A federal appeals court has overturned the mortgage fraud conviction of former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, while upholding her separate convictions for perjury.
The ruling vacates a key part of the case that led to Mosby’s May 2024 sentence of three years probation and one year of home detention. The appellate decision was issued shortly after her period of home confinement ended.
Mosby was convicted of mortgage fraud in February 2024 over a false application she submitted in 2021 to purchase a condominium in Florida while she was the city’s top prosecutor. Prosecutors argued that to secure a lower interest rate, Mosby falsely claimed she had received a $5,000 gift from her then-husband, Nick Mosby. Evidence presented at trial indicated she had first sent the funds to him before he transferred them back to her.
In its decision, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the trial court gave the jury an incorrect instruction on venue and that the evidence was insufficient to support the verdict. Consequently, the appeals court also vacated the lower court’s order for Mosby to forfeit the Florida property, with Judge Stephanie Thacker noting the order “was not authorized by statute and was unconstitutionally excessive.”
While the mortgage fraud conviction was thrown out, the appellate court affirmed Mosby’s two perjury convictions from November 2023. A jury had found she lied about suffering financial hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic in order to make early, penalty-free withdrawals from her retirement account. She used the funds to purchase two vacation homes in Florida.
The perjury convictions were upheld in a 2-1 decision. Writing in dissent, Judge Thacker argued the convictions should have been vacated because the document central to the charges was “fundamentally ambiguous.” She also contended that the district court had improperly allowed prosecutors to present evidence about how she spent the withdrawn funds.
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