By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on May 27, 2024
An Editorial Opinion
Last Thursday, Marilyn J. Mosby, the former State's Attorney for Baltimore, Maryland, was sentenced to 12 months of home confinement, 100 hours of community service, and three years of supervised release following her conviction on bogus perjury and mortgage fraud charges.
Mosby’s supporters view her sentence as some sort of victory. I view it as a catastrophic failure of justice.
For the reasons set forth in this article, Mosby should have been admitted into the federal pretrial diversion program in Baltimore on the front-end of this case. Following her completion of the program, the charges against Mosby should have been dismissed.
Mosby qualified for the federal pretrial diversion program, as outlined in Justice Manual, §9-22.100. Her alleged offenses did NOT involve: (a) the sexual abuse of a child or adult, (b) bodily injury to any victim, or economic harm to any victim, (c) brandishing or using a firearm in the commission of another crime, (d) a violation of the public trust, (e) a breach of national security or an act of terrorism, and (f) her participation in a large-scale criminal enterprise.
Nowhere in the government’s 17-page indictment does it allege that Mosby committed a breach of the public trust. No taxpayer money was involved in Mosby’s case. Prosecutors conceded that there were no “victims” in the case. Even though Mosby was a public official at the times referenced in the indictment, prosecutors did not allege that she was acting in her official capacity with respect to any offense listed in the indictment.
Similarly situated white offenders with these facts are admitted to federal and state pretrial diversion programs across the nation all day long. Their cases are dismissed after they complete the program. I presented specific cases evidencing this preferential treatment in my March 22, 2024, article titled, “Unequal Justice Flourishes Within America’s State and Federal Criminal Justice Systems.”
This is the same pretrial diversion program that federal prosectuors tried to admit drug addict, gun-possessing, tax evading First Son Hunter Biden into last year in a crooked "sweetheart" plea deal that blew up under judicial scrutiny.
The catastrophic failure of justice in Marilyn Mosby’s case is particularly galling because: (a) it occurred during Joe Biden’s presidency, (b) the case was prosecuted by U.S. Attorney Erek L. Barron, a black Biden appointee, and (c) U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby, another black Biden appointee, was the trial judge in Mosby’s case. None of these of these officials protected Mosby’s right to equal justice. All of them failed her.
There is no excuse for the catastrophic failure of justice in Mosby's case.
What Caused the Feds to Target and Prosecute Marilyn Mosby
Marilyn Mosby led a very public investigation into the arrest, detention, and death of Freddie Gray. She also sought and secured indictments for murder against the police officers who arrested, detained, and killed Freddie Gray. The ensuing criminal trials did not produce "guilty" verdicts.
Yet, Mosby became a hero in Baltimore's black community for prosecuting the police officers who were responsible for Gray's death. This is rarely done.
Top law enforcement officials in the Baltimore area were pissed off at Mosby for her aggressive prosecution of the police officers involved in Freddie Gray's death.
At the request of Erek Barron, Marilyn Mosby was indicted by a federal grand jury for perjury and making false mortgage claims in January 2022. She was tried in Judge Griggsby’s court. In September 2023, Mosby was convicted of perjury. In February 2024, Mosby was convicted of mortgage fraud in a separate trial in Griggsby's courtroom.
Marilyn Moseby has consistently denied any wrongdoing in her case. Yet, her innocence did not matter because the Department of Justice, Criminal Division, is infested with political operatives who favor certain special interest groups and criminal defendants while punishing others.
What is worse, black elected officials in Congress and in Maryland state government were too weak and politically impotent to prevent the grave injustice that was inflicted upon Mosby in retaliation for her prosecution of the police officers who killed Freddie Gray. Their pleas to Joe Biden for a presidential pardon have fallen on deaf ears because he does not respect them.
Erek Barron and Lydia Griggsby failed Marilyn Mosby, as well. They allowed their blackness and public offices to be used as a law enforcement platform for sanitizing the government’s disparate treatment of a modern-day COINTELPRO victim.
FBI agents and federal prosecutors in Baltimore manufactured a bogus criminal case against Mosby on "bullshit" perjury and mortgage fraud charges. Federal prosecutors in Maryland have a long, documented, and ugly history of politically-motivated prosecutions. It is one of the few jurisdictions where a sitting U.S. Attorney (i.e., Thomas M. DiBiagio) was fired by a sitting president (i.e., George W. Bush) for engaging in such prosecutorial misconduct.
Nobody in Joe Biden's Department of Justice attempted to stop the impermissible targeting and persecution of Marilyn Mosby. From Attorney General Merrick Garland on down, they all marched in goose step to lynch her.
I am NOT celebrating Marilyn Mosby’s sentence to home confinement. I am pissed off that she did NOT get into the pretrial diversion program that Erek L. Barron routinely extends to similarly situated white first-time offenders. As for Judge Griggsby, she could and should have dismissed Mosby's case. Failing that, Griggsby could and should have sentenced Mosby to probation only.
No matters who wins the 2024 presidential election, I am committed to doing whatever is necessary, reasonable, and lawful to secure a full and unconditional pardon for Marilyn Mosby. Donald Trump's pardon of former Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio in 2017 and Bill Clinton's out-the-door pardon of wealthy fugitive Marc Rich in 2001 showed me that the President of the United States can pardon any convicted federal offender for any reason at any time.
Marilyn Mosby is innocent and has been wrongfully convicted of perjury and mortgage fraud. She is a Tuskegee University graduate. I will NOT abandon her.
The law enforcement communitycontinues to smear Marilyn Mosby. They will talk about everthing except the disparate treament points I made in my article. They always go silent on this issue. We all know why. https://www.city-journal.org/article/yet-more-injustice-in-baltimore
“Black faces in high places aren’t going to save us”.~ Ruha Benjamin
All of the federal officials who failed Marilyn Mosby are Democrats. All of them had the power to stop this nonsense. If we do not promptly remedy the catastrophic failure of justice in Mosby's case, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will be the next victim of this kind of retaliatory attack.
Why did the Department of Justice offer pretrial diversion to Hunter Biden, but not to Marilyn Mosby? If I have to answer this question for my readers, they are hopelessly lost in the political thicket.
This clown has been selling his vote on the U.S. Supreme Court for years and the Department of Justice refuses to prosecute him for his "pay-to-play" schemes. Yet, they have the plenty of time and energy to manufacture bogus crimes against Marilyn Mosby.