Case Explained: Fraud watchdog calls for oversight as mayor defends Baltimore’s actions in battle over records – Legal Perspective

Baltimore’s mayor is defending his signature crime-fighting program and pushing back against allegations that his office is not providing the city’s inspector general with the information she needs to fight fraud. 

It follows a new report by her office that uncovered thousands of dollars in over-billing and the improper release of confidential juvenile records. 

Mayor responds 

Mayor Brandon Scott answered questions on Wednesday about the inspector general’s most recent findings, including allegations that several contractors created fake invoices and fraudulently billed the city for thousands of dollars while working for SideStep, a now-shuttered program to help troubled youth. 

SideStep operated under the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, or MONSE, the agency championed by Mayor Scott for historic reductions in crime. 

“In this case, MONSE and the city would be the victims here. This is not about wrongdoing from them,” the mayor stressed. 

Scott said, “We will not allow all this to be conflated into making MONSE the boogeyman simply because people don’t believe in the work.”

Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming’s report also revealed that a city employee improperly emailed confidential information to a relative about roughly 700 juveniles in violation of state law.

The mayor said that the employee no longer works for the city. 

“You’re talking about one email. One email,” the mayor said. “And what we are doing on our side is to make sure everyone knows that you cannot do this.”

Redacted documents 

The inspector general first told WJZ Investigates in January that once she started asking for specific documents for this investigation, the city largely shut her down, later citing a new legal interpretation. 

“How could I possibly do my job? My job is to protect taxpayer dollars. I can’t follow the money anymore because it’s redacted,” Cumming told WJZ Investigator Mike Hellgren as she held up papers with information blocked out in black ink. 

Now, she is suing for access. 

While Cumming declined to comment due to that lawsuit, she posted on X Wednesday morning a picture of herself with the redacted records and wrote, “To be very clear, these 200+ financial records are STILL redacted. Yet OIG was able to find several instances of fraud in the few documents provided. MONSE & LAW have the unredacted documents not OIG. This is why Oversight is needed.”

“If she shared the information with the city solicitor about who the contractor is, we would be going after them, but we haven’t gotten that information, which is not typically what would happen,” the mayor said. 

WJZ Investigates asked the mayor if the back-and-forth is healthy for the city and what he sees as the path forward. 

“Many of these cases that you guys have asked us about in recent weeks have happened after she decided to go to court. If we were just not going to work with her, we wouldn’t do that,” Mayor Scott responded. 

Scott continued, “This for me is not about that. It’s about following the law. It’s about having a process. I want to be very clear about this: We support the inspector general’s work, but what we will not do is violate law, and what we believe in is process and oversight, and we will continue to push for that for everybody—myself included.”

In January, Cumming told WJZ, “I get back more than 200 pages where the money trail has been cut off. And I mean cut off. It’s shocking.”

What’s next? 

The alleged data breach comes as the city is fighting in the General Assembly to allow more agencies to access juvenile records. 

The inspector general said she has referred her findings to law enforcement. 

Her legal battle with the city for documents is still making its way through the courts. 

The mayor said an audit of the SideStep program and its contractors is underway. It should be completed later this year. 

“If this is true, then we will hold these people accountable to the highest extent of the law,” Mayor Scott said.

You can read the full response from MONSE here.

You can read the inspector general’s full report here.