Ex-Baltimore Prosecutor Found Guilty Of Two Counts of Perjury

Marilyn Mosby could be looking at 10 years in prison.

A federal jury has convicted ex-Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby on two counts of perjury.

The disgraced former district attorney was found guilty after being accused of making false statements on two loan applications for Florida vacation homes. She also faces charges of two counts of making fraudulent mortgage applications for the same homes in a different federal case.

In 2022, prosecutors say, Mosby, 42, pleaded not guilty to two counts of perjury and two counts of making false statements after authorities claimed she applied for the loans to withdraw money from her retirement accounts, touching the CARES Act that was created to help those financially during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to The Washington Post, she tried to access access $90,000.

Mosby denied any wrongdoing, claiming she hadn’t defrauded anyone.

The trial for the former prosecutor was moved from Baltimore to Greenbelt because her lawyer claimed a jury in the city she once served wouldn’t be fair. Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron Zelinsky pressed the severity of the case in his closing arguments, pleading to jurors that “telling the truth and taking an oath matters.”

“We should not allow Ms. Mosby to lie under oath regardless of her position,” Zelinsky said.

James Wyda, Mosby’s lead attorney and federal public defender, described the case as being about what his client thought when she filled out the application.

“The government spent time on things that don’t matter,” Wyda said in his closing arguments.

The lawyer continued to express how Mosby told the truth after she completed the paperwork, indicating the pandemic hurt her business, and argued her client “established the business, put money into i,t and was working to make it profitable in 2020.”

“She qualified, and she reasonably believed she qualified,” Wyda said. “She is innocent.”

Much of the trial centered on Mosby’s travel business, Mahogany Elite Travel. Prosecutors pressed that Mahogany Elite was barely a business — noting they had no clients, revenue, or records linked to processing trips. She failed to disclose the company on the 2020 financial disclosure forms she submitted as the state’s attorney during her tenure.

Prosecutor Sean Delaney alluded to the fact that if it wasn’t operating or bringing in money, there was no way the pandemic would affect the business.

“I got a math problem for you,” Delaney said during the trial.” What’s zero minus zero? Zero.”

The former top Black prosecutor, who once was in the spotlight for charging six police officers in the 2015 Freddie Gray case Mosby, didn’t have much to say after the jury gave the verdict. Outside the courthouse, she said, “I’m blessed. I’m blessed. I have nothing else to say.”