Marilyn Mosby
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The move by President Joe Biden to pardon his son Hunter Biden has led advocates to make their case for former prosecutor Marilyn Mosby to receive a pardon as well.
The decision by President Joe Biden to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, earlier this week after previously stating he wouldn’t, has prompted advocates representing the former Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby to request one for her. “It is time for Joe Biden to pardon Marilyn Mosby,” said civil rights attorney and media figure Angela Rye, who is working on Mosby’s legal team. Mosby, who rose to prominence in 2015 for charging six Baltimore police officers in the death of Freddie Gray, Jr., was convicted of mortgage fraud and perjury earlier in the year. Critics of the decision have maintained that the prosecution was politically motivated due to her racial justice policies.
“There are thousands of people who have been wrongfully convicted and sit in federal prisons today. While Hunter Biden was selectively prosecuted, he’s not the only one,” Rye said in a joint statement with attorney Ben Crump, who is also working with Mosby’s legal team. They point out that the application for Mosby’s pardon is still with the Department of Justice with proof of “receipt of the application on May 28.” That request is accompanied by 91,000 signatures petitioning the government for Mosby to be pardoned. The former attorney was on home detention after being sentenced and has appealed the decision. The Attorney Grievance Commission of Maryland called for her law license to be suspended, but the Maryland Supreme Court dismissed that request.
“Marilyn Mosby is on house arrest right now with her law license hanging in the balance over purchasing property with her own money. Kim Gardner (the former East St. Louis prosecutor) was forced into taking a plea deal for a $5000 expense that was approved in an ethics opinion,” Crump and Rye wrote. They cited similarities in the two situations – the lead prosecutor in Mosby’s case, Leo Wise, also successfully brought charges against Hunter Biden for the purchase and possession of a firearm in 2018 and on federal tax charges. They also pointed out that the basis for Hunter’s pardon can be applied – selective prosecution. “They need to find a rule and equally apply it,” Rye stated.
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Source: The Washington Post / Getty
Former Baltimore County state attorney Marilyn Mosby was found guilty of perjury, leaving her to face a possible ten-year jail sentence.
On Thursday (November 9), a federal jury returned a guilty verdict against Marilyn Mosby on two counts of perjury for falsely claiming to experience hardship to withdraw money from her retirement fund. Each count brings with it a potential sentence of up to five years imprisonment.
The initial indictment brought against Mosby in January of this year detailed that the 43-year-old had claimed that the hardship was due to the COVID-19 pandemic, citing the CARES Act which allowed people to make such a move. But it was later discovered through payroll documents that in her role as state attorney for Baltimore County, Mosby still earned a considerable salary of $250,000 with no reduction in her weekly work hours. Federal prosecutors stated that she used the money on down payments for vacation homes in Florida.
“Telling the truth especially matters when public officials are looking to access funds for their own personal use,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron Zelinsky attorney said during the closing statements of the three-day trial. “We should not allow her to lie and commit perjury to purchase Florida vacation homes in the worst pandemic in 100 years.”
The verdict is the latest blow to Marilyn Mosby, who had attained national prominence due to the turmoil surrounding the death of Freddie Gray, a Black man arrested for possession of a pen knife in 2015 who died under suspicious circumstances while under police custody. Mosby stood by the medical examiner’s report stating that Gray’s death was a homicide, calling for the six cops involved to be indicted. Three of the officers were found not guilty leading Mosby to drop charges against the remaining officers.
A separate case where Mosby faces two counts of federal mortgage fraud is on the horizon for the former attorney, whose loss in this case means that she will lose her license to practice law. The belief is that federal attorneys have a stronger case with those charges. “Now what’s interesting is to see if the government decides to prosecute her on the second [charges] or if they work out some kind of plea agreement,” defense attorney Albert I. Alperstein said to The Baltimore Sun.
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