Prosecutors recommended a five-year prison sentence for Catherine Pugh, the former mayor of Baltimore and a former board member of the University of Maryland Medical System, for her involvement in a wire fraud and tax evasion scheme, The Washington Post reports.
Prosecutors included the sentencing recommendation in a 37-page memo filed Feb. 13. Ms. Pugh will be sentenced on Feb. 27, according to the report. She could face up to 35 years in prison, according to the Justice Department.
Ms. Pugh pleaded guilty in November to charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the federal government, and tax evasion, in relation to a scheme that involved reselling $500,000 of children's books to the Baltimore-based University of Maryland Medical System. This financial relationship went undisclosed until March 2019, when it was exposed by the Baltimore Sun, according to the report. The fraudulent profits from the book sales ultimately funded straw donations for her mayoral campaign.
Read the full story here.
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