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<h6 class="spaced spaced-xl spaced-top spaced-bottom abdp-headline"><span style="color: #382b2b;"><strong>‘Any means necessary to win’: Catherine Pugh used ‘Healthy Holly’ scam in 2016 Baltimore mayor’s race &#8211; prosecutors</strong></span></h6>
<h6 class="spaced spaced-xl spaced-top spaced-bottom abdp-headline"><span style="color: #382b2b;"><strong>Federal prosecutors laid out “shocking” corruption case against former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh</strong></span></h6>
<h6 class="spaced spaced-xl spaced-top spaced-bottom abdp-headline"><span style="color: #382b2b;"><strong>Pugh, 69, who narrowly won against a crowded primary field was accused of engaging in “election fraud&#8221; </strong></span></h6>
<h6 class="spaced spaced-xl spaced-top spaced-bottom abdp-headline"><span style="color: #382b2b;"><strong>Her victory feds said was fueled by expenditures exceeding $2.5 million </strong></span></h6>
<h6 class="spaced spaced-xl spaced-top spaced-bottom abdp-headline"><span style="color: #382b2b;"><strong>Pugh easily outspent most of her rivals ― but did so, in part, by using illegal proceeds from “Healthy Holly” book sales</strong></span></h6>
<h6 class="spaced spaced-xl spaced-top spaced-bottom abdp-headline"><span style="color: #382b2b;"><strong>The former mayor is accused of having scammed buyers who paid for her self-published children’s books that were never printed</strong></span></h6>
<h6 class="spaced spaced-xl spaced-top spaced-bottom abdp-headline"><span style="color: #382b2b;"><strong>Schoolchildren never received copies of the books</strong></span></h6>
<h6 class="spaced spaced-xl spaced-top spaced-bottom abdp-headline"><span style="color: #382b2b;"><strong>The federal government was shorted of thousands of tax dollars</strong></span></h6>
<h6 class="spaced spaced-xl spaced-top spaced-bottom abdp-headline"><span style="color: #382b2b;"><strong>Pugh a fixture in Baltimore politics for two decades pled pleading guilty to four felony counts of conspiracy and tax evasion</strong></span></h6>
<h6 class="spaced spaced-xl spaced-top spaced-bottom abdp-headline"><span style="color: #382b2b;"><strong>She was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison </strong></span></h6>
<h6 class="spaced spaced-xl spaced-top spaced-bottom abdp-headline"><span style="color: #382b2b;"><strong>Pugh, 69, tearfully asked the judge for mercy and apologized in court “to anyone I have offended or hurt through my actions” </strong></span></h6>
<h6 class="spaced spaced-xl spaced-top spaced-bottom abdp-headline"><span style="color: #382b2b;"><strong>I “turned a blind eye” and “sanctioned things I should not have,&#8221; but did not intend to cause harm, she told the court</strong></span></h6>
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<h6 data-page="1" data-item-type="depthscroll" data-item-id="depth_scroll_top" data-item-number="top"><strong><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-342307" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Catherine-Pugh-6.jpg" alt="Catherine Pugh 6" width="1200" height="675" />Former Baltimore City mayor Catherine Pugh [center], was sentenced to three years in federal prison Thursday for a fraud scheme involving a children’s book series. She pled guilty to four felony counts of conspiracy and tax evasion</strong></h6>
<p data-page="1" data-item-type="depthscroll" data-item-id="depth_scroll_top" data-item-number="top">As federal prosecutors laid out what they described as a “shocking” corruption case against former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh, they ticked off a list of victims.<br />
<span style="color: var(--color-text);">Buyers who paid for her self-published children’s books that were never printed.<br />
Schoolchildren who never received copies. The federal government, which Pugh shorted of thousands of tax dollars.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">But there was another, bigger victim in the background: The voters of Baltimore.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">That’s because the “Healthy Holly scam,&#8221; as prosecutors called it, wasn’t just a yearslong self-enrichment scheme. It also was a way for Pugh to try to illegally influence an election and achieve her dream job as the 50th mayor of Baltimore, the U.S. attorney’s office said.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Pugh used the books as promotional materials during her 2016 mayoral run and the proceeds from their sale to pump illegal money into her campaign, prosecutors said. She was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison after </span><a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-pugh-in-court-20191121-2hxa7visr5g7pj42vl3scjh6vi-story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">pleading guilty </a><span style="color: var(--color-text);">to four felony counts of conspiracy and tax evasion.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin Clarke told the court that Pugh engaged in “election fraud&#8221; in a race she narrowly won against a crowded primary field. With her expenditures exceeding $2.5 million during the campaign, Pugh easily outspent most of her rivals.<br />
