Mayor Sheila Dixon lashed out at prosecutors and reporters yesterday in her first comments since acknowledging having a personal relationship with a developer at the same time that she voted on contracts that benefited his company.
In a combative news conference outside City Hall, Dixon vowed "to survive this" and accused the state prosecutor's office of leaking information to the news media that she cannot respond to without harming her own case. Her comments came in conjunction with a push by allies to express public support for the embattled mayor.
"It doesn't give me a fair opportunity to share, and there's a process that has to take place," Dixon said. "The media know as much about me as the prosecutor's office right now."
State prosecutors spent seven hours last week searching Dixon's home and served at least nine subpoenas on current and former city employees. This week, they began bringing witnesses before a Baltimore grand jury.
Dixon acknowledged Monday that she had had a personal relationship with a prominent developer, Ronald H. Lipscomb, and that the two had exchanged gifts. City law requires officials to report gifts from people who do business with the city, but Dixon has not reported any gifts from Lipscomb in at least seven years. A document obtained by The Sun indicated that the two frequently traveled together even as she voted on his projects as president of the City Council.
The document said Dixon - who made $80,000 at the time - spent thousands of dollars at trendy boutiques and chain retailers during a weekend trip to Chicago with Lipscomb. Asked yesterday about the expenses, Dixon said she does not buy clothes very often - but she said that when she does, "I buy quality."
"I know how to maintain a budget, and if you want to see my budget and what I do, you can just look at my tax returns and other information," Dixon said.
After the news conference, The Sun requested to see the mayor's income tax returns, which are not public information. A spokesman for Dixon, Sterling Clifford, said he was working on the request but the returns were not made available yesterday.
An affidavit that prosecutors drafted in November in seeking a search warrant they served on Lipscomb's company traces the purchase of a $2,000 gift certificate that Dixon used to buy two fur coats to a credit card owned by Lipscomb's company. The affidavit also indicates that Lipscomb's company paid for her flight to Chicago when she traveled there with the developer.
