A Baltimore State Attorney facing a $1million perjury lawsuit for fudging financial numbers while taking out a loan for a pair of holiday home purchases in Florida has tried to get the case thrown out, claiming she’s being targeted due to the fact that she’s black and progressive.
In their most recent filing in the federal case, attorneys for Marilyn Mosby, 42 – who is charged with two counts of perjury and two counts of submitting false statements on loan applications to make the purchases, which amounted to $1.02million – accused federal prosecutors of having a personal vendetta against their client, claiming one of the legal eagles even spread rumors she cheated on her husband.
‘Since its inception, the prosecution against State’s Attorney Mosby has been driven by malicious personal, political, and even racial animus on the part of the prosecutors,’ Mosby’s attorneys wrote in motion to toss the case filed Friday.
The city official’s legal team characterized their client’s indictment as the culmination of a ‘crusade to ruin the political career of a young, progressive, Black, female elected official.’
The lawyers specifically accused the prosecution’s head lawyer, Erek Barron, of ‘prosecutorial vindictiveness,’ saying the fellow Baltimore State Attorney – who is also black – has ‘expressed disapproval of her both personally and professionally.’
The motion added that the Democrat prosecutor repeatedly questioned Mosby’s ability as an attorney, and spread false rumors the Baltimore DA had cheated on her husband, Baltimore Democratic City Council President Nick Mosby.
Attorneys for Marilyn Mosby accused prosecutors of having a personal vendetta against their client Friday, claiming one spread rumors she cheated on her husband, Baltimore Democratic City Council President Nick Mosby. Mosby said she’s being targeted due to the fact that she’s black and progressive
Mosby’s lawyers included in their filing a statement from one of her husband’s former advisors, Sheaniqua A. Thompson, which detailed an alleged incident where Barron spread rumors about the attorney’s sex life during an interaction inside Baltimore’s City Hall.
Thompson, who worked with Barron between 2017 and 2019 as a Democratic state delegate and policy advocate for a nonprofit organization, wrote that she was outside a State House committee room when Marilyn Mosby walked by, spurring Thompson to comment to Barron how much she admired the state prosecutor.
According to Thompson’s written declaration, Barron responded by bringing up rumors about Marilyn Mosby’s ‘sex life,’ saying, ‘I don’t get how she got where she is.’
Thompson conceded that she was paraphrasing, but attested that Barron, over the course of the pair’s professional relationship, proceeded to repeatedly ‘tell me how much he disliked working with State’s Attorney Mosby, and how he didn’t like her style and approach.’
The lawyers specifically accused the prosecution’s head lawyer, Erek Barron, of ‘prosecutorial vindictiveness,’ saying the fellow Baltimore State Attorney – who is also black – has ‘expressed disapproval of her both personally and professionally’
Mosby’s team then set their sights on Barron’s second, Assistant US Attorney Leo Wise, whom they accused of ‘being involved in several attempts to sabotage’ their client’s career, by ‘engaging in similar conduct aimed at other Black officials.’
The defense further cited that Wise contributed to the campaigns of Mosby’s Democratic primary opponents for state’s attorney in 2018.
They also noted that during the prosecutions of corrupt members of the Baltimore Police Department’s Gun Trace Task Force – who were found guilty of stealing drugs, cash, and jewelry confiscated by the city – Wise and then-acting US Attorney Stephen Schenning brought up that an assistant state’s attorney from Mosby’s office leaked word of the investigation to some of the officers.
Mosby allegedly falsely claimed she was facing COVID-related financial troubles to use her city retirement fund to help her buy a property in Kissimmee. She was also accused of claiming this home was a second residence in order to get a lower interest rate
Mosby allegedly falsely claimed she was facing COVID-related financial troubles to use her city retirement fund to help her buy a property in Kissimmee. She was also accused of claiming this home was a second residence in order to get a lower interest rate
Mosby and her team asserted that no such occurrence ever transpired.
The motion argued that the U.S. attorney’s office, through the court proceedings, is participating in discriminatory prosecution that violates Mosby’s constitutional rights to due process and equal protection – an argument seen as a longshot by David Jaros, faculty director of the Center for Criminal Justice Reform at University of Baltimore School of Law, who told The Baltimore Sun Saturday that the effort by Mosby’s team to shut down the prosecution is unlikely to succeed.
‘Simply showing that the prosecutor who filed the case doesn’t like her and wants her out isn’t sufficient to show the indictment wouldn’t have been filed if he wasn’t on the case,’ Jaros said, while also pointing to Barron’s position as a public official.
‘It’s hard to argue that a prosecutor wouldn’t think it’s appropriate [to file charges] because it is a big deal when a public official breaks the law.’
Mosby is charged with two counts of perjury and two counts of submitting false statements on loan applications to make the purchases, which amounted to $1.02million
Andrew Alperstein, a criminal defense lawyer and ex-prosecutor, also told the outlet the personal views of a prosecutor are not enough to warrant a case’s dismissal.
‘Sometimes in litigation, lawyers file papers with the court that they believe are for the purposes of PR or to reach prospective jurors. That’s what I believe is happening here because there is no chance this is going to be dismissed based on that motion,’ Alperstein said Saturday, following the motion’s filing.
Mosby has maintained her innocence in regards to the charges leveled against her, and the accusation in Friday’s filing largely echo comments made in public by her and her attorneys about the case.