However she did so, in part, by using illegal proceeds from “Healthy Holly” book sales, prosecutors say.</span></p>
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<h6 class="lightbox-image animated undefined"><img src="https://www.baltimoresun.com/resizer/SNKHAMOBAmThXM7oJVTfyMxLR98=/fit-in/800x533/smart/filters:fill(black)/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-tronc.s3.amazonaws.com/public/MEAP3J6HLVG2ZOBNXOVVLSPBKY.JPG" alt="Catherine Pugh sentencing" /><strong><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh talks to the media after being sentenced to three years in prison, followed by three years probation as a result of her pleading guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion in her &#8220;Healthy Holly&#8221; fraud scheme.</span></strong></h6>
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<p class="caption-text spaced spaced-top spaced-xs flex ">The former Baltimore mayor, who held elected offices in Baltimore for two decades and was elected to lead the city after the 2015 city riots, was sentenced to three years in federal prison Thursday for a fraud scheme involving a children’s book series.<br />
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.<br />
“I have yet frankly to hear any explanation that makes sense,&#8221; the judge said. &#8220;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.”<br />
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,&#8221; but did not intend to cause harm.<br />
<span style="color: var(--color-text);">While prosecutors haven’t put a definitive total on how much “Healthy Holly” money they say Pugh used to benefit her campaign, they cite three key numbers: $400,000 from book sales to institutions with business before city or state government, including $170,000 from a large donor; and more than $62,000 in straw donations.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">“The deposits of $400,000 from book sales leading up to the mayoral election gave Pugh a big financial advantage over other mayoral rivals,” said Clarke, the lead prosecutor on the case. Clarke said Pugh “deliberately and cunningly set out to deceive people” and to “rig an election to her advantage and cover it all up.&#8221;<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Now, candidates who lost to Pugh in 2016 are looking back with the feeling that the voters were cheated.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Pugh edged the defining </span>Democratic mayoral primary in April 2016 by just 2,400 votes, a margin of<span style="color: var(--color-text);"> less than 2 percentage points, over her closest rival, former City Mayor Sheila Dixon.</span></p>
<h6 class="caption-text spaced spaced-top spaced-xs flex "><span style="color: var(--color-text);"><img src="https://i0.wp.com/konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Catherine-Pugh-4.jpg?ssl=1&;w=680" alt="Catherine Pugh 4" /><strong>Pugh won the Democratic mayoral primary in April 2016 by just 2,400 votes, less than 2 percentage points, over her closest rival, former Mayor Sheila Dixon. She is seen arms raised in celebration a<strong style="color: var(--color-text);">fter winning the 2016 Democratic primary for Baltimore mayor</strong></strong></span></h6>
<p class="caption-text spaced spaced-top spaced-xs flex "><span style="color: var(--color-text);">While former mayor Dixon herself was trying to bounce back from a corruption scandal, Pugh’s path to victory wasn’t always clear. Indeed early in the hotly contested campaign, Dixon, was the front-runner.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Using funds from “Healthy Holly” book sales, the challanger attempted to inflate her fundraising totals, prosecutors say, to appear stronger to donors, voters and power brokers.<br />
Consequently, while other campaigns had to pay for fliers and literature, Pugh had books on hand for giveaways to promote herself, prosecutors alleged.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Pugh’s apparent towering fundraising strength propelled momentum for her campaign, said Hassan Giordano, a Dixon supporter who raised concerns in 2016 about other issues in the primary as part of the group Voters Organized for the Integrity of City Elections.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">The first inkling of Pugh&#8217;s questionable election tactics surfaced </span>in the middle of the 2016 campaign<span style="color: var(--color-text);">, when she posted the strongest fundraising totals in the field, still about </span><a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/2016-mayor-race/bal-66-000-in-campaign-checks-to-catherine-pugh-bounce-20160323-story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">$66,000 in checks to her campaign bounced</a><span style="color: var(--color-text);">. At the time several of Pugh’s rivals called attention to the discrepancy.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">“She has apparently received thousands of dollars from dummy corporations that don’t exist, from people who say they don’t have thousands of dollars to give,” one rival candidate, Elizabeth Embry, said at the time.</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);"><br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">While questions swirled around Pugh’s campaign tactics years ago, federal investigators brought forth new allegations of political misconduct in recent months as they revealed their case against her.</span></p>
