Baltimore State’s Attorney and the city’s top prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, was indicted on Thursday on federal charges of perjury and filing false mortgage applications related to her purchase of two Florida Vacation homes.
Mosby, a Democrat, ran for office as a part of the “progressive prosecutors” movement vowing to address systemic inequities in the U.S. criminal justice system. Mosby made national headlines in 2015 when she charged six officers in the police custody death of Freddie Gray.
Mosby is accused of falsely claiming twice to have suffered a work-related financial hardship from COVID-19 in order to request early withdrawals totaling $90,000 from her city employee retirement account. The indictment states that Mosby fraudulently cited a federal CARES Act provision allowing for emergency distributions of up to $100,000 from her retirement plan in the event of furlough, layoff, quarantine, reduced work hours, lack of childcare, or impact on an individual’s business caused by COVID-19. Mosby, 41, received $36,000 in May 2020 and $45,000 on Dec. 31 of that year. Prosecutors said that she used that money toward down payments on vacation homes in Kissimmee, Florida, and Long Boat Key, Florida.
The two counts of perjury stem from Mosby’s false statements of coronavirus-related financial duress at a time when she was earning a gross annual salary of nearly $248,000. Mosby is also charged with two counts of making false statements on mortgage applications seeking a total of more than $900,000 in loans to purchase two Florida homes in question. The indictment states that Mosby failed to disclose that she and her husband were delinquent in federal tax payments, which is required in both applications, resulting in a $45,000 tax lien filed against them by the IRS in 2020.
If convicted, Mosby could face up to five years for each perjury count and decades in prison for making false mortgage applications, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Maryland. There has been no comment from Mosby or her legal representative about the indictment.
