Forget It Jake, It's Baltimore

Nick and Marylin Mosby

Jazz Shaw at Hat Hair follows the story, Marilyn Mosby Beginning House Arrest

After years of following the career of former Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby and her fall from power, the story appears to be coming to an end, at least for now. Last month, Mosby was sentenced to one year of house arrest and three years of supervised release on charges of perjury and mortgage fraud. The court also ordered her to forfeit the luxury vacation home in Florida that she purchased with her ill-gotten gains. Next week she is scheduled to begin her home detention period. The judge granted her request to be allowed to use the common areas of her apartment building while confined, but she will otherwise only be allowed to leave for "work, education, and other approved reasons." She will wear an electronic monitoring device at all times while outside of her home. (CBS News) 

Marilyn Mosby, Baltimore's former top prosecutor, will start her one-year house arrest on June 20 for her perjury and mortgage fraud convictions.

She has officially filed an appeal on both convictions.

Mosby's lawyers asked that she be allowed to use common areas in her apartment building as part of her list of approved places she can go, according to court documents obtained by WJZ. Her lawyers said the allowance would let her use the spaces when her daughters visit.

As noted above, Mosby has an appeal pending for both her home confinement sentence and the forfeiture of her Florida condo. She continues to maintain her innocence despite the veritable mountain of documented evidence against her. She and her husband, Baltimore City Council President Nick Mosby, have been at the center of swirling, controversial allegations of dubious financial activity for most of their careers. Yet until this year, they have both managed to avoid the long arm of the law. That's probably considerably easier when you are the law, or at least the people charged with enacting and enforcing the laws.

Barring a successful appeal, Marilyn Mosby still seems to be getting off with a relatively easy sentence. It's true that she is technically a first offender and she was convicted of nonviolent crimes, so the court typically wouldn't come down all that hard on such a defendant. But at the same time, Mosby was a public official charged with upholding the law and prosecuting criminals herself. When that sort of public figure goes rogue, we might expect the courts to make an example of them. That's not the case here, apparently. She will be allowed to remain in her home, go to work, and receive visits from her adult children whenever she likes. She really won't be suffering anything more than the embarrassment of having to wear an ankle monitor when she is out and about. Is that really sending much of a message to other elected officials in Baltimore?

I would love to see something like this happen to Fani Willis, too.