In 47 years of working in and writing about local government in Maryland, I’ve never seen a more brazen assault on fundamental principles of transparency and accountability than the efforts by the administrations of former Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski and current County Executive Kathy Klausmeier to hide from the public the reason that the county paid Olszewski’s former chief of staff, Patrick J. Murray, $100,000 to settle a lawsuit initiated by the county.

It’s possible that there is another reason for the payment to Murray. But as we piece together the slowly emerging facts, the more it looks like the reason for the payment was to prevent the disclosure of unflattering information about Olszewski, now a member of Congress.

In other words, it’s looking more and more like hush money.

It is unacceptable that county officials and a county judge have decided that residents don’t have the right to find out the facts so that they can draw their own conclusions on the propriety of the payment.

Maryland law is clear: City and county officials don’t get to use taxpayers’ money for secret “settlement” payments, especially to their former colleagues. Neither the public nor the news media should drop this matter until we learn why Murray was paid.

What we do know about the case is sketchy, based on reporting by the Baltimore Banner and testimony before the county council by former county administrative officer Fred Homan.

The case was filed back in April 2024 in the Baltimore County Circuit under the name “Baltimore County, Maryland v. Employee A,” and the court file was immediately sealed by Judge Keith R. Truffer at the request of the county.

The public learned about the case in August when the Banner reported the $100,000 payment to “Employee A,” which likely occurred a couple of months earlier; a consent order was filed in the case on June 23, 2025.

A week later, Homan told the council that Murray was “Employee A,” which Murray confirmed to the Banner.

The county sued Murray, and Murray filed a counterclaim against the county. We don’t know what relief the county sought in its complaint. Nor do we know what Murray alleged in his counterclaim.

And, of course, we have no idea why the county thought that it owed Murray $100,000.

Why the Case was Filed

The suit reportedly arises from an investigation by Baltimore County Inspector General Kelly Madigan and was filed on behalf of the county by a private law firm selected by Madigan.

According to the Banner, the suit was the culmination of Madigan’s attempt to investigate Murray for allegedly impeding her investigation of the county’s handling of the David Cordish tennis barn application in 2021.

That attempt continued after Murray resigned as Olszewski’s chief of staff in September 2022.

County Attorney James Benjamin then paid the Saul Ewing law firm $24,998 – just below the $25,000 threshold requiring council approval – to investigate Madigan’s allegations against Murray, in apparent response to Murray’s complaint that Madigan had a conflict of interest.

The report was delivered in November 2023. Madigan’s request that Benjamin make the report public was denied.

In December 2023, Stacy Rodgers, then the county’s administrative officer, wrote to Madigan stating that “there is no additional action for the Administration to take as the employee who is the subject of the independent investigation is no longer employed with Baltimore County.”

Apparently, Madigan didn’t see things that way. She used money appropriated to her office to pay for outside counsel when conflicts with the county arise to hire the law firm of Karpinski, Cornbrooks and Karp to sue Murray in April 2024.

It is not clear whether Rodgers or Olszewski played a role in approving the filing of the lawsuit against Murray. There is no doubt in my mind, however, that the idea of the county suing someone privy to detailed information on the inner workings of his administration caused Olszewski considerable angst.

In the Middle of it All

A veteran Democratic Party operative, Murray became Olszewski’s chief of staff on the day Olszewski was sworn in as county executive on December 1, 2018.

You can’t understand the role of a trusted chief of staff in a local government, especially one with Baltimore County’s reputation for backroom machinations, without appreciating the premium placed on personal and political loyalty in such an environment.

Suffice it to say, getting sued after four years of faithful service to the county executive is not part of the deal, especially when Murray was the point person for Olszewski in a number of high-profile controversies.

This included the administration spending $500,000 in legal fees in an unsuccessful effort to conceal the facts underlying its questionable $83,675 payment to Philip Tirabassi, a former county firefighter with family and business connections to Olszewski.

Murray had to prod county lawyers and administrators to come to an agreement on the Tirabassi’s payment, which Rodgers described in an email as “just so wrong on so MANY levels.”

Murray was in on the ground floor of the clash with the IG Madigan that led to Olszewski’s draft bill intended to weaken Madigan’s office that was withdrawn in July 2021 after a public backlash.

A few months earlier, Murray attempted to persuade Madigan to submit all requests for county records to his office first for approval.

It now appears that the attempt to curtail Madigan’s access to records may have been related to her investigation of the favored treatment given by county agencies to the Cordish tennis barn application.

Special Arrangements

Her report on that investigation, issued in June 2022, confirmed suspicions that the administration routinely made what Olszewski’s first director of permits, approvals and inspections referred to as “special arrangements with certain people” when it came to permits and approvals.

A final controversy we know Murray was involved in was his request that county police investigate a former county employee who turned out to be the whistleblower in the IG’s never-published investigation of Olszewski’s efforts to help a major campaign contributor win approval for the Eagle Trash Transfer Station in eastern Baltimore County.

