The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Attorney Marilyn Mosby Speaks on the Cost of Taking on the Justice System, Call For Pardon + More

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

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Wake that ass up early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning everybody, it's DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne Tha God. We are The Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building. Yes, indeed. We have former Baltimore City State Attorney Marilyn Mosby. Welcome. Thank you for having me. Thank you. We also have Angela Rye here as well. Hello. Hello, Miss Rye. Why y'all both got on camouflage? We ready for war. It wasn't even on purpose.

It's being on one accord. We ready for war. Taylor was too earlier. Okay. Okay. How are you though, Marilyn? How are you feeling? I feel grateful.

It's been really, really hard. I mean, we'll get into the case, but no, I have been accused of doing something that I have not done. I'm innocent. I'm facing 40 years for withdrawing funds from my retirement savings. The United States government, a global superpower is actually coming for me. And so it's been hard and it's been daunting, but I feel blessed because, you know, I have people in my corner like the great Angela Rye. Right. This bold, beautiful, brilliant black woman who is using her platform to to heighten what I'm going through. And I mean, the only thing I can say is gratitude.

Let's start from the beginning. How did you get to this position? Right. We've seen Donald Trump throwing darts at you. But how did you get to this position? What happened? Let's start from the beginning. So when you say start from the beginning, like the attacks, I would say. Well, you are Baltimore City State's attorney. So you're doing your job. Yeah. And then it took a shift. When did it start taking a shift? When did the government start attacking you and for what reason? So when I became the state's attorney, I was the youngest chief prosecutor of any major American city in the country. I won at the age of 34. And then I beat an incumbent that outraised me four to one by double digit percentage points. And so five months into my first term, you know, unfortunately, a young black man by the name of Freddie Carlos Gray Jr.

was killed in the custody of police when he was unconstitutionally arrested, placed into a metal wagon, head first, feet shackled and handcuffed. And his pleas for medical attention were ignored. I followed the facts with the law. I wouldn't do anything differently. But I charged those police officers. And at that time, this I was one of the first prosecutors in the country to attempt to hold police officers accountable for the death of a black man. And so that wasn't happening in this country. And so it immediately came with a great deal of backlash. You know, I got hate mail and death threats, people describing how my then, my now ex-husband would come out of our house and he would be killed and how no police officers would respond. You know, it was a lot. This is pre-Trump. This is, you know, I had the social media was off the chain. This is before, you know, you get kind of get used to it now. But this had a red nation rising where they were sending me all kinds of like hate mail.

And it was it was insane. But that's when they started to come for my law license. They were trying to, you know, do whatever they could to break me. And what we learned out of that case, those officers were acquitted. And in my opinion, the police department sabotaged the case, but we learned our lessons. So in 2016, when I dismissed it, we put out a slate of police accountability reform proposals that were subsequently adopted nationally after George Floyd. You can go on record and you can see those same sort of proposals. But we also learned our lessons in that during my tenure, we then subsequently prosecuted 33 police officers successfully. Not just you didn't go after just the Freddie Gray police officers, 33 other police officers successfully.

Anybody that preyed upon the vulnerabilities of the citizens of Baltimore had to deal with my office. You know,, there was a gun trace task force. This was one of the largest police corruption scandals in the history of the country, where for decades you had officers planting guns and drugs on citizens. And so understanding that the credibility of those officers were at issue, you know, we drafted legislation, lobbied for legislation, went against my colleagues across the state, and we were able to pass a vacatur statute that in the interest of justice gave prosecutors mechanisms to vacate the convictions.

Imagine, you know, individuals like that making claims on citizens and they're lying. So we had to review thousands of cases and ultimately through that legislation that we created, we vacated the convictions of over 800 individuals. And that ain't getting you no fans in law enforcement and police unions. Oh, absolutely not. I mean, yeah, especially when the lead prosecutor on the Gun Trace Task Force,

I'm going to say this part because she shouldn't, the Gun Trace Task Force, Leo Wise, when the lead prosecutor on the gun trace task force i'm gonna say this part because she shouldn't um the gun trace task force leo wise which is a lawyer who before he went to the maryland u.s attorney's office worked on capitol hill all of his targets were black people he goes there he prosecutes these gun trace task force members five of them are black three of them are white he doesn't go after their boss maryland says oh, well, since you're finding corruption, we're going to make sure that we review all these cases. I think that this man's ego didn't allow for him to see that that was actually beneficial. If there was someone who did wrong by the law, then the conviction should be overturned.

