Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh Takes Leave Amid Book Scandal

Source: Paul Marotta / Getty

Catherine Pugh Is Taking An Indefinite Leave Of Absence

Following multiple state leaders calling for the Baltimore mayor’s resignation for what they call a “self-dealing” book-sales arrangement, Catherine Pugh announced on Monday that she is taking an indefinite leave of absence.

In a statement, Pugh’s office said she needed a break following a recent bout of pneumonia. “She’s been advised by her physicians that she needs to take time to recover and focus on her health,” the statement read.

On Monday, Maryland’s Republican governor asked the state prosecutor to investigate Pugh’s alleged book deals, which are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Gov. Larry Hogan described Pugh’s arrangements to sell her self-published illustrated “Healthy Holly” books as “deeply disturbing.” In his letter, he said he was particularly concerned about a $500,000 sale to a university-based health care system because of its public funding.

State Comptroller Peter Franchot called for her immediate resignation on Twitter.

Pugh’s criticism came hours after Kaiser Permanente disclosed that it paid $114,000, between 2015 and 2018, for roughly 20,000 paperback copies of her  books. This followed revelations that Pugh had received $500,000 for selling 100,000 copies of her book to the University of Maryland Medical System, a $4 billion hospital network that’s one of the state’s largest private employers.

Pugh became the Mayor of Baltimore in 2016 and the very next year, Baltimore’s spending board–controlled by the mayor–awarded a $48 million contract to the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic States Inc.

Pugh resigned from the University of Maryland Medical System’s volunteer board two weeks ago and has returned her most recent book payment of $100,000. She apologized for that book deal at a press conference last week, calling it a “regrettable mistake.”

In addition to serving on the system’s board since 2001, Pugh once sat on a state Senate committee that funded the major health network prior to becoming mayor. The interim leader of the University of Maryland Medical System on Monday said he believed nothing criminal took place.