Live by the sword; die by the sword?
/By: Joel E. Gordon
Quote by Baltimore City Prosecuting Attorney Marilyn Mosby in July of 2021 about one of the many criminal complaints she has brought involving Baltimore City Police Department members: "These indictments demonstrate our commitment to ensuring one standard of justice for all - regardless of one's race, sex, religion, or occupation."
Marilyn Mosby, who rose to national prominence in 2015, has been a frequent target for criticism of violent crime in Baltimore since her failed prosecution of the officers she charged in the death of Freddie Gray after he was arrested by the Baltimore police. She was accused of prosecutorial overreach for charging the officers. None were convicted of any criminal wrongdoing. Since that time, she has continued to earn a reputation for criminally charging police officers while protecting law breakers.
In June of 2020, Mosby dismissed more than 600 pending criminal cases and announced that her office would no longer prosecute many misdemeanors for crimes she deemed low-level, including drug possession, prostitution, trespassing and select other offenses.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan called the Baltimore state’s attorney a “big part of the problem” with skyrocketing violent crime in that city. “We have a prosecutor in Baltimore City who refuses to prosecute violent criminals and that’s at the root of the problem,” Hogan said.
In fact, if you are charged with a violent crime in Baltimore, there’s a one in four chance your case will be dismissed. Mosby released that data in a recent letter to the governor, who ordered a review of her office
But that is not the only claim to fame attributable to Mosby, who is now facing four counts of federal charges of her own alleging perjury and making a false statement on loan applications for two separate properties in Florida.
From unpaid federal taxes and a tax lien to using campaign dollars for personal use, Mosby has a history of questionable financial dealings and hasn’t always been transparent about information pertinent to their ethicality.
Federal prosecutors have been investigating the anti-cop state’s attorney and her husband, Nick Mosby, who is president of the Baltimore City Council, subsequent to a Baltimore inspector general report in February of 2021 that brought into question the state’s attorney’s travel, gifts and personal businesses.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) subpoenaed all of the couple’s financial records including their tax returns, bank statements, credit card statements, loan documents and canceled checks, The Baltimore Sun newspaper reported.
Mosby is accused of lying about experiencing COVID-related hardship on an application where she asked to withdraw $40,000 from her Baltimore City retirement account. The indictment claims that she did not actually have any financial hardship due to coronavirus, as required.
She is also charged with making false statements to influence a mortgage company, in connection with homes in Florida. She allegedly failed to disclose that she owed "significant amounts of federal taxes."
Calls are growing for Mosby to temporarily step aside or resign, as she is under indictment facing the four federal charges.
Mosby said she is innocent and she intends to fight these charges. "I have done nothing wrong," she said at a news conference. Mosby says she will not be distracted from doing her job as city state's attorney and is strongly refuting the federal charges against her.
While criminal defendants are always certainly considered to be innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and to a moral certainty, federal indictments are to be taken seriously. Data published by the Pew Research Center in 2019 highlighted how federal prosecutors have a 99.6% conviction rate. To put those numbers in perspective, U.S. attorneys filed 79,704 cases in 2018. Of those, only 320 resulted in acquittals.
In the meantime, Baltimore remains a city in crisis under siege. Mosby, who considers herself a “progressive change agent”, must not escape accountability for her own actions, business dealings and contributions to the increases in lawlessness within the city of Baltimore.
Will this indictment lead to ineligibility for her to continue to serve as the state’s attorney for Baltimore city? Let’s hope that justice will be served honestly, swiftly and decisively and for the common good of Baltimore’s merchants and law-abiding citizenry who need relief from a rapidly deteriorating environment currently devoid of actionable policy shifts resulting in a return to a better, safer and more desirable Baltimore.
Joel E. Gordon is a former Field Training Officer with the Baltimore City Police Department and is a past Chief of Police for the city of Kingwood, West Virginia. He has also served as vice-chair of a multi-jurisdictional regional narcotics task force. An award winning journalist, he is author of the book Still Seeking Justice: One Officer's Story and founded the Facebook group Police Authors Seeking Justice. Look him up at stillseekingjustice.com
