WASHINGTON — A group of protesters marched to the White House Thursday to ask President Joe Biden to pardon former Baltimore City’s State Attorney Marilyn Mosby.
The group of Mosby supporters came from all over the region, including a bus from Baltimore. The event, which started at Freedom Plaza, was organized in part by the Prince George’s County chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
This is the latest pardon push by Mosby supporters. The march comes one day after outgoing Baltimore City Council President Nick Mosby called on President Biden to pardon his ex-wife. Earlier this week, civil rights attorney Ben Crump and political strategist Angela Rye renewed Mosby’s pardon efforts with a statement urging Biden to pardon more people.
“After learning about the pardon of Hunter Biden this evening, we want to remind President Biden that justice is still not served for so many in this country,” the statement from Crump and Rye read. “There are thousands of people who have been wrongfully convicted and sit in federal prisons today. While Hunter Biden was selectively prosecuted, he’s not the only one.”
Dr. Josephine Mourning, Co-chair of the Committee to Free Marilyn Mosby, argued Mosby is being wrongly persecuted.
“I’ve been seeing other people being pardoned. I’ve seen other people being pardoned by other presidents. People who did tax evasion, drug dealers, everyone being pardoned. Ms. Mosby spent her own money. She is being persecuted for using her own money to buy a home, she did not have any homes in her name. She wanted something in her name. And now she is being persecuted for that,” Mourning added.
Mosby was convicted by two separate federal juries during two trials; she was found guilty of two counts of perjury stemming from her withdrawals from her city retirement account. While her supporters often say Mosby was prosecuted for using her own money, the reality is different. Mosby used a COVID-era provision to make the withdrawal penalty free, claiming she suffered financial hardship during the pandemic. However, Mosby made more money in 2020 than she did in 2019; facts the jury heard during the first trial from forensic accountants.
Mosby then used the money she withdrew to purchase two vacation homes in Florida. Those purchases are what her two mortgage fraud charges stemmed from, though Mosby was ultimately convicted on just one of the charges. A separate jury determined Mosby submitted a false gift letter indicating her then-husband, Nick Mosby, would gift her $5,000 she needed at closing.
However, the jury again heard from accounting experts explaining that Nick Mosby – who served as City Council President at the time – didn’t have enough money in his account. It was Marilyn Mosby who wired her husband the money, who then shuffled it around to various bank accounts before sending it back to Marilyn for the closing costs.
Like Mourning, Tyrone Bost, Chairman of the Committee to Free Marilyn Mosby, said the former top prosecutor in Baltimore City is a victim of selective prosecution.
“The reason she is being prosecuted was because she successfully prosecuted 33 corrupt police officers in Baltimore. 33. That’s unheard of,” he said. “She also prosecuted the police officers that killed Freddie Gray.”
Freddie Gray was 25 years old when he died in police custody after being arrested by Baltimore Police. Mosby was catapulted into the national spotlight when she brought charges against the police officers involved in the case, though she did not secure any convictions.
Bost argued Mosby “made a lot of enemies” during her administration, including President-elect Donald Trump.
“Donald Trump was made an enemy. When Donald Trump was about to send federal agents into Baltimore to arrest peaceful protesters, Marilyn Mosby told him: If you send those agents to Baltimore to arrest my people, who are protesting peacefully, I will press charges against those officers,” Bost said.
Mosby’s supporters have repeatedly argued that she has been selectively prosecuted. While the investigation was launched under the Trump Administration, it was the U.S. Department of Justice under President Biden – a Democrat – that continued the investigation and ultimately brought forward the charges against her.
According to the Department of Justice, 259 pardon petitions were submitted to President Biden in 2022, and three were granted. In 2023, 380 pardon petitions were submitted and nine were granted.
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