He took that as a personal affront. Not only was he the lead prosecutor on the case against Marilyn, he donated to her political opponents. That in and of itself should be a material conflict that got him removed from the cases against her. So they went after her. They were looking for things over and over again. Donald Trump said that he was going to go after the protesters after during the George Floyd unrest in this country and targeted Baltimore as one of them. That's not the first time he named check Maryland two months after, well, they wrote an

op-ed saying, if you come to our cities, if you send the feds to our cities, we're going to prosecute the feds. Another bold move by her two months after that, she was under federal investigation. That's not by accident. That's not happenstance. Now, before we get to the case, right? What other things were they doing to you that you started to notice like when you realize like okay they on my ass so I mean I understood and recognized that you know challenging the status quo wasn't just my you know attempts to to balance the skills of justice when it comes to holding police officers accountable there were a great deal of other like reforms that we put into place um you guys covered it at one point we stopped prosecuting low-level

um marijuana possession cases right in the city of baltimore before it was legalized because there was an expectation that you know that the guys in certain neighborhoods they could get the substance use. And unfortunately, we wanted to criminalize black folks, even after we decriminalize 10 grams or less in marijuana, and the police were responsible for issuing citations. 95% of the citations that they were issuing were issued to one particular one out of nine police districts, that district that they were issuing the citations happen to be 95 percent black and disproportionately impoverished. Right. And so when we look at that fact that there's no disparate use among white and black people when it comes to mere possession of marijuana in America, if you're a white person, you're you're I mean, a black person, you're four times more likely to be arrested for mere possession of marijuana. However, in the city of Baltimore, you were six times more likely. And what I said is we're not,

I'm never going to be complicit in discriminatory enforcement of laws against poor black and brown people. So my colleagues would call me morons. You know, they were constantly attacking me. And, and this was nothing new because people are always going to be resistant to change. I understood that. I recognize that, you know, I started the first conviction integrity unit in the entire state of Maryland where we did reinvestigations into claims of actual innocence. And under my tenure, we exonerated 13 innocent black men who collectively served 300 years in prison for crimes they didn't commit. I started a sentencing review unit where we released and modified the sentence of over 60 individuals that are juvenile lifers

in the elderly prison population. And so when you're going against the status quo and you're attempting to reduce the jail population and in a system that has disproportionately impacted and has based their business model off the backs of black and brown people, I knew people were going to come for me. I just didn't think that they were going to use this system against me in a way in which I would be wrongly convicted and face the same sort of reality as all of those exonerees. So this is the indictment that happened in 2022. That was the first time they came for you?

So the feds actually, for five years, they had been investigating every aspect of my life. So they combed my taxes, my charitable donations, my campaign contributions. They went to my children's dance instructors. They were sending the FBI to my neighbor's homes at five in the morning, interrogating them. Imagine getting the FBI knocking at your door. We want to talk to you about Marilyn Mosby.

And they issued subpoenas to all of the black churches five months before, you know, a few months before my election. So what do you think that's going to do? Everybody's going to be like, oh, I don't want to touch this with a damn football right and so it was created to isolate me and so I understood that it was it was coming but I still knew that I had done nothing wrong and so to then have you know all of that be public and the feds when they investigate and you typically you don't know it

until you're indicted they made it very public because they wanted to to to create this narrative that I was somehow a villain and corrupt. And so I was shocked when they came back and they indicted me of, you know, withdrawing my own money, the money that I put away every two weeks out of my in my retirement savings. Baltimore deferred my retirement savings. The Baltimore Deferred Compensation Retirement Account. Yes, a Deferred Compensation Account. And they said that, and made it out to be as if I was, I was utilizing PPP loans or COVID relief funding, right? Like, no, this is, this is literally my money. What happened? Walk us through that. What happened?

