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Following a 12-day trial, former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby was found guilty on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt of one count of making a false statement on a loan application related to her purchase of a luxury vacation home in Florida.
Mosby, 44, a Democrat who served two terms as the city’s elected top prosecutor from 2015-2023, lied when she submitted a letter to the mortgage company claiming that her husband at the time had agreed to gift her $5,000 at closing toward a condominium in Longboat Key, Florida, a jury determined.
She testified that she wired him the money to make sure that he’d have enough and did not think that she was doing anything wrong.
In 2023, Mosby was found guilty of two counts of perjury after a jury decided that she lied to withdraw $90,000 from a retirement account that she would otherwise would not have been able to access under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act. She used that money to buy the condo as well as a house in Kissimmee, Florida, not far from Walt Disney World.
Here’s what you need to know about the next steps in the case:
Read more coverage about the trials of former Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby
When will Mosby be sentenced?
U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby scheduled sentencing for May 23.
How long of a sentence does she face?
It’s complicated.
Mosby faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, but people often receive punishments that are much lower.
Michael Heiskell, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, calculated that Mosby faces a baseline of 30 to 37 months in prison under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines for making a false statement on a loan application.
If the judge determines that her testimony was false and therefore obstructed justice, Heiskell said, that pushes the range to 37 to 46 months in prison. The court, he said, could also decide that Mosby abused her position of trust as state’s attorney, which would further increase the range to 46 to 57 months in prison.
Even though Mosby was acquitted of a second count of making a false statement on a loan application, the judge could find by a preponderance of the evidence that she committed that offense, Heiskell said. That’s a lower legal standard than beyond a reasonable doubt, which is needed to convict someone in a criminal trial.
So if that happened, Heiskell said, that would up the range even more to 57 to 71 months in prison.
Heiskell calculated that Mosby is looking at a range of 15 to 21 months in prison for perjury. But he said he expects that the judge will run the sentences at the same time, unless there are other aggravating factors.
“You have to individualize your client as best you can so the court can look at the individual as well as the crime that was committed to fashion the appropriate sentence,” said Heiskell, a defense attorney in private practice in Fort Worth, Texas, who primarily handles white collar crime cases and investigations.
What is happening with her law license?
The Maryland Office of Bar Counsel moved to suspend Mosby’s law license after she was convicted of perjury.
Court records show that a petition for disciplinary or remedial action was filed on Wednesday following her conviction for mortgage fraud.
What else is going on with the case?
Griggsby has scheduled a hearing for Feb. 16 on a motion for judgment of acquittal.
In the motion, Federal Public Defender James Wyda and Assistant Federal Public Defenders Maggie Grace and Sedira Banan, Mosby’s attorneys, largely argue that the government failed to prove that venue was proper in Maryland.
But Assistant U.S. Attorneys Sean Delaney and Aaron Zelinsky contend that the motion is “meritless.”
“The issue in this case is whether the defendant lied,” they wrote in court documents, “not where she did it.”
The government is seeking forfeiture of the condo, which the judge plans to address before moving to sentencing.
Mosby’s now ex-husband, Nick Mosby, a Democrat who’s president of Baltimore City Council, said he plans to seek reelection. He said voters should not conflate mistakes he’s made in his personal life to his work in government.
“I made a mistake. We learn from our mistakes, and we move on,” he told reporters. “Folks know exactly who I am and what it means to the city, and that’s why I have a tremendous amount of support.”
Federal prosecutors alleged during a break in his cross-examination that he “repeatedly committed perjury” on his tax returns. He has not been charged with a crime.
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Dylan Segelbaum is the courts reporter at The Baltimore Banner.
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