaried employment and other potential conflicts-of-interest in an effort to prevent situations like the “Healthy Holly” scandal from occurring in the future. The legislation requires disclosure of all outside directorships, even if the group does not do business with the city.

BALTIMORE — Friends of former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh say her health has improved but that she’s continuing to keep a low public profile until the investigations concerning her self-published book deals are complete. **SNIP** Shortly after hiring Harrison, though, Pugh resigned amid intense public scrutiny over her sale of self-published children’s books to entities with business relationships with the city. The deals were revealed in a series of articles in The Baltimore Sun that began March 13. Pugh’s story shifted as she tried to account for the first deal to be disclosed, struck with the University of Maryland Medical...

BALTIMORE — A new audit ordered amid the controversy about former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh's book deals makes no mention that her financial dealings touched the city's Children and Youth Fund. The fund is managed by a charity that took donations and then bought Pugh's books. **SNIP** To date, about $36 million has been allocated to the fund, but just $9.6 million has gone out of the fund to organizations serving children and youth. The city pays Associated Black Charities, which is headed by Diane Bell McKoy, to manage the fund. The audit was ordered in the spring after ABC...

When President Trump referred to Baltimore as a "disgusting rat and rodent infested mess", he could have just as easily been talking about its two-legged Democrat rats as its four-legged Norwegian rats. Charm City's Norwegian rats (rattus norvegicus) usually only come out at night and munch on trash in the shadows of housing projects, while its Democrat rats (rattus democratus) sashay around in the light of day and munch on taxpayer goodies in the marble houses of government. If you want to see a good example of rattus democratus in its native Baltimorean habitat, draw the curtains, send the kiddies...

Baltimoreans woke up Thursday to the news that FBI agents were on the move across the city, raiding City Hall and Mayor Catherine Pugh’s homes — among other locations — amid what appeared to be a large investigation also involving the Internal Revenue Service. The FBI confirmed its agents were executing search warrants at seven locations connected to Pugh or her top aides. FBI and IRS agents were observed entering City Hall, the seat of municipal government, but it was unclear exactly where inside the building they were searching. FBI and IRS agents were seen entering the mayor’s office within...