So, I mean, this, during COVID, Congress came out with a statute. And Angela, if you wanted to get into it, you could as well. But they came out with a COVID provision where CARES Act under the CARES Act, where they had not defined what an adverse financial consequence was. Now, it's adverse financial consequence legally is different than a financial hardship. A financial hardship has been defined. There is precedence already set for it. But an adverse financial consequence has not been legally defined. What I was attempting to do was to access my money.

And I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I wanted to be able to access my money. I called nationwide. They told me, hey, there's this provision. If you meet any of this criteria, right? And again, adverse financial consequence. And there's a recorded call of you calling Nationwide where you ask, it's very clear that she's asking for clarification on how this money can be accessed and withdrawn. And what I was told was that I could access my money. What the government put on the stand is that David Randall, who is the executive director for the Deferred Compensation Fund for Baltimore City.

He said all you needed to do was suffer a $50 adversity and you could access your money. 739 people in the city of Baltimore did the exact same thing that I did. And I'm the only person in America that has now been targeted, prosecuted and convicted of doing this and facing 40 years in jail. I don't know if you know this part, but it's actually United States overall, 35,000 people did the same thing with drawing from their retirement, their retirement accounts. None of them were prosecuted either.

And I think that's an important part. The thing that I think we got to be mindful of today and on this show is Marilyn is still facing 40 years in prison. Well, you've been convicted, right? Yeah. Yeah, she's facing 40 years in prison. Her sentencing is on May 23rd. The judge who, frankly, again, this is not Marilyn talking.

This is me, to be very clear. The judge who ruled against her defense team, mostly on every motion and mostly on every objection, is responsible for her sentencing. She cannot prosecute this case on air or anywhere else because the judge could use that against her. And so I think we've got to be mindful about what we're saying and how we're saying it. What you're saying is a thousand percent true,

but she is a former prosecutor and she can't prosecute her own state. Let me ask you a question, Roz. From a protector standpoint, we just got to be mindful of that. So from what I'm hearing is, and you could clarify this, so it's pretty much saying, hey, the feds don't like her and we're going to find anything possible we can to shut her down. You feel like you were targeted. Well, it's not just the feds, right?

Like Angela has already outlined, it was the prior administration. So that's Trump's administration. That was very clear. When I prosecuted those offices in Freddie Gray, he said, I think she ought to prosecute herself. William Barr, which was his attorney general, called out Baltimore, called out a number of other progressive. What he said were social justice reform prosecutors that were negating and diminishing the rule of law. He said at a press conference in February of 2020, we will do anything to any jurisdiction the department of justice will do anything we need to to ensure any jurisdiction or any individual politician is conforming with the rule of law they opened up an

investigation into me in october the moment that leo wise became the individual with the pattern of discriminatory investigation against people of color came they they opened that investigation. And this is all related to this prior administration. Who has the power now to do something about that is this administration. And that's where, you know, Angela can tell you about what we have going on. I think the difficult part here is there's something very simple that The Biden administration could have done at the outset And that is to review All of the Department of Justice Cases that were currently open

Particularly in the Public Corruption Unit. The reason for that Is we know because he Said it on air all the time that he would Target and prosecute his political Enemies. We also know that he would pardon People before they were even charged with anything if they were his friends. So it seems to me that common sense would have been for the attorney general, Merrick Garland, to say, let me take a look at these cases.

We have another friend, of course, the co-host of National Native Lampot, Andrew Gillum, who was acquitted from federal charges but was under the same. It was the same circumstances. These prosecutors who are career, but are very political. Again, Leo Wise, who donated to Maryland's political opponents. There's a clear conflict. Let me ask you a question. Yeah. Now you come up here all the time and you talk about the Biden administration and how you hate when Charlemagne sometimes goes against them because, you know, how they should be helping our people, right? And you go hard for the Biden administration. You read in the comments.

Well, you go against the other side, I should say. I absolutely go against the other side. I will always applaud them if they're doing something right, to be fair. I'm not against them. So now in a situation of what's right, right? It's clear what's right, what they should be doing. That's right. And they don't do the right thing.

