BALTIMORE CITY STATE’S ATTORNEY MARILYN MOSBY HAS ASKED A FEDERAL COURT TO DROP PERJURY CHARGES
Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby has asked a federal court to drop perjury charges against her in a case involving alleged fraud to prematurely withdraw money from her city retirement account to purchase of two vacation homes in Florida.
CBS Baltimore reports that Mosby’s attorneys filed a motion on July 8 arguing that Mosby didn’t deceive anyone in self-certifying that she suffered “adverse financial consequences” to receive a coronavirus-related distribution from her account.
The US Attorney for the District of Maryland, who is prosecuting Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby on counts of perjury and making false mortgage applications to purchase two vacation homes, detailed Mosby’s finances and hit back at the embattled prosecutor’s attempt to strike the word “hardship” from proceedings.
Mosby pleaded not guilty earlier this year to the four-count indictment, which alleges that she claimed “adverse financial consequences” related to the COVID-19 pandemic to withdraw $90,000 from her city retirement account, then used the funds to place down payments on two vacation homes in Florida.
While Mosby claimed adverse consequences to withdraw from her retirement account, her salary as state’s attorney increased from $141,450 in 2019 to $151,268 in 2020. She also received more than $10,000 in additional “miscellaneous” compensation in 2020, according to the court filings.
Despite receiving her full salary, prosecutors allege that Mosby “exploited” provisions in the CARES Act to withdraw from her retirement accounts early, including $40,000 in May 2020 and an additional $50,000 in December 2020.
“Simply put, [Mosby’s] perjury allowed her to leverage $90,000 in funds she should not have had access to in order to buy two vacation properties,” prosecutors wrote in a filing on Friday.
The government further charges that Mosby “did not disclose that she owed significant amounts of federal taxes” on the two mortgage applications. The IRS filed a $45,022 tax lien against her in March 2020, according to the filings.
Attorneys for Mosby, meanwhile, reiterated previous claims that the federal prosecutors are biased against Mosby.
“As noted in State’s Attorney Mosby’s first motion to dismiss the indictment, members of the prosecution team have historically been biased against her, and there is a strong likelihood that the breadth and scope of the government’s past investigations—and the animus that fueled them— will come through in its own presentation of evidence,” her attorneys wrote.
Mosby is also seeking to strike the term “hardship” from the case, but prosecutors argued in filings last week that the “use of the term is neither inflammatory nor prejudicial.”
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