Claim tripled wealth, feds say

Prosecutors assert ex-state’s attorney’s worth ballooned after getting pandemic aid

Marilyn Mosby’s financial circumstances improved over the same time period she claimed under penalty of perjury to have suffered losses due to the coronavirus pandemic, said a forensic accountant hired by federal prosecutors.

The government expert’s opinion, made public during a flurry of Monday night filings in the federal criminal case against the former Baltimore state’s attorney, responds to the question underlying Mosby’s perjury charges: whether she qualified for early withdrawals from her retirement savings because of financial consequences caused by the COVID19 crisis.

Claims Mosby, a Democrat, made to that effect, namely that she had suffered financial losses, allowed her to take out approximately $80,000 from her city-managed retirement account in 2020 that she used on down payments for a pair of Florida vacation homes.

By the government’s accounting, Mosby’s net worth tripled from the end of 2019 to the end of 2020.

Mosby, 42, is charged with two counts of perjury and two counts of mortgage fraud, related to the withdrawals and home purchases. Her trial is scheduled for mid-March but has been postponed twice before.

Her lawyers — and experts they’ve hired to testify in her defense — claim the legal language Congress adopted for its first coronavirus relief package, the CARES Act, was vague, and that her claims of “adverse financial consequences” had no determination on whether she qualified for an early withdrawal. Mosby’s defense team said in court filings that her retirement savings portfolio, net worth and potential business income decreased during the pandemic.