BALTIMORE — Outgoing Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby is asking the judge presiding over her federal perjury and mortgage fraud case to move her upcoming trial out of the city.
Mosby’s attorneys filed a document under seal Thursday, and U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby issued a scheduling order Friday asking both parties to file responses about whether the trial should be moved. It is scheduled to begin March 27.
Previously, Mosby’s attorneys had argued that many of the potential jurors in her case were prejudiced against her because of prosecutors’ actions and local media coverage. Prosecutors have denied any wrongdoing, and in turn accused her of trying to sway jurors in her favor by misrepresenting facts of the case and developments in court.
It’s not clear where Mosby or her attorneys want the trial to take place — the U.S. District Court in Maryland is divided into the northern and southern divisions and jurors for trials in either division are selected from the counties that comprise them.
For example, a federal trial held at the Greenbelt courthouse would select jurors from Calvert, Charles, Montgomery, Prince George’s and St. Mary’s counties, according to the court’s publicly available jury plan. It is also possible the trial could move to another state. If the trial is moved, the judge gets to decide where.
Normally, attorneys request to change venue for an upcoming trial because their client has received so much negative publicity that they genuinely believe they can no longer get a fair and impartial jury, defense attorney and former prosecutor Andrew I. Alperstein told The Baltimore Sun. However, attorneys will also make the request when they think a jury from a different region may be more sympathetic to their client because of the area’s political leanings.
“Normally it’s because you might have a more conservative or liberal pool,” Alperstein said. “If it were to go to Greenbelt, I don’t know that it’s more likely you’d get one type of juror versus another (compared to Baltimore).”
Alperstein said judges do not regularly grant these motions, and often wait to do so until after failing to seat enough jurors who say they can review the facts and evidence in a case with impartiality.
Mosby is charged with two counts each of perjury and mortgage fraud. The perjury charges are based on Mosby’s withdrawal of more than $80,000 from her city-managed retirement account in 2020 under the CARES Act, the first coronavirus pandemic-relief bill Congress passed.
Prosecutors say she lied about experiencing adverse financial consequences during the pandemic in order to make the withdrawals. She used that money to purchase two Florida vacation properties: an eight-bedroom house near Disney World and a condo on the Gulf Coast. Prosecutors say she misled lenders by misrepresenting the state of her finances on both mortgages — she failed to disclose a tax lien, according to the indictment against her — and misled the bank about her plans for the Disney-area home.
The two-term Democrat has vigorously maintained her innocence while repeatedly claiming the prosecution is racially and politically motivated. In an April hearing, Griggsby found there was no objective evidence of vindictive or racist prosecution, but Mosby and her defense have continued to maintain the opposite.
Mosby was scheduled to stand trial last month but the case was continued on the eve of jury selection after the prosecution said the defense had not properly disclosed expert testimony it was planning to use.
A jury pool was formed, and about 65% of people who responded to the preliminary questionnaire said they had at least heard about the case, according to a filing from A. Scott Bolden, Mosby’s lead defense attorney.
Also in September, prosecutors asked Griggsby to issue a gag order in the case to stop attorneys from holding news conferences on the courthouse steps. The request came after Bolden made remarks to news reporters outside the courthouse following the most recent postponement where he cursed and expressed frustration with Griggsby’s decision to continue the case again. Bolden apologized to the judge the next day.
In response to the request for a gag order, Bolden wrote that about 30% of prospective jurors in the case had their minds made up, according to a review of juror questionnaires, and cited examples of racially charged language used by some prospective jurors. Bolden did not say in his filing how many of the 30% thought his client was guilty.
Juror questionnaires are supposed to be confidential, and Griggsby on Sept. 30 ordered Bolden and the rest of Mosby’s defense team to explain why she shouldn’t sanction them for disclosing protected information.
Mosby’s defense was required to file its formal argument as to why the trial should be moved by end of day Friday. Prosecutors have until Nov. 4 to respond.
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