Murray accused the retired employee, Michael Beichler, of improperly gaining access to a county building and removing county property. The investigation ended without charges when it turned out Beichler was given permission by a county employee to enter the building, and the box seen in his hands on a security camera contained copies of records he had been allowed to make.

It would be enlightening to hear Murray publicly describe Olszewski’s role in these controversies and in other “special arrangements with certain people” of which Murray was privy.

Doubling Down

Although the initial order sealing the record of the Murray case was requested while Olszewski was still county executive, the Klausmeier administration doubled down on the secrecy after entering office in January.

County Attorney James Benjamin requested and obtained from Judge Truffer another order, dated July 1, 2025, that specifically prohibits the county from releasing its own records “related to” to the case under the Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA).

The unusual request appears intended to ensure that documents in the custody of the county “related to” the case, but not in the court file, never see the light of day. That likely would include the Saul Ewing report.

If the order is lifted, the Saul Ewing report will lose its categorical protection from public disclosure because, contrary to the claim by Murray’s attorney reported in the Banner, the report is not a “personnel record” of a state or local government employee protected from public disclosure by the MPIA.

Personnel records are “those documents that directly pertain to employment and an employee’s ability to perform a job.” An investigation is a personnel record only if it relates to the “hiring, discipline, promotion, dismissal, or any matter involving [an employee’s] status as an employee.”

It is self-evident that an investigation of Murray’s actions conducted after he left county employment had no bearing on his “status as an employee” because that status already had ended.

The Saul Ewing report is not a personnel record. It’s a snapshot of how things actually work in Baltimore County, and that’s the last thing Klausmeier apparently wants the public to see, whether to protect Murray, Olszewski or herself.

Judicial Overreach

The July 1 order issued by Judge Truffer brings up another troubling aspect of the Murray case.

The judge had the authority under the Maryland Rules to issue the initial order in April 2024 sealing the “case record” if he found a compelling reason to do so. The case record includes documents filed in the case in the custody of the court clerk.

His authority under the Maryland Rules, however, does not extend to preemptively restricting access to public records that are not part of the case record or any other judicial record and are in the custody of another branch of government.

The Saul Ewing report is a snapshot of how things actually work in Baltimore County, and that’s the last thing Klausmeier apparently wants the public to see.

Under the July 1 order, a person wishing to obtain a copy of the Saul Ewing report from the county would first have to seek Judge Truffer’s permission to intervene in the Murray case for purposes of asking him to rescind the order before submitting an MPIA request.

In my opinion, the order exceeded the court’s authority under the Maryland Rules, violated the MPIA and made it even harder for county residents to access information to which they are absolutely entitled.

What Else is Hidden?

Klausmeier and Benjamin have declined to answer questions about the Murray case or the $100,000 settlement, citing “confidentiality.”

Although the case record is sealed, neither the April 2024 nor the July 2025 order imposed a confidentiality requirement, or “gag order,” on the parties. Sealing the record of a case, and ordering the parties not to discuss it, are legally separate matters.

If she wished, Klausmeier could order a statement explaining the lawsuit and the reason for the payment to “Employee A” in general terms without revealing details described in the sealed documents.

I am quite sure she would have done so by now if the reason for the payment was relatively mundane, such as payment was for unused vacation leave or a refund of employee pension contributions.

It is possible that the administration’s silence is the product of a non-disclosure agreement between the parties rather than a court order.

If there is a non-disclosure agreement, it would be unenforceable under the 2019 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Overbey v. Mayor of Baltimore and raise another question about the propriety of the county’s actions.

Time for Action

Enforcement of the laws guaranteeing open and transparent government somehow has fallen to Homan, no stranger to controversy while he was the county administrative officer.

Homan moved to intervene in the Murray case for the purpose of persuading the court to lift the order sealing the case record. Predictably, his request that the county council act to end the secrecy fell on deaf ears.

The council was willing to pass a resolution urging the General Assembly to give Madigan the authority to investigate the Baltimore County Public Schools. But it couldn’t be bothered to try to clean up a mess in its own backyard by passing a resolution demanding that Klausmeier reverse her position and ask the court to allow public access to the Murray file.

This is something Homan should not be fighting alone.

Whether or not justified when issued in April 2024, the court order is now denying access to information to which the public is entitled.

The court order sealing the case record is concealing from county residents the reason that $100,000 in taxpayers’ money was paid to a former high-ranking employee to settle the case. Whether or not justified when issued in April 2024, the order is now denying access to information to which the public is entitled as a matter of law and must be rescinded.

“When a court restricts public access to judicial proceedings or documents, Maryland law authorizes a newspaper to intervene for the limited purpose of challenging the restrictions,” the Maryland Supreme Court held 25 years ago.

It’s time for news organizations to exercise the right conferred on them by that landmark decision and join the fight to unseal the case record in “Baltimore County, Maryland v. Employee A.”

• David A. Plymyer retired as Anne Arundel County Attorney after 31 years in the county law office. He can be reached at dplymyer@comcast.net and Twitter @dplymyer.