MARYLAND NEWS

A judge has ordered a Maryland woman to pay more than $270,000 in restitution after she pleaded guilty to stealing her son's identity and fraudulently obtaining COVID-19 loans in 2020. Source:  WUSA9.com via msn.com

A federal grand jury returned a six-count indictment alleging that the two men conspired to unlawfully purchase machineguns and falsified multiple documents on the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office letterhead requesting machineguns for evaluation and demonstration to the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office. According to the indictment, the two men knew that there would not be a demonstration of the machineguns to the Sheriff’s Office and that the machineguns were intended for rental to the gun dealer’s customers. Source: US Attorney, District of Maryland

Fugitive Roy McGrath, the ex-chief of staff to former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, died Monday after an "agent-involved shooting," the FBI said. McGrath, wanted on corruption charges, had been the target of a three-week manhunt. Source: Inside Edition

In November, about 86% of Baltimore City voters cast their ballot in favor of amending the City Charter’s requirements for serving on the Advisory Board that appoints, advises, and evaluates the Inspector General for Baltimore City. As a result of that Charter Amendment the Advisory Board now consists of nine city residents recommended by council members. Board members are not elected officials, city employees, candidates for office, or lobbyists --"thus making the Board independent of possible conflicts of interest that may arise among those who are subject to the IG’s investigative jurisdiction." according to a press release from the office of Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming.

Two members are city residents chosen from professional groups: Certified Public Accountants and Certified Fraud Examiners...The new Board Members’ first meeting will include a training session scheduled for April 18 at 5:00 P.M. The session will be open to the public virtually. Source: Baltimore Brew and Baltimore City Office of the Inspector General

Leo Wise, the federal prosecutor who took down former Mayor Catherine Pugh, a squad of corrupt Baltimore cops, an ex-police chief, two state lawmakers, and is currently prosecuting former State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, has been demoted and was temporarily removed from Mosby’s case…Maryland U.S. Attorney Erek Barron removed Wise as chief of the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Public Corruption and Fraud Unit on March 21. Source: Baltimore Sun.com and msn.com

 

An army of whistleblowers is being enlisted to fight fraud. Before you join their ranks, consider the toll it could take on your family and career…Not every whistleblower faces an uphill battle.  A man in Rockville, MD., was a Department of Education retiree when he brought a whistleblower suit against a group of student-loan lenders who he said were inflating interest rate subsidies they received from the government. …The whistleblower says colleagues were supportive, the emotional cost bearable and that the money he received more than $16 million. Source: Kiplinger.com

An Ohio journalist has a new book attributing Poe’s death in 1849 to tuberculosis, but the author also believes that Poe failed to get proper medical care because he was “cooped” in Baltimore — an election-rigging scheme at the time that involved snatching someone from the streets, confining and perhaps drugging him, then trotting him out to vote again and again.  Source: Washington Post

Roy McGrath, who briefly served as former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s chief of staff, did not appear in court Monday for the beginning of his trial on federal fraud charges...According to his indictment, McGrath stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the state during his tenure at the helm of the government-owned nonprofit Maryland Environmental Service. Source: MSN based on Baltimore Sun

Maryland became the first state this week to get federal approval for a plan to reimburse victims of food benefits fraud — and Gov. Wes Moore (D) included funding for the effort in a supplemental budget delivered to the General Assembly on Friday. Source: WTOP republished with permission from its news partners at Maryland Matters

 

After multiple postponements, including most recently because her entire defense team quit, Baltimore’s former top prosecutor is scheduled to stand trial on federal perjury and mortgage fraud counts in November.  Source: ABC News, Associated Press