Catherine Pugh: Healthy Holly Scandal, Guilty Plea, and Sentence

The Healthy Holly scandal was a roughly eight-year scheme in which Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh sold bulk copies of her self-published children’s book series to nonprofits, hospitals, and government-adjacent institutions that did business with the city and state, pocketing about $860,000 and routing some of it into illegal campaign donations. The scheme forced her resignation in May 2019, and she later pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy and tax charges and was sentenced to three years in federal prison.¹²

What Healthy Holly Was

Healthy Holly was a series of self-published children’s books Pugh wrote about a young girl making healthy choices. Presented as a community health initiative, the books functioned as a vehicle Pugh used to collect large payments from institutions with business before her, while she served in the Maryland Senate and later as mayor of Baltimore.

Pugh and her longtime aide Gary Brown Jr. sold the books in bulk to buyers that had reason to want goodwill from a sitting legislator or mayor. According to federal prosecutors, they failed to deliver thousands of books that had been ordered for distribution to schoolchildren, double-sold copies that had already been purchased, and diverted proceeds to Pugh’s personal bank accounts. She used the money to renovate a home and to fund her 2016 mayoral campaign through illegal straw donations: $35,800 in checks written for book purchases were cashed and funneled into contributions made in other people’s names.¹

Who Bought the Books

The biggest customer was the University of Maryland Medical System, which paid Pugh $500,000 through a no-bid contract for more than 100,000 copies. The conflict was significant: Pugh sat on the UMMS board for 17 years while serving in the state legislature on a Senate Finance Committee that partially funded the system. A later independent audit found that no UMMS executive ever read the books or verified they had been printed before authorizing payments, and that certain board members, including Pugh, had overstayed their five-year terms, which the audit said let them exercise “disproportionate influence” over the system.³

Kaiser Permanente bought 20,000 copies for $114,000 between 2015 and 2018. During that same period, Kaiser was negotiating a $48 million contract with the city to provide health insurance to municipal employees. That contract was approved by the city’s spending board, on which Pugh sat as mayor.⁴ The Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund was another purchaser.⁵

How the Scandal Came Apart

The Baltimore Sun broke the story in March 2019, reporting that Pugh and other UMMS board members had received lucrative contracts from the system. Pugh initially defended the arrangement, but scrutiny mounted quickly. Governor Larry Hogan and state lawmakers demanded answers. Pugh resigned from the UMMS board, the first board member to do so, and returned $100,000 to the system for an uncompleted book order.⁶

In April 2019, Pugh took a leave of absence from City Hall, citing pneumonia. Days later, FBI and IRS agents raided her home, her City Hall office, and other properties linked to her and her associates. Reports later indicated she had been under federal investigation for at least a year before the raids.⁷

Pugh resigned on May 2, 2019. Her attorney, Steven Silverman, read her statement: “I’m sorry for the harm that I have caused to the image of the city of Baltimore and the credibility of the office of the mayor. Baltimore deserves a mayor who can move our great city forward.”⁷ Under the city charter, City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young automatically became the 51st mayor of Baltimore.⁸

The Federal Charges and Guilty Plea

A federal grand jury indicted Pugh on November 14, 2019, on 11 counts: conspiracy to commit wire fraud, seven counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and two counts of tax evasion.⁹ One week later, on November 21, 2019, she pleaded guilty to four counts: conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and two counts of tax evasion. Prosecutors agreed to recommend a five-year prison sentence.¹⁰

In her plea, Pugh admitted to conspiring with Brown from November 2011 through March 2019 to defraud book purchasers. She also admitted to filing false federal income tax returns. For 2016, she reported taxable income of $31,020 and taxes owed of $4,168. Her actual taxable income was $322,365, with approximately $102,444 in taxes due.¹⁰

U.S. Attorney Robert K. Hur said Pugh had “betrayed the public trust for her personal gain.”¹⁰

Sentence and Financial Penalties

On February 27, 2020, U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow sentenced Pugh to three years in federal prison, below the five years prosecutors had recommended. Judge Chasanow called the case “a serious breach of trust” and said “the impact on the city is also very great and very tragic.” Addressing the letters of support submitted by Pugh’s defense, the judge called them “ironic,” saying Pugh’s long history of public service was “what enabled her to perpetrate these crimes.”²

The court also ordered:

Restitution of $411,948, with $400,000 to the University of Maryland Medical System and roughly $12,000 to the Maryland Automobile Insurance Fund.²
Forfeiture of approximately $669,688, including Pugh’s home in Baltimore’s Ashburton neighborhood and nearly $18,000 from a campaign account.¹¹
Three years of supervised release following prison.²

