$100K question: Why was the Baltimore County inspector general case sealed?

Rona Kobell

The Baltimore Banner

October 6, 2025

Little is normal about the lawsuit Baltimore County filed against a former employee that resulted in the county paying him $100,000.

Inspectors general ferret out ongoing waste, fraud and abuse through research and reports. County attorneys generally handle county legal matters. County Council members should know what they’re voting on. And judges aren’t supposed to seal cases from the public except for “a special and compelling reason,” according to the People’s Law Library of Maryland.

But in the case of Baltimore County v. Employee A, Baltimore County Inspector General Kelly Madigan used a private law firm to sue Patrick Murray, who had been chief of staff for then-County Executive Johnny Olszewski Jr.

The suit stemmed from a disagreement over what Murray told Madigan over breakfast at a Towson coffeehouse. Madigan believed Murray was trying to shut down an investigation into how the county was handling a tennis barn that developer David Cordish wanted to build; Murray believed he was imparting constructive criticism about Madigan’s sometimes aggressive style. (David Cordish is The Baltimore Banner’s landlord.)

After a year of litigation, the county agreed to pay Murray $100,000. At the request of the law firm the county had hired for Madigan, Baltimore County Circuit Judge Keith Truffer sealed the case and exempted the records from all future Maryland Public Information Act requests — a move other attorneys called unprecedented.

When Baltimore County Attorney James Benjamin briefed the County Council about the settlement in July, council members were surprised even though they approved, with no discussion, Madigan’s request in March 2024 to hire Karpinski, Cornbrooks and Karp as her outside counsel — a five-year contract worth up to $750,000.

A month later, Karpinski filed the lawsuit. If council members had known the contract would fund a lawsuit against a former employee, several said, they would not have approved it.

“I would have demanded more details,” Republican David Marks said. “It’s a lot of money.”

Several council members also weren’t clear, even after Benjamin’s briefing, that it was Madigan who sued Murray and not the other way around.

“I don’t think we recognized there would be a suit and a settlement later down the road,” said Councilman Pat Young, a Catonsville Democrat. “As much as they ‘brief’ us, they know the details, and they are giving us just what we need to know.”

‘That’s so improper’

The judge’s decision to preemptively exclude the sealed case from PIA requests is unprecedented, according to Jim Astrachan, who handles press freedom cases.

“That’s so improper,” Astrachan said. “Court proceedings are open unless there is a really good reason to close them.”

Former Baltimore City Solicitor André Davis called the sealing “a pretty extraordinary thing,” adding: “Private entities are able to hide their settlements all the time. Governments are not allowed to settle in secret.”

A precedent against preemptive sealing comes from a case Davis himself argued: A federal appeals court decided the City of Baltimore could not preemptively take away a woman’s right to defend herself from defamation.

The decision stemmed from a 2012 incident in which police assaulted a woman after she called to report a burglary. The city settlement with her included a clause saying she couldn’t disparage the police but not vice versa. When police said something about her, she defended herself. The department halved her settlement, citing her violating the gag order.

Debbie Jeon, a longtime attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, said the case ended the city’s practice of sealing police settlements.

“It was a huge case — and right next door,” Jeon said. “But it doesn’t look like anyone called it to this judge’s attention.”

It’s also unusual for an inspector general to sue former employees.

Davis, who hired Baltimore’s inspector general, said he could not recall a time when they were in conflict, much less one that would have required her to have her own counsel.

“The whole idea of both of those offices,” he said of the IG and the city solicitor, “is to protect the entity from waste, fraud and abuse.”

So, who wanted the case sealed?

While the request to seal was made by Baltimore County as plaintiff, it’s not clear who decided to make the request.

Baltimore County spokesperson Dakarai Turner said the county could not comment because the matter was “confidential pursuant to court orders.” The county declined to make County Executive Kathy Klausmeier or Benjamin available for the same reason.

E.I. “Skip” Cornbrooks IV, the lead Karpinski attorney on the case, did not return calls. Madigan also did not respond to numerous messages.

“I was not in a position to know who Skip was taking his instructions from. He was always careful to say the county was his client.”

Andrew Levy, attorney for Patrick Murray, describing his conversations with Skip Cornbrooks IV, who the county hired to represent Madigan.

Cornbrooks, representing the county, asked Truffer to “seal the record and otherwise limit the inspection of the record.” In July, the judge also ordered the case preemptively sealed from any future Maryland Public Information Act request.

Benjamin, who earns $265,000 a year, uses outside attorneys frequently. Last year, the council approved Benjamin’s requests for more than $7 million for private legal fees for cases ranging from labor contracts to shielding information from the public.

County code states that Benjamin can hire outside counsel, but the county attorney “has general charge of the legal business of the county.” Murray’s attorney, Andrew Levy, said Benjamin was rarely involved once litigation began.

In August 2024, five months after the county sued Murray, Benjamin wrote to Levy that all litigation communication should be with Cornbrooks.

Levy said he and Murray never asked that the case be sealed or barred from PIA requests. He didn’t know who it was with the county that made the decision to request the seal.

“I was not in a position to know who Skip was taking his instructions from,” Levy said. “He was always careful to say the county was his client.”

Madigan had long lobbied for an attorney for her office because she believed Murray, among other officials, tried to curtail her authority, creating a conflict between her and the county attorney.

When the county sued Murray it was because Madigan wanted an independent report about their breakfast conflict released, while he did not.

To unseal or not

Former County Administrative Officer Fred Homan, a longtime council gadfly, has called on the council to push to unseal the case. Homan has even filed his own petition to get the case unsealed, a matter assigned to Truffer. The judge held a virtual hearing Wednesday, but the case remained sealed Friday.

Maryland law is prescriptive about who can petition to unseal a case: a plaintiff, defendant or a “permitted intervening party.” A person specifically identified in the case may also petition. Homan does not fit that description.

“Send your own lawyer into the circuit court and tell the judge that transparency is critical,” Homan told the council two weeks ago. “Do that, and you will put an end to this type of behavior immediately.”

Council members say they have not discussed the matter.