How the Pugh/UMMS scandal was rooted in privatization and lax ethics rules

In 2019, the public learned about Catherine Pugh's corrupt self-dealing as a University of Maryland Medical System board member, but her ties to the hospital chain go back years. And Pugh was far from the only person benefiting from their seat on the Board. Brew reporting and analysis showed how the seeds of the scandal were sown in Baltimore and Annapolis amid lax ethics rules and a lucrative decision to turn the once public hospital into a profit-driven chain "run more like a business."

UMMS self-dealing scandal a product of privatization

What’s really unhealthy at Baltimore’s once-public hospitals: How their executives pay themselves millions, strip employees of rights and sue impoverished patients. [OP-ED]

Seeds for UMMS contracting scandal were sowed in ethics-challenged Annapolis

Privatized by state lawmakers, the hospital network’s board combined the opacity of private industry with the cronyism of Maryland politics. [OP-ED]

Chrencik, at the center of the UMMS “self-dealing” scandal, placed on leave

An “outside independent” review will scrutinize the University of Maryland Medical System board’s “contracting relationships,” its chairman says.

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UMMS’s Bob Chrencik built a hospital empire out of privatization

The longtime chief of the University of Maryland Medical System defends side deals cut with Francis X. Kelly, Catherine Pugh and other board directors amid rising political headwinds.

Catherine Pugh’s connections to UMMS – long and lucrative

The University of Maryland Medical System’s payments for Pugh’s “Healthy Holly” books fit a pattern of financial support that helped put her in the mayor’s office in the first place.

UMMS payments to Pugh were funneled through an LLC registered to her campaign treasurer

EXCLUSIVE: How Baltimore’s mayor used a hard-to-trace LLC to accept money-for-books from UMMS.