Mosby trial likely delayed until the fall
The wait for former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s federal perjury and mortgage fraud trial will continue until at least the fall.
Mosby, who spent eight years as the city’s top prosecutor and left office at the end of 2022, had her trial delayed a third time after her six-lawyer defense team asked to quit the case last month. Her trial was most recently slated to begin March 27.
Now represented by Federal Public Defender James Wyda, scheduling conflicts between Wyda and federal prosecutors have left Mosby without a trial date. Neither side is available at the same time until at least September, they said in court Friday.
U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby directed Wyda and Assistant U.S. Attorney Leo Wise to propose a new trial date by Feb. 24. Complicating matters for Wyda is that Mosby’s former lead defense attorney, A. Scott Bolden, has not turned over the defense case file. Without it, Wyda cannot begin preparation for the case or file and argue motions on Mosby’s behalf.
“We’d like to lay eyes on the file,” Wyda said in a virtual hearing Friday morning.
Bolden faces trouble of his own, having been ordered to explain why Griggsby should not hold him in criminal contempt of court after he violated numerous portions of the rules governing attorney conduct in Maryland. Bolden said his own legal issues created a conflict of interest in Mosby’s case, making it impossible for him or the three other members of his firm to represent her.
Griggsby appointed Wyda to represent Mosby on Jan. 27. The public defender’s office is appointed when a criminal defendant is found to be indigent, meaning they cannot afford to hire legal counsel on their own. Mosby was making an annual salary of about $250,000 when she left office at the end of 2022. However, Griggsby determined over the summer Mosby qualified for government assistance to defray the cost of expert witness testimony, ordering her to pay it back over time.
Prosecutors charged Mosby with two counts each of perjury and mortgage fraud. Federal prosecutors claim she lied about experiencing adverse financial conditions in 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic in order to make two early withdrawals from her city-managed retirement account. She used the money she withdrew, about $80,000, to make down payments on two Florida vacation properties: An eight-bedroom rental near Walt Disney World Resort and a condo on the Gulf Coast. Mosby has since sold the eight-bedroom home but retains ownership of the condo.
Prosecutors claim Mosby failed to disclose a federal tax lien against her and her husband on both mortgage applications, lied about her intended use for the Disney-area home and lied about having lived in Florida when purchasing the condo.
Mosby has always maintained her innocence and said she is the target of a racist and politically vindictive prosecution. Griggsby issued a gag order in January that prohibited Mosby’s lawyers from making those claims, with Griggsby writing that she had found no evidence to support them during an April 2022 hearing on the subject.
The case’s first postponement came in April 2022 when the defense said they could not be prepared for trial because too much evidence had been turned over close to the start of trial. The request for a postponement came despite Mosby’s initial demands for a speedy trial.
In September, prosecutors asked for their own postponement, citing the defense’s failure to fully turn over expert witness testimony under a timeline Griggsby established. That continuance prompted Bolden to use profanity on the courthouse steps when speaking at a news conference, and is part of why Griggsby is seeking to hold him in criminal contempt.