Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh’s ‘Healthy Holly’ scandal: Winning coverage from Baltimore Sun

Baltimore Sun coverage of Mayor Catherine Pugh's "Healthy Holly" scandal, which won a Pulitzer Prize. Photo illustration.

The Baltimore Sun on Monday won the Pulitzer Prize for local reporting for coverage of a book-publishing scheme that resulted in the resignation of Mayor Catherine Pugh and helped lead to her federal conviction.

Here is the coverage The Sun submitted to the Pulitzer committee.

• Reporter Luke Broadwater broke the news that members of the University of Maryland Medical System board, including Pugh, had hundreds of thousands of dollars in business deals with the medical system.
• Pugh then amended her financial disclosure filings, admitting she did not fully disclose the business relationship she started in 2011. After The Sun asked questions about the disclosure forms she filed while in the Senate, Pugh submitted an amendment for seven years of reports filed with the state ethics commission.
• A week after the deals were revealed, Pugh resigned from the UMMS board as it was revealed 8,700 books she sold to the Baltimore City school system were sitting unread in a warehouse.
• The University of Maryland Medical System classified its two most recent purchases of books from Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh as “grants” in federal tax filings — one to the city public school system in 2017 and one to the Democrat’s Healthy Holly company in 2015, tax documents show.
• Where are the books? Tens of thousands of her children’s books were still unaccounted for, even as public pressure built.
• It turns out the University of Maryland Medical System wasn’t the only major buyer of Pugh’s books. Health provider Kaiser Permanente and local nonprofit Associated Black Charities paid nearly $200,000 for copies. Kaiser paid Pugh during a period when the company was seeking a lucrative contract to provide health benefits to city employees.
• The quasi-public auto insurance fund created by the Maryland General Assembly for hard-to-insure drivers gave a $7,500 donation in 2012 to Pugh’s Healthy Holly book company, shortly before she successfully sponsored legislation supported by the company as a state senator.
• As a Maryland senator, Pugh sponsored dozens of bills affecting hospitals in Maryland — including several that would have benefited UMMS.
• Maryland lawmakers approved sweeping legislation that would reform the University of Maryland Medical System’s board of directors amid revelations of single-source contracts for some board members.
• Pugh resigned as mayor in early May, about a week after FBI and IRS agents raided her two city homes, her office in City Hall, and the homes of her allies.