By E. Faye Williams
On May 23, 2024, at 10:30 AM EST, Attorney Mosby is scheduled to be sentenced and is facing 40 years in federal prison. The Department of Justice (DOJ) is trying to make an example of former Baltimore City State’s Attorney, Marilyn Mosby. Attorney Mosby served as a progressive prosecutor seeking real change for communities of color. We all know the system wants to send a clear message to young lawyers and progressive prosecutors like Aramis Ayala, Kim Foxx, Kim Gardener, and countless others: that there are consequences for attempting to balance the scales of justice. Instead of taking on cases like the Tulsa Race Massacre, nationwide attacks on DEI, or hate crimes, they have targeted elected officials–many of them, heroes to the communities they serve.
We, the people, seek a full pardon from President Biden for the wrongful conviction of Attorney Mosby.
Attorney Mosby’s record as a prosecutor is exemplary. A first generation college graduate, the Tuskegee University and Boston College Law alumnus was elected as the youngest chief prosecutor of any major US city in 2014. Attorney Mosby was RELENTLESS in her commitment to justice, embodying the legacy of generations in law enforcement. During her two terms as State’s Attorney, she established programs to provide nonviolent drug offenders with alternatives to incarceration, refused to prosecute marijuana possession cases, and started one of the country’s only Youth and Prevention departments. Her courageous commitment to justice made her a target of admiration and punishment.
Attorney Marilyn Mosby is being punished for her relentless commitment to pursuing and upholding justice. DOJ is recklessly and irresponsibly continuing the Trump-era persecution of Attorney Mosby for accessing and using HER OWN FUNDS! In November 2023, Attorney Mosby was wrongfully convicted on two counts of perjury for withdrawing $40,000 and $50,000 from her own retirement account.
-Several people employed by the City of Baltimore withdrew from their retirement accounts during the height of the pandemic in 2020.
-739 people withdrew funds from their Baltimore Deferred Compensation retirement accounts.
-3 people worked in the same agency as Attorney Mosby.
-Attorney Mosby was the ONLY ONE prosecuted for withdrawing money from her own retirement account.
Attorney Mosby was wrongfully convicted of two counts of perjury for withdrawing her own money from her retirement account and is facing five years in federal prison for each charge. She should have never been prosecuted and MUST be pardoned!
The DOJ generally prosecutes cases amounting to or exceeding one MILLION dollars. At issue here is $95,000 of Attorney Mosby’s OWN MONEY. In a SECOND trial, she was convicted on February 6, 2024, of incorrectly identifying how she received $5,000 before closing on a property. The mortgage broker’s testimony at trial confirmed that he misadvised the transfer of the $5,000 during closing. The indictment incorrectly claimed that Attorney Mosby leveraged a $5,000 deposit from her husband for the purpose of securing a lower interest rate.
In 2021, 58 people were sentenced for mortgage fraud in the United States. Attorney Mosby was wrongfully convicted of one count of falsifying a mortgage application and is facing thirty years in federal prison for this charge. She should have never been prosecuted and MUST be pardoned!
Why is this important?
WHY ARE THEY TARGETING ATTORNEY MOSBY?
Leo Wise began targeting Attorney Mosby under the Trump Administration. This is no coincidence. Wise was known for profiling and targeting Black elected officials since he worked on Capitol Hill where he hyper-focused on cases involving Congressional Black Caucus members from 2008 to 2010. As a federal prosecutor In 2019, Wise prosecuted police officers involved in corruption with the Gun Trace Task Force, but he failed to address the impact of the wrongdoing of the officers. Without pause, Mosby addressed what Wise neglected by identifying more than 2,000 cases involving the officers’ malpractice, leading to a thorough review of the verdict within each case. After a very public disagreement that included Steve Schenning at DOJ, Attorney Mosby became a target of Wise who already donated to her political opponents while he was employed with the Department of Justice! This clearly demonstrates his evident bias, animus, and disapproval of Mosby, highlighting a case of malicious prosecution alongside his boss, Schenning and the US Attorney in Maryland at the time, Richard Hur.
In July 2020, Mosby boldly confronted former President Trump’s threat to deploy federal agents to Baltimore following the murder of George Floyd. In an op-ed, Mosby vowed to prosecute any federal agents who engaged in unlawful actions against Baltimore citizens. Two months later, Attorney Mosby learned she was under federal investigation, a move widely perceived as retaliation for her courageous stance in protecting her constituents’ constitutional rights. Former Governor and now Senate candidate, Larry Hogan even gave money from the state to DOJ to prosecute “fraud related crimes” after public disagreement with Attorney Mosby where she called out his racist antics.
We demand a FULL Presidential Pardon for Attorney Mosby pursuant to Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution, which gives the authority of the pardon to the President. While the Biden Administration has used the power of the pardon in a rare 13 occasions, it is time for the President to right the wrongs of Trump’s Department of (in)Justice! President Nixon was pardoned by President Ford after actually engaging in wrongdoing. President Clinton pardoned his own brother. This Administration and the Obama Administration pardoned individuals who Attorney Mosby fought for in policymaking and in the courtroom.
It is OUR TURN to pursue justice for Attorney Mosby because, #JusticeforMarilynMosby, is justice for ALL of us.
