Baltimore Mayor-designee Sheila Dixon?s attorney said on Wednesday his client was being unfairly tied to the indictment of Mildred Boyer, the former president of United Technologies.
“In our view, this is a far cry from the corrupt relationship that the media has been portraying,” Dale Kelberman said of the indictments.
“One would think if there was such a relationship the state prosecutor would have discovered it; the absence is worth noting,” he said.
The comments were made after Dixon declined to comment at a news conference on the indictment of the president of Utech, a firm that once employed her sister.
Dixon, after announcing several senior appointments to her administration, was whisked from the City Hall?s second-floor conference room before reporters could ask her about the charges against Boyer.
Dixon announced the appointment of Chris Thomaskutty to director of the City?s citistat program and Demaune Millard to direct the Office of Government Relations. Mary Pat Fannon was appointed as deputy director of government relations, and Edward Gallagher said that he would stay on as the city?s Director Finance, a job he held in the O?Malley administration.
Maryland State Prosecutor Robert Rohrbaugh handed down the 10-felony count indictment against Boyer on Tuesday. The former president of Utech was charged with allegedly falsifying invoices and forging documents to steal close to $200,000. The indictments are the first to emerge from an investigation into Dixon?s alleged conflict of interest involving the company that employed her sister Janice.
Financial experts said questions still remained as to how Utech managed to create and reassign fraudulent invoices without raising red flags.
The indictment alleges that Boyer faked invoices stating that the city owed Utech money. Boyer allegedly then sold the invoices to what is known as a “factor,” a company that purchases invoices for cash, then collects the money from the customer directly, taking a percentage for the service.
Bert Goldberg, executive director of the International Factoring Association, a trade group, said after the invoices are purchased, the factor usually immediately lets the customer know it owns the debt.
“They do that right away to make sure that they get the payment,” he said.
Economist Aniarban Basu said the indictment raises questions of how the company managed to continue doing business with Baltimore after the city was alledgedly presented with fraudulent invoices.
“Obviously this leaves many unanswered questions, the whole thing is shrouded in mystery,” he said.