How do you feel about the Biden administration now? Well, I think that they need to be challenged. The thing that I think that we have to remember as black people in this country is there's never been an administration that we didn't have to push and challenge to do the right thing for us. I think that this is an administration that actually owes Maryland. And the reason for that is when Joe Biden was being called Crime Bill Joe or Kamala Harris was being called the top cop, Maryland went out and said, let me make sure y'all understand

that I modeled my prosecutorial office after Kamala. Not Biden. She went, he wasn't a prosecutor. I'm just saying. Lenard, you said it's so unnecessary. I understand. You use him as a reference. I'm just saying. Lenard, you said it's so unnecessary.

I understand how people think. You used him as a reference. I'm just saying how people think. Anyway, the point is, during the campaign, she stumped for them. When Kamala had a bill on how they were going to review recreational marijuana, Marilyn was testifying before the United States Senate because she was a forefront leader here. I'm not saying that this is a political quid pro quo. I'm saying you owe it to justice to do the right thing.

You owe it to Maryland to protect her and insulate her, not just for Maryland, but for every prosecutor who followed suit after Kamala, Madam Vice President, after Kim Fox, Rachel Rock, like all of these black women prosecutors are now under attack. That is not by an accident. That is by design. They are trying to ensure that other folks do not come forward and pursue progressive justice in the ways that they have. These are the things that create DEI equitable opportunities for our folks. If we don't do it this way, we end up overly incarcerated and underemployed under like not having the opportunities we deserve.

I don't disagree. I don't disagree. I forgot. Does he not remember all these things or not reaching out to him? No, you know, we're reaching out. So we have a petition out on a color change platform.

You can also go to justice for Maryland Mosby.com and there you will find this petition. It is to President Biden. There are letters that are going out. There's a civil rights organization letter that just went out yesterday. That is important for people to understand. This isn't just some random people like coming together for Maryland. All of the community is saying, no, no, no, this is the right thing to do.

Ben Crump has been a very vocal advocate and, you know, he's very supportive of the Biden-Harr harris administration i think what we have to understand is it may not be on his radar he he does have a genocide that he's you know watching and oh no no no and having to engage it no no i'm saying i'm saying i agree with that and and this was asked of kareem john pierre at last week's um white house press briefing you saw april ryan ask about it it is on his radar now and so now you can review the facts some of the pushback has been that Marilyn didn't fill out a pardon application we were initially advised that the pardon application didn't apply to her because she hasn't been through a five-year waiting period from the sentencing or been incarcerated for five years the president per the constitution has broad discretion on when he can issue a pardon and And so we don't fill out the application, but also we expect a pardon.

Why do we expect them to do the right thing when, you know, the indictment against you came under a Democratic U.S. attorney? Right. Eric. It was an Eric Barron. And it's been handled by a Biden nominated judge who is Lydia K. Grigsby. So why do you expect the Biden administration to do the right thing? Are Democrats to do the right thing? She can't answer that. I would say to you this, please remember that these investigations began when Donald Trump was in office. Please note that this absolutely should have fallen on the Department of Justice to, again, go through these cases. What are they really about? The fact that there are black appointees doing things that they think will

preserve their appointment is not surprising. We have black folks like that in corporate America all over the place that are like, what can I do to make sure I'm below the radar? That's what is giving. And I think the other thing that we need to note here is this judge was also appointed by President Obama, but she was in claims court. She has never touched a criminal case before this one. Her very first criminal trial was Maryland's case. She was not prepared. I'm not coming at this woman's qualifications, but she's a civil litigator. Like even when she worked on the on Capitol Hill, I think the other thing that's interesting from a timeline perspective is Eric Barron and Lydia Grigsby just so happen to be working on Capitol Hill together on the same committee. It's called the Senate Judiciary Committee. I just found that out. That to me is also an apparent conflict. So maybe she should have recused herself. There are a number of reasons and grounds for appeal.

