As a mortgage underwriter for Cardinal Financial Company LP, Joshua Marsh reviewed an application in 2020 for an eight-bedroom, six-bathroom home with a pool in Kissimmee, Florida, not far from Walt Disney World.

Marilyn Mosby, who was in her second term as Baltimore state’s attorney, listed several liabilities on the form including a car loan with BMW Financial Services. But she and her husband at the time owed federal taxes, which led the Internal Revenue Service to obtain a more than $45,000 tax lien against them.

“Are there any tax liabilities included there?” Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron Zelinsky asked on Tuesday.

“No,” Marsh responded.

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In response to a question about whether she was delinquent or in default on any federal debt, Mosby, he testified, indicated no.

She also signed a document certifying that she would use the house as a second home, he said, and maintain exclusive control over the property for at least one year. Testimony previously revealed that she had already signed a contract with a property management and vacation rental company, Executive Villas Florida.

Marsh was one of four witnesses who testified as federal prosecutors continued presenting their document-intensive case against Mosby, 44, who’s standing trial in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt on two counts of mortgage fraud. The government alleges that she repeatedly lied to influence lenders on mortgage applications for the home as well as a condominium in Longboat Key, on Florida’s southwest Gulf Coast.

Mosby, a Democrat who was in office as Baltimore state’s attorney from 2015-2023, has pleaded not guilty and maintains her innocence. Her attorneys contend that Mosby was a novice when it came to real estate and that she acted in good faith and committed no crime.

Next, Andrew Metter, a former mortgage underwriter and senior mortgage underwriter at United Wholesale Mortgage, testified that he reviewed the mortgage application for the condo in 2021.

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“We see what we have in front of us,” Metter said. “Essentially, we’re evaluating risk. We need to know all of the applicable information.”

Mosby, he said, did not disclose that she owed taxes and certified that she was not delinquent or in default on any federal debt. She also signed one document with the following title: “Mortgage fraud is investigated by the FBI,” Metter testified.

In a letter, Mosby, he said, wrote that she and her family had spent the past 70 days in Florida.

On cross-examination, Assistant Federal Public Defender Sedira Banan, one of Mosby’s attorneys, brought up how her client’s mortgage broker at My Easy Mortgage, Gilbert Bennett, submitted the letter.

Metter said there are more than 900 pages in the loan file.

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At one point, Mosby was short on money to close on the condo, said Austin Gordon, a former mortgage underwriter and senior mortgage underwriter at United Wholesale Mortgage.

Gordon testified that they could not move forward. Meanwhile, the interest rate that her mortgage broker had locked in was set to expire.

Mosby submitted a letter from her now ex-husband, Nick, a Democrat who’s president of Baltimore City Council, that reported that he would gift her $5,000 at closing toward the down payment.

Later, FBI forensic accountant Jenna Bender began testifying about various aspects of Mosby’s finances.

When Mosby dated the letter in which she represented that she had spent the past 70 days in Florida, she used her credit card in Baltimore, Bender testified.

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Mosby, she said, had spent only 37 of those 70 days in Florida. Bank records revealed that she supplied the $5,000 that her husband had agreed to gift her at closing, Bender said.

The trial is scheduled to resume on Wednesday. The government indicated that it could soon rest its case.

In 2023, Mosby was found guilty of two counts of perjury after a jury determined that she lied to withdraw $90,000 that she otherwise would not have been able to access from a retirement account using a provision in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act. She used that money for the down payments on the home and condo.

U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby has put off sentencing until after the conclusion of the second trial.

Mosby faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison on each count, though actual penalties are often much less. The Maryland Office of Bar Counsel has also moved to suspend her law license.

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Correction: This story has been updated to correctly identify Austin Gordon.

Dylan Segelbaum

dylan.segelbaum@thebaltimorebanner.com

Dylan Segelbaum

Dylan Segelbaum is the courts reporter at The Baltimore Banner.

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