Here’s where we stand: Another week has passed, and Roy McGrath is still missing. And another book has been released about – and most likely by – the fugitive former aide to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan.
This second book is even shorter than the first, and riddled with more errors. But if you buy it on Amazon Kindle, it will cost you several dollars more.
Once again this week, you don’t have to buy a book about McGrath to read it. As a public service, you can download and read it at no cost, thanks to Baltimore Fishbowl. [We provided a link to Volume 1 last week.]
The name on the cover of the second volume of “Betrayed” is once again Ryan Cooper. But this time, he’s known as “Best Selling Author Ryan Cooper,” a claim presumably made based on the sales of the first book.
McGrath, if you recall, was briefly Hogan’s chief of staff in the summer of 2020, but his tenure ended after revelations of a severance payment equivalent to full year salary of more than $230,000 approved by the board of Maryland Environmental Service, a quasi-government agency, where he served as CEO.
McGrath was indicted on federal felony charges based on that payment and other alleged crimes such as illegal wiretapping and did not appear in court for the March 13 scheduled start of his trial. He’s been missing ever since.
McGrath has claimed his innocence, and is now turning on Hogan, blaming his former employer and friend for ruining his life with self-serving disloyalty.
This second book covers, in 31 pages, Cooper/McGrath’s accounting of his decisions and actions at Maryland Environmental Service – a quasi-public agency that handles such tasks as recycling contracts for municipalities, and waste clean-up.
Cooper/McGrath continues to air in public his grievances against Bertha “Beth” Wojton, another environmental services agency official whom Cooper/McGrath blames for spilling the beans about his severance package. The cover of the latest book is a photo of Wojton posing behind an antelope she appears to have shot on an overseas hunting trip.
In the preface, the author writes that “As of March 2023, Roy is missing and being sought by the government, his family and friends, and many who are worried for his well-being and safety.”
We’ve only skimmed it, but it’s packed with details about his company car, the contracts he had to oversee, the staff changes he wanted to make, and related bureaucracy that will likely only be of interest to a select audience.
In other updates, earlier this week federal authorities announced that the total reward being offered for information leading to the capture of McGrath is now $20,000, being split by the U.S. Marshals Service and the FBI.
Also this week, the Baltimore Banner confirmed that the manhunt for McGrath is concentrated in the southern U.S. states. McGrath had moved to Florida after his indictment. And if you just can’t get enough of the McGrath story, there’s at least one more shoe that will drop: the author tells us that “this is book two in a series of three books about Roy McGrath.”
Thank you Baltimore Fish Bowl for posting Roy’s second installment.
Roy, you’ll probably never work in this town again. You didn’t give any clue to where you came from before you say you hooked up with Larry Hogan back in 1992.
It had to do with drugs right, but the legal kind? I don’t think we need a Part 3. You said enough here, and if someone wants to look a little deeper they might find a much bigger story than your severance package.
What concerns me is that it wasn’t until page 9 that you give a description of what you think the MES does. “MES is a passthrough for bills” between environmental service vendors and customers like the Maryland Port Administration. No where did I hear you mention that MES was actually involved in inspecting the quality of the services they passed through. That troubles me because I think the public was misled when the MES was brought into the Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant problems.
You have done a great service, you named names and gave a good map of MES and it’s atmosphere. You settled scores but blew your own horn when you said finding empty file cabinets was something you had encountered before and you were undaunted. Apparently you had no problem with Susan your secretary who unloaded the file cabinets but you made sure to mention “her gentle Southern accent” if someone goes looking for her. You were not as kind to others. Someone’s daughter who works as community liaison for Comcast. Someone else’s daughter who heads up Environmental Education at MES. $1000.00 payments every time a board meeting is called.
You mentioned former Governor Schaefer’s driver who they called the “mayor” at the MES HQ and was a sort of gadabout. That’s a connection to the old wise guys days in Baltimore. I think you know enough to lay real low until you can get in a witness protection program. But don’t count on that. Not unless the FBI has the gumption to look very closely into the activities of the MES and can trace it to environmental crimes. Not just money.
Roy, on page 4 you say that when you first considered the job you “liked the idea of MES which mostly operated quietly under the Radar” and once on board you decided to “rebrand” MES and you tapped the Walt Disney Company concept. Oh no. The Hartford County connection was very interesting. Roy, you bit the hand that fed you, you better lay real low. Under the Radar so to speak.
I just saw that Roy McGrath was captured in Tennessee. He may have been wounded.
Here is something I find interesting. In Roy’s second book he mentioned a man at MES everyone referred to as the “mayor” of MES.
He was the former driver for Mayor Schaefer. His name is Chuck Fawley.
Fawley is the subject of a December 1987 Washington Post article entitled “Schaefer’s Embarrassing Outbursts.” Schaefer took exception to the press looking into Chuck Fawley being named to a post overseeing gambling. Fawley had been looking after the State House in Annapolis, apparently moving up from driver, since Schaefer wasn’t living there (Schaefer lived in a row house in Baltimore with his companion Hilda May Snoops) but then Hilda May stepped up and Fawley got the gambling oversight job. Schaefer thought Fawley was being picked on.
This one is very interesting.
March 13, 1999 Baltimore Sun
“MD’s Top FBI man has roots in the city; Mosquera once served as Schaefer’s bodyguard.”
It goes on to say Richard M. Mosquera was Schaefer’s bodyguard. Now he is the SAC (Special Agent in Charge) of the Maryland – Delaware FBI Office. Chuck Fawley was the driver back in the day when Mosquera was body guarding Schaefer. Fawley reminisces in the article how he used to hang out in a bar in Fells Point with Mosquera.
Interesting.