Roy McGrath

[wawa]

Pixy ETA article (gift link) - wapo.st/3Ua4xAG

Were people outside of Maryland following this increasingly nutty drama?  

I did not forsee this story ending with literally a FBI shootout.  What the actual fuck?  So he was either going through some mental health shit and just couldn't deal with the idea of going to jail for fraud (which he was absolutley going to) or...there was more going on that he was hiding?  And it's like 89% for sure the first one, but...I don't like Hogan and his whole "I'm a GOOD Republican!" schtick so I kinda want it to be the second.

For people not following along....I am probably going to muddle parts of this, but Roy McGrath was the head of a quasi-governmental agency called Maryland Environmental Service.  He was involved with Larry Hogan (our prior governor) during his campaign and was tapped to be Hogan's chief of staff, but did some shady fraudulent backroom stuff that involved stealing from MES to give himself a big severance package before he took that position because he's a greedy idiot and moving to Hogans staff was a paycut.  (lots of local speculation about how much of that Hogan knew because the story is that McGrath used Hogan's name as leverage to get said package saying Hogan approved it, but Hogan didn't actually have the power to approve that anyway and heads have since also rolled from the folks that okayed that) That all came out, he was replaced as chief of staff and I guess this has all just been very very slowly working it's way through the legal system ever since.

So finally three weeks ago McGrath was about to stand trial for fraud, didn't show up for his hearing (like literally his lawyer was standing on the court house steps calling him repeatedly being like, "uhhhh....he said he was coming??") they issued a warrant at that point, and checked his house in florida and he was nowhere to be found.  So then it's a whole ass manhunt with wanted posters and a reward, and during said manhunt self published books start to pop up on Amazon claiming to have the whole story (eta: lots of speculation that McGrath is actually the author), and now it's all over I guess because the FBI found him in TN and he's now dead after "shots fired" but unclear if the FBI shot him or if he shot himself.

Did anybody read the amazon book?  or see a good synopsis?

[pixy0stix]

I read an article on WaPo (I think) about this yesterday. Fucking nuts!

ETA: It was WaPo, I put a gift link in the OP.

[underwaterrhymes]

Wowwww.

[rubytue]

So H just mentioned this because the shooting was close to our hometown. I had seen brief mention of it in the news, but didn’t click to read because it didn’t trigger anything of interest. But then, when H told me the story OMG.

eta: the WP article just said the shooting was in Knoxville. H had mentioned a specific suburb closer to home (and where my mother moved when I was in college). 

[msmerymac]

I was NOT expecting that.

[glw]

[deleted]. He's really shaken by this outcome!

[mcsangel2]

whaaaaaaaaaaat

[rubytue]

So, I went snooping in Knoxville news to see their take on the story (well, mostly because I wanted to know exactly where is Farragut). They added that it might have been self inflicted www.knoxnews.com/story/news/crime/2023/04/04/larry-hogan-former-aide-dies-after-armed-confrontation-with-fbi-in-farragut/70078961007/

Edit - nope, not an add. It’s in the WP article. It just struck me differently in this one I guess. 

[mcsangel2]

It's now a top story on CNN.com. I read the WP article and could see the shooting going either way, but the CNN article refers to it offically as an agent-involved shooting, so it does sound like it was not self inflicted (no confirmation either way though). I would not expect a white collar crime to end that way?

[Velar Fricative]

I read the link before I read wawa's synopsis and became all WTF when I got to the part about the mystery Amazon book.

The grifters seem to find a really nice home in all levels of government, sigh.

[wawa]

Apparently the amazon books are almost certainly written by him, or based on I'm sure rambling and unhinged interviews with him. It's all about how he was AMAZING at his job at MES and EARNED that severance, and Hogan threw him under the bus because he DID approve it and fully knew abotu everything and everything was a witch hunt, and etc etc etc.

some details on book contents here: www.wbal.com/article/index/607693?title=book-on-mcgrath-claims-former-governor-orchestrated-chief-of-staffs-prosecution