Marilyn Mosby trial: Jury asked to decide if she acted in ‘good faith’ or like ‘telling the truth didn’t matter’

BALTIMORE —In their closing pleas to jurors, federal prosecutors said Baltimore’s former state’s attorney believed “telling the truth didn’t matter” when requesting to withdraw over $80,000 from a city retirement plan.

During his closing argument Wednesday afternoon, Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron Zelinsky laid out the government’s claim that Marilyn Mosby falsely stated that she had suffered “adverse financial consequences” due to the coronavirus pandemic, “even though she made almost a quarter-million dollars a year.” The two certifications, he said, were for down payments on Florida homes that Mosby intended to rent out and make a profit.

Attorneys for Mosby, the twice-elected state’s attorney who failed to win a third term after her federal indictment, said those certifications were made in “good faith” as her nascent travel businesses, organized while the industry was frozen by the pandemic, had suffered those adverse financial consequences.

In opening arguments, they said Mosby’s nascent travel business was “devastated” by the pandemic, making the certifications true, and thus the former prosecutor was innocent.

But they didn’t prove it at trial, Zelinsky said Wednesday afternoon, citing the government’s line-by-line examination of the business, Mahogany Elite Enterprises, which Mosby’s attorneys said was a planned venture to bolster professional women of color through retreats at “various destinations.”

Federal Public Defender James Wyda said at the start of his closing statements that he didn’t “think it’s credible” for the government to argue that Mosby’s side businesses, “a vision, a dream,” conceived after an April 2020 trip to Jamaica, wasn’t impacted.

Federal prosecutors, however, said Mahogany Elite ”was a company with no plans to operate,” citing statements Mosby made to the media in 2020, when she said that she had no intention to run the business while in office.

“It produced no income. It had no customers. It had no records,” Zelinsky said.

Wyda said the government was focusing on “things that didn’t matter,” pointing to the document at the center of the perjury case.

“This case is about a three-page form, and what was on Marilyn Mosby’s mind when she filled it out,” he said.

The only person who could speak to the former prosecutor’s thoughts, Mosby herself, elected not to testify earlier Wednesday.

Her decision followed a preview from prosecutors Tuesday afternoon about the type of tough questions they planned to ask her if she took the witness stand, including probes about apparent tax impropriety and the fact that she was held in contempt of court in a separate case.

Wyda advised his client on her right to testify and to remain silent in court Wednesday morning.

“I’d like not to testify,” Mosby said.

After the defense’s closing argument, the government gets to have the last word in criminal cases, because it bears the burden of proving the charges.

At the outset of the perjury trial, the first of dual proceedings against Mosby, the former Baltimore state’s attorney was expected to testify.

But when the prosecution rested Tuesday having presented a line-by-line analysis of Mosby’s financial dealings to the jury, her defense team told U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby that they would like to wait until Wednesday morning to make that decision.

Mosby is accused of two counts of perjury stemming from the two withdrawals she made from a city employee retirement account. She was able to make the withdrawals, about $80,000, by certifying she had suffered a financial hardship due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The following topics are among those that federal prosecutors had said they would cross-examine Mosby on, if she had elected to testify: about $7,000 in tax deductions that the government described as “improper” write-offs by Mosby, the former state’s attorney being held in contempt for violating a gag order related to Keith Davis Jr.’s controversial prosecution, and a “second home rider” letter she submitted to secure a lower interest rate on a home she purchased in Florida.

Mosby is also charged with mortgage fraud on allegations that she made false statements on a loan application, though she is expected to be tried on those offenses at a later time.

The defense rested its case after Mosby formally told Griggsby she would not testify. The government had no additional evidence to present.

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