Ex-top prosecutor for Baltimore to be sentenced for mortgage fraud and perjury convictions
GREENBELT, Md. — A former chief prosecutor for the city of Baltimore will be sentenced this week for lying about her personal finances so she could unlawfully access retirement funds during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sentencing for former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby will open Thursday at a federal courthouse in Greenbelt, a Maryland suburb of the nation’s capital. Two juries separately convicted Mosby of perjury and mortgage fraud after trials involving her personal finances.
Mosby, 44, gained a national profile for charging six Baltimore police officers in the 2015 death of Freddie Gray, a Black man who was fatally injured in police custody. Gray’s death sparked riots and protests in the city. After three officers were acquitted, Mosby’s office dropped charges against the other three officers.
In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Mosby withdrew $90,000 from the city of Baltimore’s deferred compensation plan. She used the money to make down payments on vacation homes in Kissimmee and Long Boat Key, Florida.
Prosecutors argued that Mosby improperly accessed the funds under provisions of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act by falsely claiming that the pandemic had hurt her travel-oriented side business.
Mosby’s lawyers argued that she had the legal right to withdraw the money and spend it as she pleased.
Federal prosecutors imposed a 20-month prison sentence on Mosby, who served two terms as a state attorney for Baltimore. She lost a re-election bid after her 2022 indictment.
“Ms. Mosby was charged and convicted because she chose to repeatedly break the law, not because of her politics or policies,” prosecutors wrote.
Mosby’s lawyers urged the judge to spare her from jail. They said she is the only public official prosecuted in Maryland for federal crimes “that involve no victims, no financial loss and no use of public resources.”
“Prison is not justice for Marilyn Mosby,” her lawyers wrote.
Mosby applied for a presidential pardon earlier this month. In a letter to President Joe Biden, the Congressional Black Caucus expressed support for her cause, the Baltimore Sun reported.
U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby agreed to move Mosby’s trials from Baltimore to Greenbelt, a suburb of Washington, DC. Mosby’s lawyers argued that she could not get a fair trial in Baltimore after years of negative media coverage there.