Federal authorities announced on Tuesday that it has put out a warrant for arrest and launched a manhunt for Roy McGrath, a former top adviser to a former governor of Maryland, for failing to appear in court to answer accusations of wire fraud and record-falsification.
An arraignment and jury selection for McGrath’s trial before U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman was scheduled for Monday at 9 a.m. An attorney for McGrath, Joseph Murtha, wrote in an email that he was unclear of his client’s location. “Unfortunately, at this time I have no further information about Mr. McGrath,” Murtha wrote. “It is my hope that he is safe and that we will have an opportunity to speak to one another in the near future.”
In June 2020, Larry Hogan, a former Republican governor of Maryland who presided from 2015 to 2023, named McGrath as his chief of staff. Later that year, McGrath quit the position, and in 2021, he was prosecuted.
Roy C. McGrath, age 52, of Naples, Florida, Executive Director of Maryland environmental service facing federal and state charges for allegedly fraudulently obtaining more than $276,731 from his employer, and state felony violations of the Maryland wiretap statute
Roy C. McGrath allegedly fraudulently obtained a year’s salary as a severance payment, used MES funds to pay a personal pledge to a museum, caused MES to pay tuition expenses for a class taken after he left, and recorded private conversations with state officials.
The federal and state charges allege that from March 2019 through December 2020, McGrath personally enriched himself by using his positions of trust as the Executive Director of MES and the chief of staff for the Governor of Maryland to cause MES to make payments to McGrath, or on his behalf, to which he was not entitled.
Specifically, the federal indictment and state criminal information allege: that McGrath caused MES funds to be paid to a museum where he was a member of the Board of Directors instead of using his personal funds to pay his pledge to the museum; that McGrath caused the MES Board of Directors to approve paying McGrath a $233,647.23 severance payment–equal to one year’s salary–upon his departure from MES by falsely telling them that the Governor was aware of and approved the payment; that McGrath caused MES to pay tuition benefits for McGrath after he left MES by personally approving reimbursements for payments made by Subordinate Employee #1 on McGrath’s behalf; and that McGrath falsified his time sheets, reporting that he was at work while on two separate vacations in 2019.
The state criminal information also alleges that, during his tenure at MES and later as the Governor’s Chief of Staff, McGrath illegally recorded private conversations involving senior state officials without their permission.
If convicted of the federal charges, McGrath faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for each of four counts of wire fraud; and a maximum of 10 years in federal prison for each of two counts of embezzling funds from an organization receiving more than $10,000 in federal benefits.
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Portions of this article came from The Justice Department Statement from The United States Attorney’s Office Department of Maryland
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