The corrupt former Baltimore district attorney avoided jail time for perjury and mortgage fraud after the Biden-appointed judge overseeing the case said she should be home with her daughters.
Marilyn Mosby was facing a possible 40-year prison sentence after lying on her mortgage application for a $428,000 home in Long Boat Key, Florida, including falsely claiming she received a $5,000 gift from her husband.
Prosecutors said she claimed to have received the $5,000 to secure a lower interest rate, while in reality she sent the funds first to her husband for him to return later in a financial sleight of hand.
Mosby asked for a presidential pardon because she maintained her innocence, but was sentenced to 12 months of house detention and three years of supervised release.
“You have an absolute right to maintain your innocence and should not be punished in any way for doing so,” federal Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby told Mosby in court.
Marilyn Mosby, pictured outside court with her two daughters, faced up to 40 years in prison but escaped with a year of home detention.
This luxury condominium located in Longboat Key, Florida, was the property that Mosby lied about in the mortgage documents.
Speaking outside court afterwards, Mosby thanked her supporters and added: “I swear, God sent angels into my life to see me when I felt like I wasn’t seen, and I am so grateful to each and every one of you.”
“God has touched this judge’s heart and allowed me to return home to my babies.”
Mosby, a progressive whose soft-on-crime stance was blamed for skyrocketing crime in murder-ravaged Baltimore, was charged in January 2022 with perjury and mortgage fraud.
Prosecutors claimed she lied about COVID-19 financial hardship to access restricted retirement funds to buy two vacation homes in Florida and then lied on her application to get a better rate.
She was found guilty of both counts of perjury in November 2023 before being convicted in February on one count of mortgage fraud.
Shortly before today’s sentencing he was ordered to resign condo in Longboat Key, Florida.
He had rented it but now he will have to hand over 90 percent of the profits to the federal government.
Mosby was criticized for her handling of the controversial 2015 death of Freddie Gray, whose death in police custody sparked rioting and looting throughout the city until Mosby filed charges against six police officers who arrested him.
Mosby falsely claimed she was facing COVID-related financial issues to use her city retirement fund to help her purchase property in Kissimmee. She claimed this house was a second home to get a lower interest rate.
Mosby, seen after her conviction in February, insisted she had done “absolutely nothing wrong, nothing illegal, nothing criminal,” and argued that it would be “appropriate” for Biden to throw out her conviction.
Mosby was heavily criticized in law enforcement circles for her handling of the 2015 death of Freddie Gray (pictured), who died in police custody. Mosby failed to convict any police officer involved and a judge is said to have “laughed at her outside of court”
Gray’s death sparked riots and looting throughout Baltimore, resulting in 113 police officers injured and 486 people arrested, as critics argued that Mosby bowed to pressure to unfairly press charges.
She failed to convict any of the officers amid claims that the charges were unfair, and the Justice Department declined to file charges after a federal investigation, leading some law enforcement officials to claim that she gave in to the pressure from the rioters and called the officers “sacrificial lambs.”
Mosby also had his own brushes with the law, including a $45,000 tax lien on one of his fraudulent properties in Florida even though he reportedly earned nearly $250,000 a year.
Mosby lost reelection in 2022 after being indicted by a federal grand jury, and her successor Ivan Bates took a tougher stance on crime.
The federal criminal charges arose from claims that Mosby went through pandemic-related difficulties making early withdrawals from his retirement account, before using that money for down payments on Florida properties.
At her trial, prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky alleged that she repeatedly lied on mortgage applications, telling the court: “She was the top prosecutor for the city of Baltimore and supervised hundreds of attorneys.”
—Do you know what prosecutors know so much about? Fraud. Mortgage fraud.
Mosby led a high-profile campaign in her own defense, claiming that she had been prosecuted because she “had the audacity to challenge the status quo.”
“I want this justice system that I fought so hard for to equalize and balance the scales of justice, where the business model is built on the backs of black and brown people,” he told MSNBC’s Joy Reid earlier in this month.
The former prosecutor, 44, said she had done “absolutely nothing wrong, nothing illegal, nothing criminal,” and argued that it would be “appropriate” for Biden to throw out her conviction.
Mosby claimed that the charges against her were politically motivated and were brought against her because she challenged the ‘status quo.’
Judge Griggsby questioned Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean Delaney in court, asking, “Are there victims and who are they?”
“All citizens are victims when public officials lie and consider that the truth is not important,” he told him.
“These lies show that Marilyn Mosby has no remorse and has no respect for the truth.”
Mosby was also sentenced to 100 hours of community service and three years of supervised release.