Former Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was ordered to pay back more than $2.1 million after she was sued for nonpayment of a business loan.
Two weeks after Indiana-based Old National Bank sued Rawlings-Blake last month, U.S. District Court Judge Stephanie Gallagher on Jan. 22 deemed the bank's claim "meritorious" and ordered her to pay the full amount, plus the cost of the litigation and $562 per day from the date of the complaint.
Gallagher wrote that the bank's complaint for confessed judgment established a "voluntary, knowing, and intelligent waiver by the defendant of the right to notice and a prejudgment hearing on the merits of the claim of the Bank for liquidated damages."
She gave Rawlings-Blake 30 days to file a motion to "open, modify or vacate the judgment."
The former mayor is the guarantor of two companies, Buy-MBE and Gulf Coast Technology Corporation, that received a $2 million loan backed by the Small Business Administration in November 2023.
Loan documents say she "unconditionally guarantees payment to Lender of all amounts owing under the Note."
It's not clear how the companies or Rawlings-Blake used the money.
Old National Bank is represented by Jeffrey Greenberg of Rosenberg Martin Greenberg.
Rawlings-Blake became mayor in February 2010 when Sheila Dixon resigned after being convicted of embezzlement. She did not seek reelection in the 2016 mayoral election won by Catherine Pugh after presiding over the city's handling of the riots stemming from the death while in police custody of Freddie Gray.