The person selected by Mayor Brandon Scott to lead a review of the SideStep youth diversion program resigned under a cloud from his last big job.

Karl A. Racine’s departure last August as federal consent decree monitor of the Cleveland Police Department followed disputes with city officials over high legal fees and an early morning incident at a Cleveland casino where he was described as drunk and belligerent.

The Scott administration has refused to disclose how much Racine and his team at Hogan Lovells Cadwalader will be paid to conduct the SideStep examination in conjunction with global accounting firm Baker Tilly.

The contract signed by the law firm and city law department has not been submitted or voted on by the city Board of Estimates. Nor has the Baker Tilly contract, which was announced in May. The administration has not responded to a Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA) request by The Brew for the agreements.

Racine’s team charged the city of Cleveland $1.2 million in their first year as federal monitors. In a press release released last Friday by Scott’s office, Racine said the SideStep review would take about 90 days.

A city official, who is not authorized to speak publicly, estimated the combined charges of Hogan Lovells and Baker Tilly could likely exceed $250,000.

Meanwhile, Batimore’s corruption watchdog, Isabel Mercedes Cumming, is in court fighting for records access to SideStep and other city programs as part of her office’s mandate to root out fraud, waste and corruption in city government.

Earlier this year, Cumming reported privacy breaches, alleged fraud and poor oversight at the SideStep program. Her office was denied full access to records after Scott’s chief solicitor, Ebony Thompson, announced a new interpretation of the MPIA law.

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The Venable Connection

Racine’s new position at City Hall represents a kind of homecoming for the Venable LLP alum.

Venable is Maryland’s largest law firm. Racine ran it as managing partner between 2006 and 2016, handpicked by James L. Shea, Venable’s chairman.

Thompson, who helped pick Racine as SideStep examiner, started off as a summer intern in 2012 and then full-time Venable lawyer in 2014.

She is the great niece of Ken Thompson, who heads the Venable monitoring team that measures police reform as part of Baltimore’s 2017 consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice. So far, the Venable team has billed the city about $13 million in fees.

In 2015, Racine entered politics, becoming the first elected D.C. attorney general, with ambitions of running for D.C. mayor and/or taking a senior leadership post at the U.S. Justice Department. Soon he was co-chairing the Democratic Attorneys General Association, which raises money to elect Democratic state attorneys general.

In 2018, he fervently endorsed Jim Shea, who had retired from Venable to run for Maryland governor. As part of the endorsement, Racine backed a young councilman from Baltimore for lieutenant governor. His name was Brandon Scott.

Although the Shea-Scott ticket got only 8% of the Democratic Party primary vote, the two stuck together on their next political venture.

Contributing $75,000 from his personal accounts and campaign slate, Shea led Venable contributions – totaling more than $200,000 – that fueled Scott’s successful 2020 campaign as Baltimore mayor. Scott appointed Shea as city solicitor, and Shea lured Thompson away from Venable to serve as his deputy – and then to succeed him as city solicitor in January 2023.

“It’s a tight little circle. At its core is Venable,” said the city official.

Debacle in Cleveland

After serving two terms as a very active D.C. attorney general, filing lawsuits against DoorDash, Grubhub and others on behalf of Washington residents, Racine was hired by Hogan Lovells and appointed lead monitor for the consent decree between the U.S. Justice Department and the City of Cleveland to address systematic problems at the police department.

As lead monitor, Racine was tasked with overseeing, measuring and evaluating for the U.S. District Court for Northern Ohio the police department’s compliance with the legally binding decree.

Early last year, while privately butting heads with Cleveland officials over legal fees – his team had charged the city several thousand dollars for answering questions from the media and had $35,000 more in disputed billings – his public profile took a hit.

According to his account, he was simply looking for a place to eat after a late-night flight from Washington, was denied entry to a casino for unknown reasons and returned to his hotel. “I am confident that I comported myself respectfully and appropriately,” he said in a statement.

According to a police officer working off-duty as a security guard, Racine was intoxicated and tried to use his Department of Justice position to push his way into the JACK Cleveland Casino at 2:30 a.m. on January 7, 2025.

Although Racine left before a police car requested by the guard arrived and was not arrested, the incident caused a political ruckus, especially after it was revealed that he had discussed the incident with Cleveland’s police chief.

The city’s Office of Professional Standards opened an investigation, and a U.S. senator and city councilman began demanding that Racine and his Hogan Lovells law team resign.

Senator Bernie Moreno (R, Ohio) filed a formal complaint with the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, while Councilman Brian Kazy complained in an open letter to U.S. Judge Solomon Oliver, saying:

“The fact that there is an open investigation, and this incident is a news story is an embarrassment to the Department of Justice, the court, himself, Hogan Lovells, the Cleveland Police Department and all of the monitoring team. This is a mess that can’t be cleaned up except by resignation or removal.”

On August 13, 2025, Racine tendered his resignation, telling Judge Oliver that the “aggressive litigation posture” of the Cleveland law department over his legal fees and other matters “injected a level of adversity that is inconsistent with the spirit of the settlement agreement.”

“Promoting transparency”

From all available evidence, the 63-year-old will have a much more welcome reception in Baltimore.

Racine is quoted in Friday’s press release as concurring with Mayor Scott’s objective of “a renewed, wholly independent examination of the MONSE SideStep program” without input or review by the city’s own watchdog agency.

“In agreeing to take on this project,” he said, “the directive from Mayor Scott and the City Law Department has been clear: that my team, in partnership with the team from Baker Tilly, conduct a thorough, extensive review of this program, its practices and its role in the broader public safety system.”

“Our work,” he continued, “will focus on providing an objective and fact-based assessment of the program, promoting transparency and accountability for Baltimore residents regarding how MONSE is delivering results and maintaining good stewardship of city funds.”

Among the lawyers assisting him will be Jason Downs, a Hogan Lovells partner who previously worked at Billy Murphy’s law firm, Murphy Falcon Murphy.

The assessment is part of a plan announced by Scott in May to fold the inspector general’s office into the law department, despite voter approval of charter amendments in 2018 and 2022 that established the office’s independence from the mayor and from his political appointees.

Saying he has “always prioritized transparency and oversight,” Scott said that if the Hogan Lovells/Baker Tilly team headed by Racine “confirms the OIG’s findings regarding fraudulent invoices, the city will utilize every tool at its disposal to recoup those funds and take action against those who perpetrated fraud against the city.”

• To reach a reporter: reuttermark@yahoo.com