Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon began abstaining from votes involving her former boyfriend, developer Ronald Lipscomb, after federal agents began an investigation into alleged corruption at City Hall, records released Thursday show.
Dixon has abstained from voting on 37 projects since 2004, the year after federal prosecutors began their probe into City Hall.
Those abstentions included the vote on a Harbor East deal involving Lipscomb in January.
By comparison, Dixon abstained from 13 votes between 1999 and 2003.
“At least since the start of the federal investigation, she has abstained from all votes involving Lipscomb,” Dixon?s spokesman Sterling Clifford said.
The federal investigation ended without charges, but state prosecutors have started a separate probe.
State prosecutors are investigating Dixon?s six-month relationship with Lipscomb, the owner of Doracon Contracting Inc. Dixon said she dated Lipscomb and exchanged gifts between late 2003 and early 2004. At the same time, she did not recuse herself from votes that benefited his companies, prosecutors said.
According to records released Thursday, Dixon abstained from two votes in 2000, four votes in 2001, four votes in 2002, three votes in 2003, five votes in 2004, 21 votes in 2006, seven votes in 2007 and four votes thus far in 2008.
In 2001, she abstained from voting on a project involving Howard Dixon, a special assistant who has been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury investigating the mayor. In 2003, she declined to vote on a measure involving her church, Bethel AME. She recused herself in 2006 from voting on a deal concerning Union Technologies, known as Utech, which employed her sister, Janice Dixon.
Utech?s owner, Mildred Boyer, pleaded guilty earlier this year to filing a false tax return and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation into City Hall.
State prosecutors are now seeking an indictment from a Baltimore City grand jury, which is expected to hear the case during afternoons throughout the last week of June and July.
On Wednesday, prosecutors canceled the testimony of Anthony McCarthy, Dixon?s former spokesman because of a scheduling conflict, sources said. Prosecutors also began sneaking in witnesses through a back door to the grand jury room to avoid the media.
Examiner staff writer Stephen
Janis contributed to this report.
