Marilyn Mosby, the former Baltimore prosecutor who rose to national prominence for prosecuting police officers in the death of Freddie Gray, was spared jail time on Thursday for lying about her personal finances to access retirement funds and buy a vacation home in Florida.
U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby sentenced Ms. Mosby to three years of supervised release with 12 months of home confinement after a jury found Ms. Mosby guilty on two counts of perjury in November. Before issuing the sentence in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., Judge Griggsby ordered Ms. Mosby to forfeit a condominium in Longboat Key, Fla., that she had purchased with funds from a falsified mortgage application.
Ms. Mosby was found guilty on the perjury charges for falsely claiming financial hardship resulting from the coronavirus pandemic to withdraw money from a retirement fund.
She faced up to five years in prison for each of the two counts. Prosecutors asked for 20 months. She also faced a maximum of 30 years for lying on the mortgage application. A jury found her guilty on a federal charge of making a false mortgage application after a separate trial in February.
“I just want to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you for the fight,” Ms. Mosby said outside the courthouse after the hearing, her daughters by her side. She added that the “fight was not over,” but that she was grateful “to go home to my babies.”
Federal prosecutors accused Ms. Mosby of falsely claiming financial hardship to withdraw money from her city retirement account. Those funds are usually restricted until retirement, but a federal relief program called the CARES Act permitted withdrawals for “adverse financial consequences” tied to the pandemic.
Ms. Mosby’s supporters had said that her longstanding record of public service, and her fight against racial inequality in the criminal justice system, should be considered at the sentencing. In an interview with ABC News earlier this week, she criticized what she described as an aggressive prosecution.
“The investigation was extremely expansive,” she said in that interview, adding that investigators “interrogated” her hairdresser and her children’s dance instructor, “all to create an environment in which I would be isolated and villainized in the media.” She added, “They’ve done this intentionally to break me.”
Ms. Mosby served two terms as state’s attorney for the city of Baltimore and became a key voice in the national debate over race and policing by pursuing charges against police officers in connection with the death of Freddie Gray, a Black man who died in police custody in 2015. But none of the prosecutions she brought against the officers in connection with his death were successful. In early 2022, she was indicted by federal prosecutors on the perjury charges and lost a Democratic primary bid for a third term months later.
In 2020, Ms. Mosby requested $90,000 from her retirement account and indicated on federal forms that she had been facing financial hardship. Instead, prosecutors pointed to payroll documents showing that Ms. Mosby continued to make $250,000 a year during the pandemic in her job as Baltimore City state’s attorney.
Ms. Mosby’s lawyers argued that she was struggling to grow a business called Mahogany Elite Enterprises, which she formed in 2019 to organize retreats for successful Black women, saying that travel restrictions had caused the venture to lose money.
But an F.B.I. forensic accountant testified at Ms. Mosby’s trial that her company never had any revenue or clients, making the question of financial hardship irrelevant.
Prosecutors said that Ms. Mosby used the money she withdrew to fund down payments for vacation homes in Florida.
In a separate conviction in February, a jury found that Ms. Mosby lied on an application for a Florida condo by falsely stating that she had received a $5,000 gift from her then husband to be applied to the purchase of the property. Prosecutors argued that Ms. Mosby made the statement in order to secure a lower interest rate. The jury acquitted her on a charge of making a false mortgage application related to her purchase of a home in Kissimmee, Fla.
Ms. Mosby has appealed directly to President Biden and applied for a presidential pardon, according to The Baltimore Sun. She also has the support of the civil rights lawyer Ben Crump who wrote on social media last week that “the persecution of Black female progressive prosecutors is indicative of a disturbing trend that should have ended with the last administration.”
Mr. Crump was one of more than a dozen colleagues, friends and family members who urged Judge Griggsby for leniency at court on Thursday.
Ms. Mosby is expected to appeal her conviction.
Content Source: www.nytimes.com