By Joseph Ax
(Reuters) – Baltimore’s former top prosecutor will be sentenced on Thursday for lying about suffering a work-related hardship in order to improperly access her city employee retirement account, as well as for making a false statement on a mortgage application.
Marilyn 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.
Federal prosecutors have requested that U.S. District Judge Lydia Griggsby in Greenbelt, Maryland, sentence Mosby to 1-2/3 years in prison. Mosby’s lawyers have asked for no prison time, arguing in court papers that her long record of public service far outweighs her offenses.
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. She took out $90,000, which she used to make down payments on two vacation properties in Florida.
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 is 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 indictment in 2022.
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)
