Baltimore's former top prosecutor being sentenced for mortgage fraud and perjury

FILE - Maryland State Attorney for Baltimore City Marilyn Mosby speaks during a news conference, Oct. 11, 2022, in Baltimore. Sentencing for the former Baltimore state's attorney is set to open Thursday, May 23, 2024, at a federal courthouse in Greenbelt, a Maryland suburb of the nation's capital. Mosby is to be sentenced for lying about her personal finances so she could improperly access retirement funds during the COVID-19 pandemic. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A former top prosecutor for the city of Baltimore will soon learn her sentence for lying about her personal finances so she could improperly access retirement funds during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Former Baltimore state's attorney Marilyn Mosby appeared before a judge 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 charges 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 fatally injured in police custody. Gray's death led to 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 Baltimore city’s deferred compensation plan and used it 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 harmed her travel-oriented side business.

Mosby's sentencing argument said the retirement funds came from her own income and that no one was defrauded because she paid an early withdrawal penalty and all federal taxes on the money. The government said that money remained the property of the city until she was legally eligible, and her perjury harmed everyone who followed the rules during the coronavirus pandemic.

FILE - Maryland State Attorney Marilyn Mosby speaks during a news conference, Dec. 3, 2019, in Baltimore. Sentencing for the former Baltimore state's attorney is set to open Thursday, May 23, 2024, at a federal courthouse in Greenbelt, a Maryland suburb of the nation's capital. Mosby is to be sentenced for lying about her personal finances so she could improperly access retirement funds during the COVID-19 pandemic. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

Mosby’s mortgage fraud conviction stems from a $5,000 “gift letter” she submitted when taking a loan to buy the Long Boat Key property. Prosecutors said the letter falsely stated that Mosby’s husband was giving her a $5,000 gift for the closing when it actually was her own money.

“Without the gift letter, the loan would never have been provided and Ms. Mosby would not have obtained the property. No gift letter, no loan,” prosecutors wrote.

Federal prosecutors also said she deserves prison because unlike others convicted of white-collar crimes, she’s expressed no remorse or contrition and has tried to delegitimize the case against her. They recommended a 20-month prison sentence for Mosby, who served two terms as state’s attorney for Baltimore. She lost a reelection 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 attorneys urged the judge to spare her from prison. They said she is the only public official who has been prosecuted in Maryland for federal offenses “that entail no victim, no financial loss, and no use of public funds.”

“Jail 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, D.C. Mosby’s attorneys argued that she couldn’t get a fair trial in Baltimore after years of negative media coverage there.

Dozens of Mosby supporters waited outside and applauded as she arrived with her family and entered the courthouse without answering questions from reporters. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump was among those expected to speak before the judge.