At issue in court is whether she lied on two forms to get early access to funds in her city 457(b) retirement account to buy two Florida homes: an eight-bedroom vacation rental near Disney World and a two-bedroom condominium on the Gulf Coast. The perjury charges each carry a likely sentence of about 18 months if Mosby is convicted; she maintains her innocence.
People normally cannot access 457(b) accounts before retiring unless they stop working for the government or experience an “unforeseeable emergency.” But under the CARES Act, a pandemic relief bill, Congress loosened those rules temporarily. Government workers could draw those funds if they suffered adverse financial consequences as a result of the pandemic or if a business they owned closed or took a loss.
On May 26, 2020, Mosby checked a box on an online form, affirming that one of those conditions applied to her. She received a deposit in her bank account three days later. Mosby repeated the process in December 2020, getting another payout.
What’s clear is that Mosby did not lose any income because of the pandemic — her salary increased in 2020 compared to 2019 — meaning the trial will come down to the CARES Act’s provision for business losses.
Mosby’s attorneys, including Federal Public Defender Jim Wyda and Howard University law professor Lucius Outlaw, plan to argue Mosby qualified for the payments because she sunk money into a company she founded, Mahogany Elite Travel, and the pandemic prohibited it from getting off the ground. Wyda declined to comment for this article.
Prosecutors argue the business existed in name only and point to a series of statements Mosby made, either through spokespeople or personal attorneys, that suggest she never planned to operate any business while in office. Her second four-year term was to run through 2023 and there are no term limits on the office of state’s attorney.
The deciding factor may well be Mosby’s version of events as told under oath. It is likely the former state’s attorney will testify that she did plan to run the business earlier or, at least could have if the pandemic had not halted leisure travel.
Mosby’s initial legal defense was all offense: go public with allegations of an unfair prosecution and push for a trial as soon as possible, a way of signaling to political supporters she was innocent ahead of an expected reelection bid.
Eventually that push subsided, with her lawyers arguing for a continuance in April 2022 while also angling to get the case thrown out. They alleged in court papers that lead prosecutor Leo Wise was racist and had it out for Mosby. The judge rejected that idea, citing the absence of any evidence. Wise is white.
Wise was head of the U.S. attorney’s public corruption and fraud unit. It was he who once compared Mosby in court to Trump, saying her claims of vindictive prosecution and attacks on his credibility were a political ploy similar to those of the former Republican president.
“It’s all a plan to delegitimize anyone who has the temerity to question her behavior,” Wise said in court. “It’s just like what Trump did.”
He was demoted in March of this year after disagreements with Barron over the Mosby case and employee evaluations and will not prosecute Mosby’s case.
I can't imagine that she will be convicted by a PG County jury.
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