Fraudster ex-Baltimore DA Marilyn Mosby avoids prison for mortgage fraud and is sentenced to time served with home confinement

  • Marilyn Mosby was facing 40 years in prison for perjury and mortgage fraud 
  • But the ex-Baltimore DA was handed 12 months' home confinement 

The corrupt former DA of Baltimore has avoided jail for perjury and mortgage fraud after the Biden-appointed judge overseeing the case said she should be at home with her daughters.

Marilyn Mosby was facing a possible 40-year prison sentence after lying on her mortgage application for a $428,000 home in Long Boat Key, Florida, including the false claim she received a $5,000 gift from her husband.

Prosecutors said she claimed to receive the $5,000 to secure a lower interest rate, while she actually sent the funds to her husband first for him to then send back in a financial sleight of hand.

Mosby has asked for a Presidential pardon as she maintained her innocence but was sentenced to 12 months of home detention and three years of supervised release.

'You have an absolute right to maintain your innocence and should not be punished in any way for doing so,' Federal Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby told Mosby in court. 

Marilyn Mosby, pictured outside court with her two daughters, was facing up to 40 years in prison but escaped with a year of home detention

This luxury condo located in Longboat Key, Florida was the property that Mosby lied about on mortgage documents

Speaking outside court afterwards Mosby thanked her supporters, adding: 'I swear, God sent angels into my life to see me when I felt like I wasn't being seen, and I'm just so grateful to each and every one of you.

'God has touched the heart of this judge and allowed me to go home to my babies.'

Mosby, a progressive whose soft-on-crime stance was blamed for soaring crime in murder-ravaged Baltimore, was indicted in January 2022 on perjury and mortgage fraud charges.

Prosecutors claimed she lied about a COVID-19 financial hardship to access restricted retirement funds in order to buy two Florida vacation homes and then lied  in her application to secure a better rate.

She was found guilty on both counts of perjury in November 2023 before she was convicted in February on one count of mortgage fraud.

Shortly before today's sentencing she was ordered to forfeit condo in Longboat Key, Florida.

She had been renting it out but will now have to hand over 90 percent of the proceeds to the federal government.   

Mosby was criticized for her handling of the controversial death of Freddie Gray in 2015, whose death in police custody sparked riots and looting across the city until Mosby brought charges against six police officers who arrested him.

Mosby falsely claimed she was facing COVID-related financial troubles to use her city retirement fund to help her buy a property in Kissimmee. She claimed this home was a second residence in order to get a lower interest rate

Mosby, seen after her conviction in February, insisted that she had done 'absolutely nothing wrong, nothing illegal, nothing criminal', and argued that Biden dismissing her conviction would be 'appropriate' 

Mosby was sharply criticized in law enforcement circles over her handling of the 2015 death of Freddie Gray (pictured), who died in police custody. Mosby failed to convict any cops involved, and a judge was said to have 'laughed her out of court' 

Gray's death sparked riots and looting across Baltimore, resulting in 113 police officers injured, and 486 people arrested, as critics argued Mosby caved to pressure to bring charges unjustly 

She failed to convict any of the cops amid claims the charges were unjust - and the DOJ declined to press charges after a federal investigation, prompting some in law enforcement to claim she caved to pressure from rioters, targeting the officers as 'sacrificial lambs.'

Mosby also had her own brushes with the law, including a $45,000 tax lien on one of her fraudulent Florida properties despite reportedly earning almost $250,000 a year.

Mosby lost re-election in 2022 after being indicted by a federal grand jury, with her successor Ivan Bates taking a tougher stance on crime.

The federal criminal charges stemmed from claims that that Mosby accessed a pandemic-related hardship to make early withdrawals from her retirement account, before using that money for down payments on the Florida properties.

At her trial, prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky alleged she repeatedly lied on the mortgage applications, telling the court: 'She was the top prosecutor in the city of Baltimore and oversaw hundreds of lawyers.

'You know what prosecutors know a lot about? Fraud. Mortgage fraud.'

Mosby led a high profile campaign in her own defense, claiming she had been prosecuted because she 'had the audacity to challenge the status quo'.

'I want this justice system that I fought so hard to equalize and to balance the scales of justice, where the business model is based off the backs of black and brown people,' she told MSNBC's Joy Reid earlier this month.

The ex-prosecutor, 44, said she had done 'absolutely nothing wrong, nothing illegal, nothing criminal', and argued that Biden dismissing her conviction would be 'appropriate.' 

Mosby claimed that the charges against her were politically motivated and levelled against her because she challenged the 'status quo'

Judge Griggsby questioned Assistant US Attorney Sean Delaney in court demanding: 'Are there victims and who are they?'

'All citizens are victims when public officials lie and find the truth not to be important,' he told her.

'These lies demonstrate that Marilyn Mosby is unremorseful, that she has no regard for the truth.'

Mosby was also sentenced to 100 hours of community service and three years of supervised release.