Maybe you can talk more about that. But I think in terms of the politics of this, they're very tricky, very interesting, is made for a movie, honestly. But the reality of it is this investigation began

under Donald Trump. And we have to acknowledge that some of these prosecutors should be dismissed because they have political ambitions, political intentions, political motives

that actually end up causing grave harm to our community. Let me ask a follow-up then. Why do we expect Biden to do the right thing when he's received nearly 1,000 pardon petitions during his term but only granted 24? Yeah, I think it's a good question. I think all we can do is hope for people to do the right thing. You know, I don't know if you have a different plea.

This can be an emotional plea. I mean, I think that we have to come together. I mean, I think this is the right thing to do the right thing. You know, I don't know if you have a different plea. This can be an emotional plea. I mean, I think that we have to come together. I mean, I think this is the right thing to do. I mean, we know that I've been targeted as a result of the policies and my attempts to balance the scale of justice. There's no other reason. They were looking for any way to bring me down. And this was the only thing that they felt like could

stick. And if we understood our power, we demanding this is an election year, guys. You need communities of color in order to win this election against a man that is touting regression as making America great again. We've already seen the type of destruction that he can impose on our country. And if we don't wake up and we don't stand for me, and I'm not saying this from a perspective of, yes, I need the support. I'm facing 40 years. I have a 13 and a 15 year old daughter that I don't want to be separated from. But this is so much bigger than me.

This is exactly what Angela said. This is about Kim Foxx this is about Aaron Misayala this is about Monique Worrell this is about Tish James this is about Fannie Willis this is about so many of us who have stood in the line of fire sacrificed ourselves sacrificed our careers sacrificed our lives to do what's right for to equalize and to represent the ideals of what this country is supposed to represent. Do the people support you? Do the people in Baltimore support you? They have an understanding. The reason I ask is when people sometimes see state attorney, they automatically think, oh, well, she prosecutes so many people. So let her handle herself. Right. And the problem with that is youutes so many people so let her handle herself right and the

problem with that is you have so many people that that will feel like state attorneys do a lot of times do the same thing that they're doing to you right they feel like a lot of times people get accused of things that they necessarily don't do it but a lot of times i'm sure like yourself you don't have the opportunity you can't go war for war you don't have the same type of war chest as the state government has there's no way in hell if if you don't have some pro bono there's no way that you could possibly fight them because you're in millions of lawyer fees and most people can't so what do they usually do they plea out and they have to do time you know that that that they're innocent uh i'm sure they went in your bank accounts and i'm sure they closed some of

your bank accounts because as soon as they go in your bank account the bank talk about they don't want to do it anymore they close your account you got to move money from money to money to money uh you can't even get a if you wanted to even buy a car you probably couldn't even get a car loan because they're not going to approve you with a car credit is all jacked and your credit is all jacked up so for people out there that feel like they've been through it and they haven't had the voice that you've had what do you say to those people to make sure that they understand that you weren't that type of attorney? I don't know if you were or you weren't. So I think the people of Baltimore recognize that I was not that typical sort of case processing

attorney that was thinking about only convictions. The mantra of my office was justice over convictions. And that was something that I took to heart. You know, I went to over 3,000 community association churches and schools throughout my tenure. I had the first crime control and prevention division out of a state attorney's office where we touched more than 20,000 young people throughout my tenure. There were so many things. I had community liaisons and representatives in the community. There were so many things that I understood and recognized that you have to be able to break down those barriers of distrust. Right. We touch 52000 victims and witnesses of crime. We renovated the victim witness room. There were so many things that we did. And I think that fundamentally, the people of Baltimore understood that I was a different type of prosecutor.

It was justice over convictions. But when you have conservative media, right, and biased media that villainize you day in and day out, 24 hours a day, the only thing that they're focusing on is you and they're comparing you. Oh, this is just a yet another corrupt Baltimore politician or better yet, just another black Baltimore City criminal. Right. They they put that into the minds of individuals and they did this for years upon years and i couldn't say anything about it because there was a gag order right and i couldn't even defend myself so yes the people of baltimore a number of them have been hoodwinked right malcolm x said it like you you don't pay attention the media media will have you hating the oppressed and loving the oppressor. And so at the end of the day, the one thing I can say, and yes, this has been extremely isolating and painful because I did sacrifice so much of myself to do what was right.

