Mosby asks to keep law license as she fights mortgage fraud charges

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Former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby wants the Maryland Supreme Court to let her continue practicing law despite her recent conviction on perjury charges.

In a new court filing Monday, Mosby indicated for the first time that she will oppose Maryland Bar Counsel’s pending effort to suspend her law license. Mosby is also facing trial in federal court this week on mortgage fraud charges.

Marilyn Mosby trials: Complete coverage

Bar counsel asked the state’s highest court to temporarily suspend Mosby’s law license in late December. The request came over a month after Mosby was found guilty of perjury at her first trial, where jurors found she lied about suffering a pandemic-related financial setback in order to withdraw money from her city retirement account.

The conviction meant Mosby was guilty of a “serious crime” under Maryland’s ethical rules for lawyers. When a lawyer commits a crime, bar counsel can petition for the suspension of their law license as a temporary measure when sentencing isn’t set to take place for at least a month. A final outcome, such as disbarment, would come after sentencing.

Mosby’s response to bar counsel’s petition argues that her perjury conviction has no connection to her work as a lawyer. The response does not say whether Mosby is actively practicing law, but explains that she is “currently using her wealth of knowledge, legal experience, and political acumen to serve as a consultant to entertainers, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and corporations.”

“The crime itself offers little insight into her character,” wrote Mosby’s lawyer, Delegate Tiffany Alston. “At best, she withdrew her own money. At worst, she committed perjury in obtaining her own money.”

Alston, who has herself faced legal troubles in the past, wrote that she believes Mosby’s final sanction in the attorney discipline case will not be significant, so a temporary suspension of Mosby’s law license threatens to exceed the actual punishment she will receive in the end.

The response positions Mosby as a “modern day civil rights champion” because of her work as Baltimore’s top prosecutor, a job she left last year after losing in the city’s Democratic primary. Alston also references an academic article that found female attorneys are punished more severely than male attorneys when they commit ethical violations.

“It is not in the public interest to deprive the public of a culturally competent, civil rights champion who has legal talent and skill to offer the community,” Alston wrote. “Ms. Mosby has no accusations of being sinister, unscrupulous, or untrustworthy as it relates to her clients.”

Alston asked the Maryland Supreme Court to either pause the disciplinary proceedings against Mosby until her conviction becomes final or to schedule a hearing on bar counsel’s petition.

Maryland Bar Counsel Thomas M. DeGonia declined to comment Monday.

The new filing also indicates that Mosby plans to appeal her perjury conviction. Her criminal lawyers will rely on a recent case in which a Maryland doctor’s conviction on health care fraud charges related to insurance billing for COVID-19 tests was overturned, Alston wrote.

In that case, Chief U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar wrote that it was not a criminal offense to take advantage of loose laws and regulations that the government hurriedly imposed during the pandemic.

At Mosby’s first trial, prosecutors said she took advantage of emergency COVID-19 rules to withdraw money from her city retirement account and benefit from historically low interest rates when she used the money to buy two Florida vacation properties. Jurors agreed, finding her guilty of two counts of perjury.

Her sentencing will not take place until after her second trial, which is based on the same indictment and began with opening statements Monday. Mosby is accused of failing to disclose a $45,000 IRS lien and making other false statements when she applied for mortgages on the Florida properties.

Mosby is expected to claim she did not know about the IRS lien and that her ex-husband, Baltimore City Council President Nick Mosby, led her to believe he had settled the tax debt.