Marilyn Mosby asks federal appeals court to toss perjury, mortgage fraud convictions

Former Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby is continuing her fight to have her name cleared and is now pleading with a federal appeals court to find flaws in the two trials where she was convicted of mortgage fraud and perjury.

In a new court filing first reported on by the Baltimore Sun and obtained by Fox News Digital, Mosby claims her conviction was the result of a prosecution that was "ill-advised and ill-conceived from the beginning."

Mosby was convicted on one count of mortgage fraud in February, after she testified that she unintentionally made false statements on loan applications to buy two Florida vacation homes. 

In November, she was convicted of two counts of perjury by a federal jury after she falsely claimed financial hardship during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to withdraw money from the city’s retirement fund. A judge sentenced Mosby to a year of home detention and three years of supervised release in May.

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Now, Mosby says she was unfairly targeted during the investigation, although the brief does not allege she was the victim of racially or politically motivated prosecution.

"This prosecution was ill-advised and ill-conceived from the beginning, and the three convictions and forfeiture order that resulted are infirm," Mosby’s attorneys wrote in the brief. "They should all be set aside."

The brief was filed late Monday and is the first attempt from the former state’s attorney to convince federal appellate judges to overturn her conviction.

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Federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against Mosby after allegations that she claimed a pandemic-related hardship to pull money from her retirement account then used the money as down payments on two Florida properties.

Prosecutors also claimed she repeatedly lied on the mortgage applications.

While Mosby’s mortgage fraud trial was slated to take place in Baltimore, it was ultimately moved to Greenbelt, Maryland, because of concerns potential jurors may be biased by media coverage of the case.

Once the trial started, both Mosby and her ex-husband, Baltimore City Council President Nick Mosby, provided testimony, with the latter saying he lied about their federal tax debt because he was embarrassed.

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Mosby told the courts she did not make any false statements intentionally and signed the loan applications in good faith.

But it was her failure to disclose the debt on her applications that contributed to the mortgage fraud charges.

Prosecutors alleged during the trial that Mosby lied about getting a $5,000 gift from her husband at the time, which helped her get a lower interest rate.

The gift is what led to the conviction, as prosecutors traced it back to her account.

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Prosecutors had to prove Mosby knowingly made a false statement that affected the mortgage application process, in order to get a conviction.

In Monday’s appeal, Mosby asked the court to toss the convictions for several reasons. One reason was that prosecutors failed to prove that the fraud took place in Maryland, where she was indicted.

"During trial, defense counsel argued that, under this Court's precedent, the jury had to be instructed that predatory acts ‘cannot provide a basis for venue’ and that, therefore, ‘mere preparation of a false statement cannot provide a basis for venue’ in a mortgage fraud prosecution," the defense wrote. "Instead, Counsel argued, the jury had to unanimously find that conduct essential to the charged offense occurred in Maryland. The court disagreed (and rejected the defense's proposed instruction), instead instructing that the government's venue burden was to prove that ‘any act in furtherance of the crime occurred within’ Maryland."

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Her attorneys also argue the judge improperly allowed questions about Mosby’s convictions of perjury during the mortgage fraud trial, and also allowed the prosecution to introduce evidence of how she used retirement funds.

"In short, the government’s repeated invocation of the use of the distributions encouraged jurors to convict not because Ms. Mosby had committed perjury but because they viewed her as a wealthy woman and a public figure motivated by greed," Mosby’s team wrote. "Such appeals to animosity toward the rich (putting aside that Ms. Mosby was not in fact wealthy) are improper."

Mosby is also asking the court to stop the government from seizing her condominium in Longboat Key, and in the appeal claimed she could have purchased the property without the gift letter. Ordering the nearly $900,000 condominium’s forfeiture, they argue, would violate Mosby’s constitutional rights because the fine is excessive.

"The Longboat Key condominium is now her only significant asset — she is otherwise deeply in debt — and has generated much-needed rental income during some periods when she is not using it," the lawyers claim.

Mosby’s team consists of Daniel S. Volchok and attorneys from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr in Washington, D.C.

Mosby gained a national profile for prosecuting Baltimore police officers after Freddie Gray, a Black man, died in police custody.

Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report.