Former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby was sentenced Thursday to one year of home detention for her perjury and mortgage fraud convictions, and ordered to forfeit her Florida condo. U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby handed down a sentence of three years of supervised release, opting against sending Mosby to prison. Prosecutors had sought 20 months in prison. Griggsby’s decision followed an approximately four-hour hearing during which prosecutors asked for prison time and Mosby’s lawyers requested probation. While Mosby was state’s attorney when she perjured herself and committed mortgage fraud, Federal Public Defender James Wyda noted none of Mosby’s crimes related to her role in office. He said Mosby had been punished enough given she lost her job, likely stands to have her law license revoked and endured a grueling trial that put her private life into the limelight, reports the Baltimore Sun.
Separate federal juries convicted Mosby of perjury and mortgage fraud after two trials held in Greenbelt, after the former state’s attorney asked that they be moved from Baltimore. Ahead of sentencing, Mosby made several appearances on news programs, professing her innocence while saying she was a victim of politically-motivated and biased prosecutions. “Jail is not a just sentence for Ms. Mosby, her family or the community,” Wyda told Griggsby. He also said that sending Mosby to prison would inflict “extraordinary trauma” on her daughters, citing letters the defense submitted from the children’s therapist and a scholar who wrote about the impacts on children when their mothers are incarcerated. Maintaining her innocence, Mosby declined an opportunity to speak in court. Wyda said Mosby should not be penalized for pursuing legal rights. “Ms. Mosby maintains her innocence. That is her right,” Wyda said. “Ms. Mosby will appeal her convictions. That is also her right. Ms. Mosby is pursuing a pardon. That is also her right.”