Hello there!

Links from the domain present in your post are known to present a soft paywall to users. As a result, some users may have difficulty reading the linked content.

It may be helpful to provide a comment containing a synopsis or a snippet of the major points of the article in order to help those who may not be able to see it.

In accordance with the subreddit rules, please do not post the entirety of the article's contents as a comment.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[deleted]

Honestly breathtaking stuff here. Here's just from the Friends of Cathy Bevins account:

McCollum was using Cathy Bevins campaign funds for his own personal slush fund to the tune of over $110,000, almost $65,000 of which went to paying off his own American Express cards.

From 2015-2018 he was depositing checks made out to her campaign directly into his own bank account, to the tune of $28,000.

McCollum was also taking checks that were supposed to go to vendors and putting them directly into his account, over $13,000.

Here's where it gets more absurd. He was using the card for personal travel and shit, almost $3000 out of state and internationally. ATM withdraws in Carolina, steakhouse payments in Ohio, airplane tickets for the icelandic line WOW, air travel in Puerto Rico which he put down on forms as "staff travel," and airline tickets to Florida.

From the Jim Smith Victory Slate:

$31,000 was stolen from that account and deposited into his personal account. Again, funds went to paying off American Express bills.

He deposited over $4,000 worth of checks made out to the slate into his own bank account.

He deposited over $20,000 worth of vendor checks into his own account from 2015-2016.

Edit: Statement from Bevins

""I was shocked and saddened to learn about the embezzlement from my campaign account by my long-time treasurer. This is a complete betrayal of trust placed in him by me and by my donors."

Edit 2: 11 counts of perjury included in the charging docs, with a 10 year penalty for each.

damn that's like the sludge at.the bottom of the bay. tres tres

Not surprising that he got away with it for so long. Baltimore city and county politics are beyond corrupt and have been in my 25 year memory.

Please do some history research Baltirmore COUNTY was a shake down center, esp when former vice President of the USA (Spiro Agnew) was Balt County exec. When Agnew was chosen to be VP, under Nixon, he set up shop in DC shaking down all contractors who wanted to do business with the fed government. He was about to be arrested, but it happened at the same time as when Nixon resigned, and the FBI feared Agnew would avoid arrest if he became SCOTUS.

The people of Balt County NEVER mention the long list of corrupt politicians they have let into office. Too busy pointing the finger at the City.

I included the county. Didn't need to research-grew up with it and was common knowledge

And i bet nobody is more corrupt than Johnny O. Just an opinion

What is it with Baltimore and corruption?!

Wowwww. And Bevins was trying so hard to block Madigan. I'm wondering if Bevins knew this was happening all along.

Sounds like she was pretty blindsided by it, considering she said she's been cooperating. My guess is she'll have to testify against him when this goes to trial (assuming he doesn't plea out or start rolling on other shit he might know). Honestly think McCollum was just a piece of shit who took advantage of people's loyalty. I'd love to hear him explain why he thought this was acceptable and why he thought he could get away with it.

Why do you say that? Just curious for your reasoning. Imo he seems like the least corrupt of any CE we've had in ages (though that's not a high bar)

The dollar rules and the corrupt follow it like cheese.

That’s wild. I am super curious who knew what when because both Bevins and Johnny O were very publicly feuding with the IG Madigan (even going so far as to call her a bully and attempting to limit her subpoena power) when the IG started digging into McCollum. Maybe they were just protecting their friend?

[deleted]

With Agnew it was always cash. Mainly just bags of cash, that way no paper trail.

I haven't read this in full yet, but... It never ceases to amaze me that people do stuff like this. Smh. Just no respect or boundaries. If you are that desperate for money, do some moonlighting to get your bank account up. Hell get an OnlyFans if you must. But just rank stealing? 😒

It's not really just Baltimore. Louisiana and New York and Illinois and Michigan and etc. all have it, too.

Just money, influence, and power. Tale as old as time.

He was making a good six figure salary too. It's really nuts.

She thought it was fine as long as he wasn't stealing from her. Hahaha. Serves her right. Delicious karma.

One that was totally undeserved. I mean the salary was already stealing.

I'm sure when this goes to trial we'll find out more about who knew what and when. Looking at the timeline of things though I think the IG/Bevins feud started well before she had any clue about this. I'm actually more interested to see if Mccollum's attorney brings up her full throated defense of him to the IG during cross examination when she inevitably takes the stand. Also can't wait to see her responses. And it's painfully clear the states attorney had a forensic accountant go over everything, so McCollum is cooked.