Former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s mortgage fraud conviction was overturned by a federal appeals court Friday, though her convictions for perjury were upheld, according to court documents.
Mosby was sentenced to three years of probation and a year of house arrest in May 2024 after she was found guilty of perjury in November 2023 and of mortgage fraud in February 2024.
The appellate court’s decision comes shortly after her home detention sentence ended.
Overturned mortgage fraud conviction
Mosby was convicted of mortgage fraud after a jury found that she made a false mortgage application in 2021 when she was purchasing a condo in Florida. She was serving as state’s attorney at the time.
According to court evidence, Mosby said she received a $5,000 gift from her ex-husband – former Baltimore City Council President Nick Mosby – which she allocated to the purchase of property. Prosecutors claimed she included the gift in her application to get a lower interest rate.
At the time, the Department of Justice said she did not receive a gift, but instead sent the money to her husband before he transferred it back to her.
In an opinion Friday, Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stephanie Thacker said Mosby’s mortgage fraud conviction should be overturned because “the district court gave the jury an erroneous venue instruction and because the weight of the evidence did not support the jury’s finding.”
Last week, Mosby told WJZ that she had to sell one of the Florida homes to pay for attorney fees. The other home was pending the appeal decisions, she said.
“The government was attempting to take my house and to take my law license before the appeal was exhausted, and the Supreme Court in Maryland basically said you cannot do that, so it’s been a constant struggle and a battle that we won temporarily until this appeal is ultimately decided,” Mosby said last week.
Under Friday’s decision, the district vacated its order for her to forfeit the home.
Judge Thacker said the forfeiture order “was not authorized by statute and was unconstitutionally excessive.”
Mosby’s perjury conviction upheld
While Mosby was granted a win with her fraud conviction being overturned, the court upheld her perjury convictions.
She was found guilty on two counts of perjury after allegations that she lied about suffering business losses due to COVID-19 to withdraw funds from her retirement account.
According to court records, Mosby used the money she withdrew to pay for her vacation homes in Florida.
In the 2–1 court decision, Judge Thacker said the conviction should have been vacated because the document “upon which her perjury convictions were based was fundamentally ambiguous,” and because the “district court erroneously admitted evidence” on her use of the funds which she got as a result of the perjury.
According to court documents, Judge Niemeyer wrote a separate opinion. WJZ has not yet obtained those documents.
WJZ reached out to Mosby’s attorneys for comment.
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