But I feel grateful because God, even the conditions on top of the federal government coming for me, right? Like I've had to go through heartbreak and betrayal. I've lost everything from my reputation, my election, my career, my marriage. I was in a 25-year relationship I had to walk away from, right? Like my car, my grandmother is in hospice right now. She raised me. There was so many other sort of elements of like, what is this God, right? But at the same time, I'm grateful because he brought and the people that I loved unconditionally showed me the conditions of their love.

And at my lowest, at my lowest, it was me and God. It was me and God. I was walking out. The most sobering moment for me was in the courtroom when I turned around that first trial and I wanted to shield my girls. So I didn't bring them. They see enough. My kids have been confronted in school and they're like, kids are cruel. That's why your mother's going to jail.

Right. And it's affected them. So the first trial, I was like, OK, I's going to jail right and it's it's affected them so the first trial I was like okay I'm gonna get through this and the most sobering moment when is when I turned around and there was nobody in the courtroom and I prayed on it and I said God what is this and I came out media is asking me what are you how you feel how you feel I feel blessed I feel blessed and what I realized is that God was with me my angel guides were with me my ancestors are with me I didn't need anybody but that second trial let me tell you he sent perfect strangers into my life my mother and

father didn't even show up to trial right that was so sobering for me. But he sent perfect strangers in my life that advocated for me that I refer to as my earth angels that have taken on this cause. You know, Angela has been phenomenal using her platform. I have local supporters, Sheena and Sylvia and Bill and Tyrone and Hakeem and people who smitty. They all sound black. They all black. Let me tell you. Tyrone, Hakeem. Come on, man.

Let me tell you. That second trial, they were there. They got charter buses. They rode up. They were not playing. They were there every single day. They've been on the radio advocating for me. And that second trial, I brought my girls because I wanted them to see

like all that we've gone through, you know, and trying to just figure out how I'm going to live. Like when you deplete your savings and I still have a mortgage and now I have rent because I don't have the house that I was living in. And like, I brought my girls because I wanted them to see what it feels like to have faith, right?

And to see strength in the face of adversity. What do you say to people who say the government said, well, the government told the jury that you lied on mortgage applications and they said that you knew what you submitted was not true, but you did it anyway, seven times on two sets of loan paperwork and part the high tax debt and get a lower interest rate it was so ridiculous i mean that allegation all of it if you were in the courtroom and sitting in the courtroom and being on the stand i literally and i didn't want to come off as

obnoxious or anything but i'm making my own objections like okay well that was asked and answered but i'll go ahead and answer right they didn't even know that i i didn't i wasn't the one that filled out the mortgage application my mortgage broker did they didn't find that out until we're sitting there in trial wow i mean there's so many we have a great basis for uh an appeal on so many different grounds and my attorneys feel extremely confident on that basis but in the interim right we can't appeal until after I'm sentenced. In 17 days, I'll be sentenced and I'm facing 40 years in jail. Did the mortgage broker admit it to that?

Yeah. The mortgage broker, she's reviewed, Angela has reviewed the trial transcripts. They don't want the mortgage broker though. They want another man. It didn't matter. None of them.

I'm not suggesting that the government prosecute them, but there are grounds for prosecuting mortgage brokers. It's have, I'm not suggesting that the government prosecute them, but there are grounds for prosecuting mortgage brokers. It's just, it's fascinating to me that they only went after Maryland. And I think the bigger issue is the feds actually lied

in their indictment. Correct. They actually lied because they say in there that she used a gift from her husband at the time, Nick, to secure a lower interest rate.

How about the interest rate was locked three weeks before that? As soon you fill out the application that interest rates locked? So what are we talking about? So what are we talking about? And that was a suggestion by her broker. So all of that is incorrect. And they didn't even have to like come to account for that. They didn't have to modify the indictment. So there are several things that they've done that are wrong, that are unethical, right? I think that we should be looking into filing complaints

with the Office of Professional Responsibility at the United States Department of Justice because a lot of this is unethical. It's about scoring points on the board.

