BALTIMORE — Catherine Pugh, the former mayor of Baltimore, who swept into office three years ago pledging to restore integrity in a city grappling with corruption, entrenched economic inequality and pervasive violence, pleaded guilty on Thursday to federal crimes tied to a children’s book series she wrote.
Ms. Pugh, 69, spoke barely above a whisper as she appeared in a courtroom to plead guilty to four counts as part of a plea agreement. At several moments during the hearing, she appeared to be close to tears, at one point seeming to gasp for air as she listened to prosecutors reading the charges against her.
Ms. Pugh, a Democrat who resigned as mayor in May, could face decades in prison when she is sentenced in February. The charges — wire fraud conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the government and two counts of tax evasion — carry a maximum penalty of 35 years in prison.
A federal grand jury indicted Ms. Pugh after the F.B.I. investigated a scheme in which a series of children’s books she wrote, known as “Healthy Holly” books with titles like “Exercising Is Fun” and “Vegetables Are Not Just Green,” was used to defraud health care companies, Baltimore’s school system and taxpayers.
Starting when Ms. Pugh was a member of the Maryland Legislature in 2011, she sold tens of thousands of copies of the self-published “Healthy Holly” series to health care companies and charitable organizations with the promise that the books would be donated to schoolchildren.
In some cases, the indictment said, Ms. Pugh sold copies of the same set of books to two different buyers, enabling her to be paid twice.
Frequently, federal prosecutors said, Ms. Pugh failed to deliver the books. Instead, they said, she kept both the books and the money used to buy them. Eventually, thousands of copies of books were found in a Baltimore City Public School System warehouse; others were kept in Ms. Pugh’s offices and in one of her houses.
At other times, Ms. Pugh did not have the books printed at all, but still kept the money used to buy them.
The arrangement generated more than $600,000 for the mayor, officials said, much of it from companies that had business ties to city government. Ms. Pugh used the money to buy a second home in Baltimore and to fund her political campaigns, the prosecutors said.
Two others, including Gary Brown Jr., who served as an aide to Ms. Pugh in the State Senate and at City Hall, have pleaded guilty in connection to the case.
Ms. Pugh’s legal problems come as Baltimore continues to struggle with one of the nation’s highest rates of violent crime. Nearly one in four residents live in poverty.
She took office in 2016, as the city struggled to emerge from the turmoil following the death in police custody of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African-American man.
A former state senator and majority leader in Maryland’s General Assembly, Ms. Pugh pledged to heal the city’s wounds and to lead with honor.
“We will rebuild trust between police officers and the community, taking care of our officers and our people, and confront the root causes of crime,” Ms. Pugh promised in a mission statement she issued. “The city needs a leader who will serve with honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s who I am, and this is the job for me.”
After the hearing on Thursday, Robert K. Hur, the United States attorney for Maryland, described Ms. Pugh’s tenure in blistering terms. “She betrayed the trust placed in her by the public,” he said. “We need dedication and professionalism in our leaders, not fraud and corruption.”
Ms. Pugh’s lawyers declined to comment, and Ms. Pugh left the courthouse and got into a waiting vehicle.