When she arrived at the U.S. district courthouse in suburban Washington, D.C., for her sentencing hearing Tuesday, former Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby faced the distinct possibility she could spend up to four decades in prison for mortgage fraud and perjury.
In fact, sentencing guidelines called for her to spend between 14 and 18 months behind bars, and prosecutors planned to ask Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby to tack on a few months more for good measure.
But Mosby — who has been publicly lobbying the White House for a presidential pardon — left the courthouse a free woman after Griggsby sentenced her to time already served.
The judge also ordered Mosby to spend a year in home confinement, along with two years probation and 100 hours of community service.
Speaking to supporters after the hearing, Mosby, 44, was elated, declaring divine intervention had protected her from a harsher sentence. But she also suggested she will continue the campaign to clear her name.
”This is not over,” Mosby told a crowd of supporters after the sentencing hearing. “But God was here today, and I know He’s with me. He touched the heart of this judge and has allowed me to go home to my babies.” Mosby has two teenage daughters.
Once considered a rising political star, Mosby, a Democrat, was convicted in two separate trials of two counts of perjury and one count of making a false statement on a loan application. The charges stem from her purchase of two luxury vacation homes in Florida.
Having served two terms as Baltimore’s top prosecutor from 2015 to 2023, Mosby was indicted just ahead of her campaign for re-election in 2022. She lost to challenger Ivan Bates, in the Democratic Party primary.
Before she was charged, however, Mosby was at the vanguard of a national movement to elect progressive prosecutors. She won national renown for prosecuting the six Baltimore police officers involved in the killing of Freddy Gray in 2015.
None of the officers was convicted, even though the city paid Gray’s family $6.4 million. Three were tried and acquitted, prompting Mosby to drop charges against the remaining three because of the “dismal likelihood” they’d be convicted. Mosby described the decision as “agonizing.”
In 2022, a grand jury indicted Mosby after investigators found she lied on documents to purchase the vacation homes, including withdrawing money from her retirement account by taking advantage of a COVID-19-era hardship exemption.
Although she pleaded not guilty to three charges in two separate trials, both juries convicted her in 2023. Punishment for her crimes carried a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison for all three cases.
While awaiting sentencing, Mosby and her supporters launched a high-profile appeal to President Joe Biden, urging him to grant her a pardon. She argued her prosecution was politically motivated, racist, and unfair; her supporters ranged from civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump to the Congressional Black Caucus, and a petition gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures.
“I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong, nothing illegal, nothing criminal,” Mosby told MSNBC’s Joy Reid earlier this month. “I know this was politically targeted.”
During the sentencing hearing, prosecutors said Mosby has lied to the public, shown no remorse, and is trying to dodge accountability for her actions. Although federal sentencing guidelines called for Mosby to spend a maximum of 18 months in prison, prosecutors asked Griggsby to put her behind bars for just under two years.
Griggsby seemed to agree that Mosby wasn’t railroaded by the system; she chided Moseby for demonstrating “a pattern of dishonesty” throughout the case. But the judge noted Mosby had already suffered “important consequences” as a result of the case, including the destruction of her reputation, her marriage and her nascent political career.
