Former Baltimore Mayor Pugh sells one of her Ashburton homes for $75,000

Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh has sold one of her two Ashburton homes for $75,000, property records show.

Pugh, who resigned in May amid allegations of financial impropriety for selling her self-published children’s books to the University of Maryland Medical System and others, sold her Dennlyn Road home to Boaz Alternative Energy and Technologies LLC on July 31, records show. The home’s assessed value is listed in property records as $187,700.

Pugh’s attorney, Steven Silverman, declined to comment on the sale of the property, which Pugh had owned since 1998.

“It’s a personal matter for a private citizen,” Silverman said.

Founded in 2011 and owned by Baltimore resident Michael Tisdale, Boaz develops “fuel cell, solar and wind energy for residential and commercial properties,” according to its Articles of Organization. Boaz Alternative Energy and Technologies LLC filed for bankruptcy in 2017 but was reinstated in June 2018, business records show.

Reached by phone Wednesday, Tisdale said he believed he paid a fair price for the house, which Pugh used as a rental property. Tisdale said he’d seen other homes in the neighborhood sell for prices in a similar range, and the home is in need of potentially expensive upgrades.

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Steve Silverman, attorney for Mayor Catherine Pugh, speaks to the media following a meeting at her home. (Karl Merton Ferron)

“I’ve known Catherine for 40 years,” Tisdale said. “I’m a businessman. I buy houses. I’ve bought over 150 of them. I fix them up and sell them. It’s a nice house in a lovely community."

In 2017, 185 homes were sold in the broader Dorchester/Ashburton neighborhood, at a median home price of $103,000, according to data compiled by the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance. That was an increase from a median sale price of $75,000 in 2016 and $84,000 in 2015, the data show.

Tisdale said he couldn’t recall who approached whom about the sale of the house, but said the talks took place months ago. He declined to comment on any discussions he and Pugh had.

“I’m trying to do some good things in Baltimore,” Tisdale said.

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Pugh resigned as mayor of Baltimore in May, apologizing for the harm she caused to the city’s image amid a scandal over her sales of a self-published children’s book series.

Once regarded as an ethical option in a city with a history of wrongdoing by politicians, Pugh was overtaken by the public outcry over hundreds of thousands of dollars in deals for her “Healthy Holly” books. The sales were revealed in a series of articles in The Baltimore Sun that began March 13. Pugh’s story shifted as she tried to account for the first deal to be disclosed, struck with the University o f Maryland Medical System when she was a member of the hospital network’s board. She nonetheless called continued questioning by reporters a “witch hunt.”

While Pugh listed the home on Dennlyn Road as her principal address, she primarily lived at a different home in Ashburton — the one reporters staked out while trying to get her to comment on the “Healthy Holly” controversy.

Pugh lives in a house in the 3400 block of Ellamont Road in the city’s Ashburton neighborhood that she bought after being sworn in as mayor in December 2016. She began renovating it in early 2017. Property records show she bought that home without taking out a mortgage.

Federal agents raided both locations last spring.

The sale of the house on Dennyln Road was first reported by the Baltimore Business Journal.

Baltimore Sun reporters Kevin Rector and Lillian Reed contributed to this article.

Originally Published: Oct 01, 2019 at 10:56 pm