Roy McGrath, a close ally of former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan who initiated a nationwide search three weeks ago when he did not appear in court to answer wire fraud charges, died Monday after being found by authorities in Tennessee. He was 53.
Mr. McGrath, whose brief role as the governor’s chief of staff ended in scandal leading to criminal charges, died Monday evening after being shot near a shopping center in West Knoxville as federal agents closed in on his location. It was unclear Monday night whether Mr. McGrath was shot by an agent or shot himself.
Mr. McGrath sparked the search three weeks ago when he did not appear for his federal trial in the U.S. District Courthouse in Baltimore on March 13. The charges alleged that he stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the state while he headed the government-owned nonprofit Maryland Environmental Service.
Born in Greece to Howard McGrath, an attorney, and his wife Polyxene, Roy Carlos McGrath was raised in Charles County. He attended the Leonard Hall Junior Naval Academy and graduated from St. Mary’s Ryken High School, a Catholic institution in Leonardtown, in 1987.
He studied government, politics and economics at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he became heavily involved with Republican politics. He worked on former Gov. Hogan’s unsuccessful 1992 congressional campaign while also chairing the Charles County Republican Central Committee.
Mr. McGrath married his first wife, the former Ms. Yuliya Kryvenko, now Julia McGrath, in 1997. The couple divorced in 2010. He also started working at the National Association of Chain Drug stores in 1997, and continued to spend 18 years there. He served in a number of capacities at the trade organization, including being named vice president of business development and conventions in 2013.
Mr. McGrath joined Mr. Hogan again during the Republican businessman’s 2014 campaign for governor. Once Mr. Hogan won an upset victory against Anthony Brown in that election, Mr. McGrath was named a part of his transition team.
He earned a senior advisory role in the new governor’s cabinet, and was named as the governor’s deputy chief of staff months later before Gov. Hogan tapped him to lead MES, an independent state agency that carries out environmental and public works projects, in 2016.
As the COVID-19 pandemic unraveled in early 2020, Gov. Hogan asked Mr. McGrath to temporarily help the governor’s office, later crediting him with “spearheading” a previously secret plan to buy 500,000 test kits from South Korea and fly them to Maryland.
When the governor’s chief of staff, Matthew A. Clark, resigned to work at the University of Maryland Medical System, Gov. Hogan promptly appointed Mr. McGrath to fill the position, announcing Clark’s retirement and Mr. McGrath’s appointment on May 26, 2020.
But Mr. McGrath only lasted 11 weeks. In August, The Baltimore Sun revealed that he requested and received a severance package of a year’s salary — over $233,000 — from MES shortly after voluntarily leaving his post there. Mr. McGrath resigned four days after The Sun’s report.
The revelation led to immediate calls from Democratic lawmakers to hold oversight hearings regarding the matter. A legislative probe found that he abused his position at the state agency by collecting exorbitant personal expenses, improperly hiring close personal associates and arranging for the payout.
Meanwhile, federal and state investigators built the case for wire fraud and embezzlement charges against Mr. McGrath, with grand juries indicting him in October 2021. The charges accused Mr. McGrath of misleading officials into paying him the six-figure severance, embezzling funds for personal purposes, and illegally recording phone calls with the governor and other members of Gov. Hogan’s staff.
After resigning in scandal, Mr. McGrath moved to Naples, Florida, where he married Mrs. Laura Bruner of New York.
Publicly, Mr. McGrath claimed the severance was standard practice for the state agency. He circulated screenshots of text messages he received from Gov. Hogan following the revelation of his severance deal, where the Republican governor said Mr. McGrath “did nothing wrong.”
Former Gov. Hogan, who denied authorizing Mr. McGrath’s severance payment, was supposed to be among several witnesses called this past month at Mr. McGrath’s federal trial, which was upended when Mr. McGrath did not appear.
Former Gov. Hogan, said in a statement Monday that he and the former first lady, Yumi Hogan, were saddened by the “tragic situation.”
“We are praying for Mr. McGrath’s family and loved ones,” former Gov. Hogan said.
Mr. McGrath’s attorney, Joseph Murtha, has maintained that he believed Mr. McGrath was going to attend his arraignment in Baltimore. Mr. Murtha said he had spoken to his client the night before, and believed Mr. McGrath was getting on a plane the same night to travel to Maryland from his home in Florida.
Mr. Murtha said Monday evening his client was “dedicated to the citizens of Maryland,” and “never wavered in his belief that he was innocent,” noting he was “incredibly saddened” by McGrath’s death.
Federal agents searched for Mr. McGrath over the past three weeks, raiding his Naples home and seizing Ms. Bruner’s cellphone. The U.S. Marshals Service and FBI offered a combined $20,000 reward for information on his whereabouts. As the search went on, a mysterious author named Ryan Cooper self-published a digital book sympathetic to Mr. McGrath, claiming he interviewed Mr. McGrath on several occasions to write the book.
Funeral details were not made publicly available.
