Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby will go to trial for federal charges of perjury and making false statements on loan applications on May 2.
U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby set the date Wednesday after a meeting with federal prosecutors and Mosby’s attorneys. Prosecutors anticipate a four-day trial, according to a court report they filed last week.
In a federal grand jury indictment made public last month, federal investigators allege Mosby used money from COVID-related loans to purchase two vacation homes in Florida. They say the Democrat falsely claimed under penalty of perjury that she experienced adverse financial consequences from the pandemic in order to withdraw money from her city retirement account penalty-free under relaxed restrictions in 2020. In fact, her salary as State’s Attorney increased that year.
Mosby and her legal team have framed the charges as a personal campaign against her, waged by political enemies because of her actions as the city’s top prosecutor as a June primary election for her office nears. Her lawyer A. Scott Bolden has said the charges are “motivated by political and racial animus.”
Her legal team had asked the court for a trial date no later than April, pointing to the primary. The incumbent Democrat has not officially filed for a third term; opponents Ivan Bates, a defense lawyer and former prosecutor who ran unsuccessfully for the office in 2018, and Roya Hanna, also a defense lawyer and former prosecutor, have registered for the race.