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On Thursday, authorities sentenced former Baltimore State Attorney Marilyn Mosby to three years of supervised release and one year of in-home confinement for federal perjury and mortgage charges. The sentence comes as the judge stressed leniency for Mosby, who was facing the possibility of 18 months in prison.
According to federal prosecutors, Marilyn Mosby withdrew $90,000 from Baltimore City’s deferred compensation fund in 2020. She was able to access these funds early because she claimed financial hardship as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Prosecutors argued that Mosby committed perjury by making that claim. Mosby argues that she was informed of her qualification for financial hardship before submitting the paperwork.
According to CBS News, after withdrawing the $90,000, Mosby went on to purchase two Florida vacation homes: an eight-bedroom home in Kissimmee in 2021 and a condo on Longboat Key in 2022.
Federal prosecutors charged her with mortgage fraud and convicted her of perjury. Court documents show prosecutors claimed Mosby used a $5,000 gift from her then-husband to secure a loan. Bank records showed Mosby wired the money from her account to her husband before he returned it.
According to prosecutors, she was only approved for the mortgage because of the $5,000 “gift”.
Mosby’s advocates claim that prosecutors are unfairly targeting her for political reasons.
Mosby is best known for prosecuting the Baltimore police officers involved in the 2015 death of Freddie Gray. In 2022, she also dropped the charges against Adnan Syed, who was wrongfully convicted of murder as a teenager.
Attorney Ben Crump said Monday that sentencing her to incarceration would send “a chilling message to other progressive prosecutors”.
Judge grants leniency in final sentencing ruling
During the sentencing hearing, WBAL’s Kate Amara reported that the judge said that while Mosby “did something wrong”, showed a pattern of “dishonesty” and “breached a public trust”, her position as a mother factored into the final decision.
“You have an absolute right to maintain your innocence and should not be punished in any way for doing so,” the judge told Mosby in court.
The judge noted that Mosby “is a mother of two daughters, and that has weighed heavily on this court.”
The judge’s sentence means she will be able to leave the courtroom today and go home to her daughters.
Advocates for Mosby called on President Biden to issue a pardon ahead of today’s sentencing. It remains unclear if those calls for a pardon will continue now that she will no longer face jail time.
