*Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby has been federally indicted on perjury charges related to a COVID loan application.
Mosby allegedly falsely claimed a COVID-19 hardship on applications to withdraw $90,000 from her retirement account. The indictment was reportedly filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Baltimore,
Mosby’s lawyer said in a statement that the charges were “bogus” and “rooted in personal, political and racial animus.”
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Here’s more from WTOP News:
The charging document alleges that in May 2020, Mosby falsely claimed to have been financially impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in order to request a $40,000 withdrawal from her city of Baltimore employee retirement account, which she allegedly used toward a down payment for a vacation home in Kissimmee, Florida. She is also accused of using the same process to procure another $50,000 in December 2020, which she then allegedly used to make a down payment on a second vacation home in Long Boat Key, Florida.
According to the indictment, Mosby used the COVID crisis to get a distribution under the federal CARES Act, claiming she experienced “adverse financial consequences from the coronavirus as a result of being quarantined, furloughed, or laid off; having reduced work hours; being unable to work due to lack of childcare; or the closing or reduction of hours of a business she owned or operated.”
The Feds charge that Mosby did not experience any financial hardships while she received her full gross salary of $247,955 from Jan. 1 through Dec. 29, 2020, per the report.
“We will fight these charges vigorously, and I remain confident that once all the evidence is presented, that she will prevail against these bogus charges — charges that are rooted in personal, political and racial animus five months from her election,” said Mosby’s lawyer, A. Scott Bolden in a statement.
Bolden noted that his client was at the center of months-long federal investigation into tax-related charges that seemed to be pushed to the side amid the fraud case.
“DOJ’s Criminal Tax Division and the U.S. Attorney for Maryland went completely dark as they conspired to wrongfully indict my client on non-tax related charges,” Bolden said. “You would only conduct a criminal investigation in that manner if you were not interested in the truth or exculpatory evidence or justice, but rather only concerned with obtaining an indictment and bringing false charges against my client — at all or any costs.”
Per the report, a spokesperson for the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office said Mosby and the office “remain completely focused and wholly committed to serving the citizens of our city. Our leadership and our frontline prosecutors are some of the best in the world and we will not be distracted or sidetracked from our mission to make Baltimore a safer community.”