<h6 class="caption-text spaced spaced-top spaced-xs flex "><span style="color: var(--color-text);"><img class="alignnone wp-image-342308" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Gary-Brown-Jr.-1.jpg" alt="OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA" width="876" height="692" /><strong>Police have secured a guilty plea from Pugh longtime aides, Gary Brown Jr., [photo], which put the former mayor in the center of the corruption</strong></span></h6>
<p class="caption-text spaced spaced-top spaced-xs flex "><span style="color: var(--color-text);"><br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Prosecutors have secured a guilty plea from </span><a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/bs-md-pugh-who-is-charged-20191120-p6ohapfzdfdoxhmrh7nredraee-story.html#nt=instory-link">one of her longtime aides, Gary Brown Jr., </a><span style="color: var(--color-text);">who confessed to a range of actions he and Pugh took to illegally profit from her book sales.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Prosecutors said Pugh and Brown conspired to inflate her campaign finance account through illegal means by using money from the book sales. The two believed that if voters learned Pugh put her own money into the campaign, “she would appear desperate,” so they made contributions in other people’s names, in violation of Maryland election law. In total, Brown and Pugh cashed out approximately $62,100 in Healthy Holly money during 2016, all of which went to straw campaign donors or Pugh, prosecutors say.<br />
When state prosecutors convicted Brown of violating state election laws in 2017 by funneling cash to the campaign through his relatives, Pugh kept him in a job at City Hall, praising him as a “good employee.”<br />
Federal prosecutors now say that when Pugh answered questions from reporters at the time, she lied, claiming she didn’t know where the money Brown handled came from and hadn’t looked into it.</span></p>
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<h6 class="caption-text spaced spaced-top spaced-xs flex "><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-342288" style="color: var(--color-text);" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Catherine-Pugh-2.jpg" alt="Catherine Pugh 2" width="800" height="533" /><strong style="color: var(--color-text);">The scam: Former Baltimore city Mayor Catherine Pugh displays a baby bib, one of several baby products with a healthy lifestyle that she promoted, during a press conference at City Hall. Mayor Pugh discussed the history of her Health Holly book venture, and apologized to the University of Maryland Medical System for any negative light cast on that institution as a result of her book sales.</strong></h6>
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<p class="caption-text spaced spaced-top spaced-xs flex "><span style="color: var(--color-text);">And federal prosecutors said the corruption went deeper. In particular, they focused on funds Pugh solicited from businessman J.P. Grant, who does frequent business with City Hall and holds a lucrative agreement with the city under which he is paid for providing ready cash for large municipal purchases.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">“She solicited approximately $170,000 in campaign contributions directly from Grant and his company using Healthy Holly and [Pugh’s other side business] 2 Chic Boutique as cover,” prosecutors wrote in a memo before Pugh’s sentencing. “In total, believing campaign finance laws did not apply to her, she used the $231,200 in an attempt to influence the outcome of the mayoral election and buy a house suitable to that office, the majority of which were proceeds from the Healthy Holly scam.”<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Only Pugh, Brown and Roslyn Wedington, director of a nonprofit Pugh championed, have been charged in the current case. Pugh has also been charged in state court with perjury over disclosure forms she filed while a state senator.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">In federal court, Pugh, tearfully apologized “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.&#8221;<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Prosecutors say the harm she caused to the public’s faith in fair elections could be long lasting.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">“Ms. Pugh had no qualms using any means necessary to win the mayoral election,” Clarke told the judge.<br />
</span><span style="color: var(--color-text);">Clarke asked rhetorically whether Pugh’s cheating changed the outcome of the election. “I don’t think anybody knows the answer to that question,” he said.</span></p>
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Former Baltimore City mayor Catherine Pugh sentenced to three years in federal prison as feds say she used ‘Any means necessary to win’ 2016 Baltimore mayor’s race, including peddling books she never wrote
