Baltimore’s former top prosecutor will be sentenced this week on fraud and perjury charges after being found guilty in two separate trials.
Marilyn Mosby, Baltimore’s former top prosecutor, goes on trial this week to be sentenced on fraud and perjury charges. Mosby is accused of making false statements about her personal financial situation in order to improperly access retirement funds during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is reported by the Associated Press news agency.
The lawyer’s sentencing hearing is scheduled to begin on Thursday in a federal courthouse in Greenbelt, a city in Maryland. U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby agreed to move the trials from Baltimore to Greenbelt.
Mosby’s lawyers previously argued she would not get a fair trial after years of negative media coverage in Baltimore. In two separate trials, Mosby was convicted of perjury and mortgage fraud by two different juries.
In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Mosby withdrew $90,000 from Baltimore’s municipal pension fund. She used this money to make down payments on vacation homes in Florida.
According to the indictment, Mosby improperly obtained the funds through a false claim under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.
She alleged that the pandemic had hurt her travel-focused side business. However, Mosby’s lawyers insisted that she was allowed to withdraw the money legally and spend it as she wished.
Federal prosecutors have now recommended a 20-month prison sentence for Mosby, who served two terms as a Baltimore prosecutor and lost re-election in 2022 after being indicted.
“Ms. Mosby was charged and convicted because of her repeated choices to break the law, not because of her policies or guidelines,” prosecutors wrote, according to The Associated Press.
Mosby’s defense asked the judge not to send Mosby to prison, arguing that she was the only public official in Maryland being prosecuted for federal crimes that involved “no victim, no financial loss and no use of public funds.” “Prison is not justice for Marilyn Mosby,” her lawyers wrote.
