Two conflicting portraits of former Baltimore Comptroller Jacqueline F. McLean emerged yesterday as the courtroom battle began over whether she should be jailed for scheming to steal thousands in taxpayer dollars.
While her psychiatrists described her as self-destructive and irrational, almost bent on getting caught, skeptical prosecutors suggested McLean was manipulative and determined to avoid going to prison for the corruption scandal.
Even thinner and more drawn than three months ago when she tearfully confessed to her thievery, McLean sat silently through five hours of testimony that chronicled her struggle with depression and explored her motives for the barely concealed scheme.
She will return to Baltimore Circuit Court today to learn her fate. State Prosecutor Stephen Montanarelli still has not revealed what sentence he will recommend, but a source familiar with the case, and who insisted on anonymity, said the prosecutor will seek at least some prison time.
McLean's defense lawyer, M. Cristina Gutierrez, later complained, "Their insistence on jail time, we feel, comes from their cemented feeling, without reason and without basis, that her mental illness is not real."
Her personal psychiatrist, Dr. Dennis Kutzer, testified that the despondent McLean could be expected to try to kill herself if sent to jail.
"My opinion is that incarceration would probably result in a severe suicide attempt," he said. "[A jail term] would basically verify for herself that she is an unworthy person. She would feel completely worthless and hopeless."
Once the financial guardian of Baltimore, McLean stands convicted of stealing more than $25,000 by putting a fictitious employee on her payroll and failing to disqualify herself from a lucrative city lease of the vacant headquarters of her travel business. She could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison for felony theft, but nonbinding sentencing guidelines call for a sentence of probation to one year.
McLean, 50, who retired from office with full benefits over the summer, has repaid the full $26,961.57 in restitution and interest. City officials said they would decide whether to revoke her pension after she is sentenced. Her sentencing will bring to an end a drawn-out corruption scandal that captured the attention of many in Baltimore and prompted months of legal one-upmanship.
Almost exactly a year ago, McLean's political career began to unravel amid questions about a $1 million city lease she helped arranged for the headquarters of Four Seas & Seven Winds Inc., the Federal Hill travel agency she ran with her husband, James.
What followed was a political and personal demise that included hospitalization for depression, a near-fatal overdose with prescription pills on April 14, and an estrangement from her husband.
At yesterday's hearing, Dr. Kutzer testified that she suffered from severe depression, anxiety and a "narcissistic personality disorder" that would leave her at risk of suicide throughout her life. A second psychiatrist who examined McLean, John R. Lion, said she has a "borderline personality disorder" and has no self-worth.
In two hours of testimony, Dr. Kutzer took pains to make clear that he never thought she faked her depression or her threats of suicide. The former comptroller openly admitted stealing the money and expressed deep shame.
Under cross-examination by Thomas M. McDonough, an assistant state prosecutor, the Dr. Kutzer acknowledged that McLean described herself as "being treated like a mass murderer." Asked whether she considered herself a victim, he said, "I suppose, to a point."
Dr. Kutzer also said McLean told him in June that she stole the money to help her constituents.
"She had virtually no funds, and when she did have funds, it would go to her constituents," he said. "She said very little money went to herself."
For 14 months, McLean sent regular payments to Salon Me'Chelle, a Northwest Baltimore beauty shop owned by her sister and brother-in-law. Mr. McDonough pointed out that McLean used the money to pay off $13,559 in credit card and phone bills and $6,400 in outstanding debts from the defunct Four Seas & Seven Winds.
She told the second psychiatrist that she used the money to establish a line of credit at a bank and to pay for a family cruise. But Dr. Lion said he was left confused by her motives for stealing such a limited sum when she had access to a $2 billion city budget.
"For this, I do not have a satisfactory answer," he said. "Because it doesn't make sense. Because it's so destructive. She's thrown away everything, and she had everything."
Prosecutors contend that there's a very simple explanation for McLean's theft -- she needed the cash to pay off her debts. Ms. Gutierrez called the McLeans' accountant, Arnold Williams, and planned to demonstrate that the couple was not so heavily in debt as to warrant the theft.
Before Mr. Williams could detail the couple's finances, however, Judge Donald J. Gilmore, the retired Carroll County judge presiding over the case, ruled that the information was irrelevant. Ms. Gutierrez said afterward that she wants to counter any argument by the prosecution that McLean "did it purely out of greed."
Mr. Montanarelli called as a witness Anthony Swetz, an assistant commissioner for the state Division of Correction in charge of inmate health services. He said an arriving inmate with McLean's recent mental health history would be "instantaneously" placed on 24-hour suicide watch in a secured cell in the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup.
At today's hearing, Ms. Gutierrez plans to call McLean's daughter, Michelle, and friends of the family.