Judge finds Marilyn Mosby indigent, allows entire defense team to withdraw

[Auburn85 432]

 

[SLAG-91 1,483]

Public officials and alleged corruption...dang, you almost NEVER see this sort of thing, do you?

🤯

[Auburn85 432]

https://www.wbaltv.com/article/marilyn-mosby-perjury-trial-verdict/45790051

 

 

Quote

 

Jury finds Marilyn Mosby guilty in federal perjury trial

 

Updated: 6:07 PM EST Nov 9, 2023

 

Kate Amara

GREENBELT, Md. —

After hours of deliberation on Thursday, a jury found Marilyn Mosby guilty on both federal perjury counts.

Jurors returned to federal court in Greenbelt at 8:30 a.m. Thursday after receiving the case late Wednesday afternoon following instructions from the judge and almost three hours of closing arguments. The jury took up two counts of perjury and announced its verdict shortly after 4 p.m.

While walking out of the federal courthouse, Mosby said: "I'm blessed, I have nothing else to say." Neither her defense attorneys nor the prosecutors offered any comments. All 12 members of the jury also declined to comment.

In a statement released after the verdict was read, Maryland U.S. Attorney Erek Barron said: "We respect the jury's verdict and remain steadfastly committed to our mission to uphold the rule of law, keep our country safe, protect the civil rights of all Americans, and safeguard public property."

The former Baltimore City state's attorney was indicted in January 2022 on perjury and mortgage fraud charges, which are going to trial separately. Mosby faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison for each of the two counts of perjury.

When asked for his reaction to the verdict, Gov. Wes Moore told 11 News: "No matter where you fall on this, this is a tough day for the city, and I'm just praying for her. I'm praying for her kids."

The case against Baltimore's former prosecutor

Prosecutors said evidence presented at trial proves Mosby lied about a COVID-19 financial hardship to illegally withdraw $90,000 from a restricted city retirement account.

The defense said she didn't lie because her private travel business did take a financial hit after she sunk money into it.

Opening statements were presented Monday, and the government's first witnesses testified. The government rested its case Tuesday, and the defense called three witnesses to testify.

During closing arguments Wednesday afternoon, Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron Zelinsky said: "Telling the truth matters. It matters for all of us." When it came to accessing the restricted retirement account, Zelinsky said, "the defendant believed ... telling the truth didn't matter."

"The evidence shows that she twice committed perjury in accessing funds that were solely the property of the city of Baltimore for the purpose of her own private gain," Zelinsky told the jury. "When the world was suffering, Ms. Mosby took advantage ... to purchase $1 million worth of Florida vacation homes."

Zelinsky said Mosby's travel business "produced no income, it had no customers, no emails, no vendors, no notes, no business plan. Use your common sense. Does that sound like an open and operable business to you? No, it doesn’t ... because it wasn't."

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Mosby's lead attorney, federal public defender James Wyda, bookended the defense's closing argument with a theme used throughout trial.

"This case is about a three-page form and what was in Marilyn Mosby's mind when she filled it out. The government spent time on things that don't matter," Wyda said. "Marilyn Mosby established the business, put money into it and was working to make it profitable in 2020. She qualified and she reasonably believed she qualified. She is innocent."

Wyda said Mosby told the truth when she completed certified paperwork stating that the COVID-19 pandemic harmed her business.

"She lost money and future profits because COVID devastated her business," Wyda said.

The case may just come down to whether jurors believe, as Wyda put it, whether "Mahogany Elite Enterprises was real." The defense answers yes and the government says no, while both claim the evidence is on their side.

Mosby's trial was postponed several times, including in April 2022, September 2022, and this year, after a federal judge allowed all six of Mosby's defense attorneys to withdraw from the case. A public defender was appointed, and the trial was again moved, this time to October 2023.

 

 

 

[Auburn85 432]

 

[Auburn85 432]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/feds-plan-ask-seize-former-201400687.html

 

 

Quote

 

Feds plan to ask to seize former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s Gulf Coast condo at her sentencing

 

Madeleine O'Neill, The Baltimore Sun

May 3

 

BALTIMORE — Federal prosecutors filed notice Friday that they will ask to seize former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s Florida vacation condo on the same day as her sentencing on perjury and mortgage fraud charges.

The government indicated early on in the case that it would seek forfeiture. Friday’s filing formalizes prosecutors’ request and sets up the possibility of a legal fight over the condo at Mosby’s May 23 sentencing.

The government intends to sell the condo, according to the motion, which Mosby bought in February 2021 for $476,000. If there are profits from the sale, Mosby would get back her $47,600 down payment, prosecutors wrote.

 

The condominium known as “The Tree House” sits along Florida’s Gulf Coast in Longboat Key. It is one of two Florida vacation properties that Mosby bought during the coronavirus pandemic using money withdrawn from her city retirement account.

Mosby used that money, about $80,000, to put down payments on the two properties. Prosecutors said she lied about suffering a pandemic-related financial setback in order to make the early withdrawals under the CARES Act, federal legislation that offered emergency economic relief during the health crisis.

A federal jury agreed, convicting Mosby of two counts of perjury in November. At her second trial in January, the government alleged that Mosby lied repeatedly when she applied for mortgages on the two properties, which were worth almost $1 million combined.

Jurors convicted Mosby of one count of mortgage fraud at that trial, finding that Mosby submitted a false gift letter claiming that her then-husband, Baltimore City Council President Nick Mosby, would send her $5,000 to close on the Longboat Key Condo. In fact, Mosby sent her husband the money herself before he wired it to an escrow agent.

Mosby faces up to 40 years in prison at her sentencing, though maximum sentences are rare. She has taken the unusual step of publicly asking for a presidential pardon ahead of her sentencing.

U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby has scheduled a forfeiture hearing to take place on the same day as Mosby’s sentencing in Greenbelt.

In cases involving forfeiture, it’s not unusual for the defense and prosecution to come to an agreement, said Steven Levin, a former federal prosecutor who is not involved in Mosby’s case. It’s possible that Mosby could agree to pay a judgment instead.

“This way, to the extent she wants to, Mosby can conceivably hold on to the property,” Levin said. “And the government doesn’t have to deal with the headache of seizing the property, maintaining it and preparing it for resale, all of which carry significant costs.”

Mosby previously sold the other Florida vacation property, an eight-bedroom house in Kissimmee, near Disney World, for $696,000. She paid $545,000 for the home in September 2020.

Prosecutors would not have been able to seize that property anyway, Levin said, because Mosby was not convicted of the count of mortgage fraud related to that home.

The condo, however, is forfeitable “in its entirety,” prosecutors wrote, because Mosby could not have bought it without committing mortgage fraud. That includes any profits made from the sale of the condo.

“It would undermine the very purpose of forfeiture to allow Ms. Mosby to profit from the Vacation Condo’s appreciation,” prosecutors wrote in the motion.

Mosby’s lawyer, Federal Public Defender James Wyda, declined to comment. The defense will have a chance to respond in court.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Baltimore also declined to comment.

 

 

[DKW 86 7,441]

On 5/5/2024 at 12:33 PM, Auburn85 said:

 

How does any of that make sense when it is the Biden Justice Dept going after her now? Her issue really begins in 2023 and onward. That is under a Biden Justice Dept and what djt said 4-6 years ago has zero meaning. 

Vacating 800 Trials prosecuted by former Democrat Prosecutors??? Did she think that was going to go unpunished?

Edited May 7 by DKW 86