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.
A plea deal struck with prosecutors last fall called for a sentence of between four and five years; prosecutors sought nearly five years, while Pugh’s attorneys asked that she receive a year and a day.
Pugh, 69, asked U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow for mercy and apologized in court “to anyone I have offended or hurt through my actions.”
“No one is more disappointed than me,” Pugh said. “I did turn a blind eye. I did, and sanctioned many things I should not have.”
In handing down the prison sentence, which was to be followed by three years of probation, Chasanow called Pugh’s crime “astounding.”
“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’s political fall began in March when The Baltimore Sun revealed she had entered into a no-bid 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.
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 also will have to forfeit nearly $670,000, including her Ashburton home and $17,800 in her campaign account.
Pugh arrived about an hour before the hearing began with her attorney and a friend. Prosecutors spoke first, for about an hour, before the judge granted a five-minute break before the defense portion of the hearing.
A hands-on, “married to the job” mayor in the style of fellow Democrat William Donald Schaefer — whose administration was where Pugh got her start in government in 1975 — Pugh had more than 70 people write letters to Chasanow on her behalf. They included a slew of prominent pastors, former Democratic Mayor Kurt Schmoke, former Democratic U.S. Rep. Kweisi Mfume and the president of Morgan State University.
Prosecutors responded Thursday in court, telling Chasanow that “Ms. Pugh did not have a momentary lapse of judgement as many of her supporters have argued to the court in their letters.”
Prosecutors emphasized their reasons for why the judge should sentence Pugh at the top end of the guideline. In summarizing the scheme, they argued it was no accident but a long, orchestrated effort.
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 mayoral primary.
Prosecutors also criticized a video the defense filed with the court on the eve of the sentencing, in which Pugh gave her most expansive remarks on her fall from grace and apologized. Clarke cited it as a way for Pugh “to continue using her skills to manipulate the message and to try to change the narrative.”
