The Maryland Supreme Court on Friday ruled that former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby will be allowed to practice law while she appeals her perjury and mortgage fraud convictions.
In an opinion with two dissents, the justices denied a request from the Attorney Grievance Commission of Maryland to immediately suspend her law license. Baltimore Circuit Judge Yvette M. Bryant will hear the disciplinary case after the appeals process is over.
“I am grateful and continue to remain steadfast that justice will be served,” Mosby wrote in a post on Instagram. “I am continuously appreciative for the outpouring of community support that I have received. Prayer works.”
Mosby, 44, a Democrat who served two terms as the city’s top prosecutor from 2015-23, was found guilty in separate trials in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt of two counts of perjury and one count of making a false statement on a loan application.
U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby sentenced Mosby to three years’ supervised release, with one year of home detention, and ordered her to perform 100 hours of community service. Mosby maintains her innocence and has asked President Joe Biden for a pardon.
In 2020, Mosby twice certified under penalty of perjury that she had experienced a qualifying “adverse financial consequence” to withdraw a total of $90,000 from a retirement account under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, that she otherwise would not have been able to access.
Mosby used that money to buy a home in Kissimmee, Florida, not far from Walt Disney World, and a condo in Longboat Key, Florida, on the state’s Gulf Coast. A jury concluded that she lied on the forms.
A separate jury determined that she also lied when she submitted a letter to the mortgage company claiming that her now ex-husband, Nick, who’s the outgoing president of Baltimore City Council, had agreed to gift her $5,000 at closing for the condo.
Ivan Bates, a defense attorney in Baltimore, won the Democratic primary for state’s attorney in 2022 and ran unopposed on Election Day. He took office in 2023.
“I’m just grateful that the court just steadied its hand in this process and allowed justice to play out,” said Tiffany Alston, Mosby’s attorney. “It is a privilege to practice law, and neither Miss Mosby, myself or, I think, any attorney, takes it lightly. We’re grateful she’s able to keep her license pending appeal.”
Maryland Bar Counsel Thomas DeGonia II could not immediately be reached.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Steven B. Gould wrote that Mosby “has not come to terms with the gravity of the offenses of which two juries found her guilty.”
Gould added that her insistence that the public was not harmed is “simply wrong.” Justice Jonathan Biran joined his dissent.
“Ms. Mosby was convicted by two juries of her peers of separate crimes that speak directly to her character,” Gould wrote. “Although I may be persuaded otherwise if this matter comes back to us on a full record, for now, based on the findings of both juries, I am constrained to conclude Ms. Mosby presents an unacceptable risk of harm to the public if permitted to practice law in Maryland.”
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