Maryland state prosecutors brought a separate perjury charge for Pugh’s failure to disclose her ownership of Healthy Holly, LLC on financial disclosure forms while serving as a state senator. She pleaded guilty in the Circuit Court of Anne Arundel County and was sentenced to six months in jail, to be served concurrently with her federal sentence.¹²

The Co-Defendants

Two of Pugh’s associates were also convicted. Gary Brown Jr., a former Baltimore City employee who worked as Pugh’s aide in the state senate, on her mayoral campaign, and later as deputy director of special events in the mayor’s office, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, two counts of conspiracy to defraud the United States, and filing a false tax return. Prosecutors described him as Pugh’s “right-hand man.” He was sentenced on September 11, 2020, to 27 months in federal prison.¹³

Roslyn Wedington, the former executive director of the Maryland Center for Adult Training, conspired with Brown to bypass payroll tax withholdings on her salary to evade garnishments for student loans and medical debt. She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and five counts of filing a false tax return, and was sentenced on March 4, 2021, to two years in federal prison with $121,592.50 in restitution.¹⁴

Prison and Early Release

Pugh reported to the Aliceville Federal Correctional Institution in Alabama on June 26, 2020, several months after sentencing because of scheduling during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.¹⁵ She was released in January 2022, roughly two years into her three-year sentence, and transferred to a Residential Reentry Management office in the Baltimore area. The early release was facilitated by provisions of the CARES Act, which allowed early release for certain nonviolent inmates based on age, health, and remaining sentence length.¹⁶

On supervised release, Pugh worked as a contracted liaison for Morgan State University’s Center for Urban Violence Institute and received a monthly Social Security check. Her court-ordered restitution plan called for $100 a month; she paid $1,000 a month voluntarily, bringing her total restitution payments to $63,850 as of early 2024. On March 15, 2024, a federal judge discharged her from supervised release one year early, after probation officers found she had a low risk of reoffending and posed no public safety concerns.¹⁷

Where Pugh Is Now

Pugh has made gradual re-entries into Baltimore public life. In a 2022 interview with the AFRO American Newspapers, she described her prison time and said the country needed to “reinvent and reimagine incarceration.” While incarcerated she had worked as a cook, taught piano, and helped other inmates obtain their GEDs.¹⁸ She has also served as an interim host on WOLB 1010 AM in Baltimore.¹⁹

In December 2025, newly elected Maryland House Speaker Joseline Peña-Melnyk acknowledged Pugh from the podium during inaugural remarks at a special session of the House of Delegates, calling her a “former senator, who we conspired [with] so many times in this House and got into trouble, former mayor of Baltimore.” Peña-Melnyk was later photographed taking a selfie with Pugh and Prince George’s County Executive Aisha Braveboy. Political analysts told the Baltimore Sun the acknowledgment was a “risky move” for a newly elected official aligning herself with someone “seen to have abused her own public office,” though the paper reported that lawmakers from both parties appeared largely unfazed.²⁰²¹

1
NPR. Former Baltimore Mayor Pleads Guilty in Childrens Book Scandal
2
Maryland Matters. Pugh Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison
3
Baltimore Sun. New Audit Says Top Medical System Officials Never Read Pughs Healthy Holly Books
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MedCity News. Baltimore Mayor Healthy Holly
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Maryland Reporter. Catherine Pugh Gets 3 Years for Fraud Conspiracy in Healthy Holly Book Scandal
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Maryland Matters. Pugh Defends Book Sales to Medical System
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Maryland Matters. Baltimore Mayor Pugh Resigns
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WBAL-TV. Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh Resigns
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ABC News. Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh Indicted
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U.S. Department of Justice. Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh Pleads Guilty to Federal Conspiracy and Tax Charges
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Capital News Service. Ex-Baltimore Mayor Gets Three Years for Healthy Holly Fraud
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Maryland Office of the State Prosecutor. Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh Pleads Guilty to Perjury
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CBS News Baltimore. Gary Brown Jr. Catherine Pugh Aide Sentencing
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U.S. Department of Justice. Former Executive Director of Maryland Center for Adult Training Sentenced
15
CBS News Baltimore. Catherine Pugh Reports to Federal Prison in Alabama
16
WYPR. Catherine Pugh Released From Federal Prison to Residential Reentry Office
17
WBAL-TV. Catherine Pugh Supervised Release Ends Early
18
AFRO American Newspapers. Former Mayor Catherine Pugh Breaks Her Silence
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CBS News Baltimore. Former Mayor Pugh Talks About Her Time in Prison
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Fox Baltimore. Maryland House Speaker Gives Shoutout to Convicted Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh
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Baltimore Sun. Peña-Melnyk Catherine Pugh Maryland