- Authorities have launched a manhunt for the ex-top aide of former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan.
- Hogan's former chief of staff, Roy McGrath, failed to show up for his federal fraud trial.
Authorities have launched a manhunt for the one-time top aide to former Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan after he failed to show up this week for the start of his federal trial on wire fraud and embezzlement charges.
A federal judge issued an arrest warrant for Hogan's former chief of staff Roy McGrath after he did not show up in court in Baltimore on Monday, Maryland Matters reported.
McGrath's attorney, Joseph Murtha, told The Washington Post that he couldn't get in touch with his client.
"It is my hope that he is safe and that we will soon speak with one another," Murtha told the Post in an email.
McGrath, a Florida resident, faces eight federal counts, including wire fraud, theft in programs receiving federal funds, and falsification of records.
The US Marshals Service is considering him a fugitive, according to CBS News. The federal agency and Murtha did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
The charges against McGrath stem from his time serving as the executive director of the Maryland Environmental Service. He led the quasi-government agency before he was brought on as Hogan's chief of staff in June 2020.
The federal indictment against McGrath alleges that he fraudulently obtained a $233,647.23 severance payment equal to a year's salary by falsely telling the MES Board of Directors that Hogan green-lit the severance payment.
Prosecutors allege that McGrath "knowingly falsified a document which falsely purported to be a memorandum to" Hogan.
When Hogan learned about the severance package and questioned McGrath about it, McGrath "falsely" said that the MES Board of Directors had offered him the severance package as part of their usual practice, prosecutors allege.
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," federal prosecutors have said.
McGrath resigned as chief of staff to Hogan in August 2020.