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The NAACP and a coalition of more than a dozen organizations on Tuesday sent a letter to President Joe Biden calling on him to pardon former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, describing her prosecution on perjury and mortgage fraud charges as a “miscarriage of justice and an example of the last administration’s misuse of authority.”
“We’ve watched, decade after decade, as Black Americans have faced wrongful prosecution at the hands of those who seek to promote injustice,” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement. “The only thing Marilyn Mosby is guilty of is the desire to provide her family with a better life.”
“The sad reality is, as Black women take their rightful places in positions of power, dark forces seek to tear down both their progress, and that of our community,” he added. “The NAACP refuses to stand idly by as injustice takes the wheel, driving us down a path of further disparity.”
The five-page letter alleges that the U.S. Department of Justice under former President Donald Trump abused its power to pursue a “meritless indictment” against Mosby, while the current administration “ignored a clear political motive of the malicious prosecution.”
Mosby served as a “model for progressive prosecutors nationwide” since charging six Baltimore Police officers in the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man who died in 2015 from injuries sustained in custody, the letter states, and “her willingness to challenge the status quo and dismantle an unjust system has inspired many.”
“We expect that political persecutions and malicious prosecutions pursued during the Trump Administration would not continue in the Biden Administration,” the letter reads. “Ms. Mosby’s case is not the only one – it is the latest and one of the most egregious cases. This matter should be corrected because it is a miscarriage of justice and an example of the last administration’s misuse of authority.”
Mosby, 44, is set to be sentenced on May 23 in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt on two counts of perjury and one count of making a false statement on a loan application. She served two terms as the city’s top prosecutor from 2015 to 2023.
In 2020, Mosby, a Democrat, twice certified on a form that she experienced an “adverse financial consequence” to take advantage of a provision in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or CARES Act, to withdraw $90,000 from a retirement account that she otherwise would not have been able to access. A jury found that she lied on those documents.
Next, Mosby used that money to buy a home in Kissimmee, Florida, and a condominium in Longboat Key, Florida. A jury determined that she also lied when she submitted a letter claiming that her husband, Nick, had agreed to gift her $5,000 at closing. The couple has since divorced.
Maryland U.S. Attorney Erek Barron, a Democrat and Biden nominee, was in his position when a grand jury returned an indictment against Mosby. U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby, a Biden appointee, presided over the two trials and barred Mosby’s attorneys from arguing that the case was politically and racially motivated.
Federal Public Defender James Wyda, one of Mosby’s attorneys, could not be reached. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland, Angelina Thompson, said in an email that it had no comment.
The letter marks another development in a public campaign for a pardon that includes a website and petition that has more than 20,000 signatures.
Angela Rye, Tiffany Cross and Andrew Gillum have discussed the case on the podcast “Native Land Pod.”
Last week, Mosby appeared on “The ReidOut” with Joy Reid on MSNBC and stated that she thought that the petition for a pardon was appropriate.
“I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong, nothing illegal, nothing criminal,” said Mosby, who has been sharing the petition on Instagram.
April Ryan, D.C. bureau chief for TheGrio, later asked about the push for a pardon at the White House daily briefing.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she did not want to discuss any individual request for a pardon and noted that there is a process. She said she had not spoken to the president about it.
“As you know, we’re really, really careful from here, from this podium,” Jean-Pierre said. “We respect that process here.”
On Wednesday, Mosby appeared with Rye on the nationally syndicated radio show “The Breakfast Club” to continue the media blitz. Federal prosecutors and defense attorneys have until Thursday to file sentencing memos in the case.
”I think that this is an administration that actually owes Marilyn,” Rye said. “And the reason for that is, when Joe Biden was being called ‘Crime Bill Joe’ or Kamala Harris was being called ‘The Top Cop,’ Marilyn went out and said, ‘Let me make sure y’all understand that I modeled my prosecutorial office after Kamala.
“I’m not saying this is a political quid pro quo,” she added. “I’m saying you owe it to justice to do the right thing.”
If she received a pardon, Mosby said, she’d be able to live her life again and continue to fight for justice. She said she was “a little jaded right now” with politics.
“I deserve to live,” she said. “I think I’ve sacrificed a lot to ensure that the scales of justices are fair.”
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Dylan Segelbaum is the courts reporter at The Baltimore Banner.
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