Baltimore's former top prosecutor avoids prison for perjury, mortgage fraud

By Joseph Ax

(Reuters) -Baltimore's former top prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, was sentenced on Thursday to one year of home confinement but no prison time for lying to improperly access her city employee retirement account, as well as for making a false statement on a mortgage application, according to local news reports.

Mosby, 44, was the youngest chief prosecutor for any major U.S. city at the time of her election as Maryland's state attorney for Baltimore in 2014. A year later, she made national headlines by bringing criminal charges against six police officers for the death of a Black man, Freddie Gray, who sustained fatal injuries while in custody.

Mosby was found guilty in November of two perjury counts for twice claiming she had suffered financial problems so she could request early withdrawals from her municipal retirement account, taking advantage of a pandemic-era law to help those struggling to stay afloat. She took out $90,000 to make down payments on two Florida vacation properties.

In a separate trial months later, Mosby was convicted of lying on the application to secure a mortgage on one of those properties. The jury acquitted her of a second count stemming from allegations that she had failed to disclose federal tax delinquencies when submitting the loan application for the second property.

Mosby has maintained her innocence and argued she was the victim of a politically motivated prosecution by adversaries aiming to block her re-election. She lost her bid for a third term after her 2022 indictment.

Federal prosecutors had requested that U.S. District Judge Lydia Griggsby in Greenbelt, Maryland, sentence Mosby to 1-2/3 years in prison. Mosby's lawyers had asked for no prison time, arguing that her long record of public service outweighs her offenses.

According to local reports, several supporters spoke on Mosby's behalf at the hearing, including high-profile civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, LaTosha Brown, co-founder of voting rights group Black Voters Matter and a wrongfully convicted man Mosby helped free.

In addition to home detention, Mosby will be under supervised release for two additional years and will forfeit the vacation property she purchased using her fraudulent loan application.

Mosby has previously asked the Biden administration for a pardon.

The Gray case triggered protests and rioting in Baltimore and added fuel to a nationwide debate over police treatment of minorities. None of the six officers charged was ultimately convicted of a crime.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Edited by Rod Nickel)