Isabel Mercedes Cumming is the Inspector General of Baltimore City, she is the first woman and Hispanic to ever be named to the post in January of 2018. She is also the first Inspector General to serve a second term. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has flourished under her leadership having quadrupled the number of hotline complaints, achieving independence for the office and successfully growing the office from six to nineteen employees. The OIG has had numerous high-profile cases, and the OIG was able to achieve over fifty million dollars of documented savings for the citizens of Baltimore in the first year. For six years prior, she was the Assistant Inspector General of Investigations for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority system overseeing 200 reports of investigation and a team of fourteen. Previously she was the Chief of the Economic Crimes/Special Prosecutions Unit of the Prince George County State Attorney Office for over seven years. She started one of the first mortgage fraud units in the nation. Prior she was with the Economic Crimes Unit of Baltimore City for over four years handling hundreds of white-collar crime cases including identity theft, embezzlement and arson. For over six years she was an Assistant State Prosecutor with the Maryland State Prosecutor’s Office handling high profile cases of elected officials throughout Maryland. Ms. Cumming began her legal career at the United States Attorney’s Office as a law clerk where she specialized in investigating white-collar crimes. Prior she was the Director of Internal Audit for American National Bank in Baltimore for over seven years. She began her career with KPMG Peat Marwick in Baltimore as an auditor in 1984. Ms. Cumming was named the Certified Fraud Fighter of the Year in 2006 and the first Top Fraud Fighter in Maryland in 2004 by the ACFE. She was named a Top 100 Women in Maryland three times by the Daily Record and recently a Leader in Law. She traveled to Amman, Jordan where she taught White Collar Prosecution to fifty judges and lawyers for the Rule of Law program. She is a both a Certified Inspector General and Certified Fraud Examiner. In 2019, she was elected to the Board of Directors of the Association of Inspector Generals. She previously taught Principles of Fraud Examination at the University of Baltimore and continues to serve on the Dean’s Advisory Committee for the Law School. She earned an undergraduate degree in accounting from James Madison University, a master’s degree in business administration and a Juris Doctorate (law) degree with honors from the University of Baltimore.
