Baltimore's top prosecutor pleads not guilty on federal perjury charges
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[February 05, 2022]
By Steve Gorman
(Reuters) - Baltimore's top prosecutor,
Marilyn Mosby, pleaded not guilty on Friday to federal charges of
perjury and making false statements on loan applications stemming from
her purchase of two Florida vacation homes.
Mosby, the Baltimore city state's attorney since 2015, has said she is
innocent of wrongdoing and the victim of a politically motivated
prosecution by adversaries in the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office trying
to smear her as she runs for a third term.
Online court records showed Mosby entered not guilty pleas to all four
counts contained in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury on
Jan. 13.
During a 15-minute arraignment before a federal magistrate in Baltimore,
Mosby answered several perfunctory questions and told the judge, "Your
honor, I would plead not guilty to all four counts," according to The
Washington Post.
Mosby is accused of twice falsely claiming to have suffered a
work-related financial hardship from COVID-19 in order to request two
early withdrawals totaling $90,000 from her city employee retirement
account.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Feb/05/images/ads/current/castlemanor_sda_FINANCIAL_2017.png)
Prosecutors said Mosby, 42, used that money - $36,000 in May 2020 and
$45,000 on Dec. 31 of that year - toward down payments on two vacation
homes in Florida, in Kissimmee and Long Boat Key.
The two counts of perjury stem from Mosby's allegedly false statements
of coronavirus-related financial duress at a time when she was earning a
gross annual salary of nearly $248,000 in full, according to the
indictment.
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![](../images/020522pics/news_f45.jpg)
Baltimore state attorney Marilyn Mosby speaks on recent violence and
says there is "probable casue to file criminal charges in the
Freddie Gray case" of officers involved in the arrest of the black
man who later died of injuries he sustained while in custody in
Baltimore, Maryland May 1, 2015. REUTERS/Adrees Latif/File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Feb/05/images/ads/current/atlantaNB_lda_HFH_2021.png) She is also charged with two counts
of making false statements on mortgage applications seeking a total
of more than $900,000 in loans to buy the Florida properties. The
indictment says Mosby failed to disclose federal tax delinquencies
resulting in a $45,000 lien imposed by the Internal Revenue Service
in 2020.
Her lawyer has said Mosby was unaware of a "tax lien issue" at the
time.
Mosby said political opponents "have had a target on my back" since
she made national headlines in 2015 by filing criminal charges
against six police officers in the death of Freddie Gray, a young
Black man who suffered a fatal spinal injury while being transported
in the back of a police van. None of the six officers charged in his
death was convicted.
Mosby, whose husband, Nick Mosby, is president of the Baltimore City
Council, ran for office as a part of a movement of "progressive
prosecutors" promising to address systemic racism in the U.S.
criminal justice system.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by
Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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