And they don't, so some folks would say, well, why are you focusing on a pardon and not just ensuring that she doesn't do any prison time? If Marilyn,

if this conviction stands, Marilyn loses her law license. If you don't think that's what those white boys want, you're in for a rude awakening. That's all they want. They don't want it for a long time. They've wanted it since Freddie Gray. They've actually filed an emergency petition to immediately suspend my law

license. And this was before my second trial. Right? Like you don't typically do that from a bar counsel until after you've been sentenced but they're setting a precedence in my particular case where they want to immediately revoke my my law license and and break me you know between the uh the mortgage broker admitting that he was the one who filled out the application and then even your your exhusband, he blamed himself for your legal troubles.

So the one thing I will say, you know, clearly I was in a 25 year relationship and this brought out a lot of information that I didn't know. Right. And it brought a huge chasm between our relationship finances finances finances definitely and and i can just say that you know and and like this was my college sweetheart right like i've been with my husband since i was 18 years old and then the tragedy of like having the disillusion of your marriage be in a federal courtroom where I'm sitting on the opposite side being referred to as the defendant as a result of some of the lies that he told me. So yeah, this has been painful.

This is incredibly painful. But he admitted in a courtroom, which he did, that it was his fault and he blames your legal troubles on him. And didn't he plead guilty? No, no't no they didn't they didn't charge him they wanted me right they wanted me i don't understand so but the jury acquitted all the other ridiculous allegations that they were making about me and all these you know other seven alleged false statements which they it's not false statements like i said they didn't even realize that I wasn't the one that filled out the application form.

You know, as a result of his testimony, the jury acquitted me on all of those charges. And I think that the jury in the end compromised. And I don't want to get too far into it. But like on all of those other allegations, they said not guilty on six of them and then came back with this. But they're not allowed to know how much time is attached to each charge. So that one charge is 30 years. That one charge. What, the mortgage fraud?

Mortgage fraud, okay. The payment, basically the earnest money gift from Nick, because it was Maryland's money, they make it seem like there's some elaborate money laundering scheme when you look at what the feds put forth. That's not it at all. Like, how many folks, your spouse transfers you money on Cash App. You're like, forget you did.

I'm mad at you today. And you send it back. That ain't money laundering. And if someone says, this is actually going to be advantageous for you to go about it this way because I can't utilize this money from this other account with you because you share it with your daughter. She's a minor. We can't utilize this money from this other account with you because you share it with your daughter. She's a minor.

We can't take this money. How about your husband do it? Marilyn is like, okay, still preserving her marriage. She's like, just in case he ain't got the money, let me make sure he got the money. That is not a crime. Even withdrawing money from your own retirement account is not a crime. Somehow they've created this narrative this fictional narrative that makes her seem like a criminal so that they can undermine her legacy undermine the work that

she did as a progressive prosecutor and shame black women in this role and most importantly go after her law license what about the perjury charge the perjury is related to me withdrawing the funds from the covet provision again there's no base from my retirement account. Like they have not prosecuted or use this provision for anyone else. As Angela has already indicated, I didn't even realize 35,000 people in America have done the same thing under this provision. The person in Baltimore City, I told you 739 people did that in the city of Baltimore. I am the only person in America, in America, that has been investigated, prosecuted, and now convicted. The thing to know about this, too, is the perjury is about saying she experienced an adverse financial consequence.

Right. That is Maryland's to know. And the problem is this judge, again, this is not Maryland talking, this is me. She told the jury to rely on their own common sense. It is in the court transcripts. That's not a jury instruction. She told the jury that it is defined in the CARES Act.

An adverse financial consequence is defined in the CARES Act. It is not. It's defined as an adverse financial consequence. And as someone who has written legislation on the Hill, we ain't got time to define everything. So you got to give them what the parameters are for that in the jury instructions that is your obligation as the judge the worst thing i think about this is for maryland to have experienced an adverse financial consequence doesn't mean that her salary took a hit which is what doj was trying to tie like well you're still drawing the same change yeah right

but that's not the case it could be that she had to start taking care of another family member who experienced hardship who was laid off who was furloughed and we all had those family members who we all were like what is gonna happen we it was a very scary time mind you all the members of congress who are withdrawing their same salaries but could get ppp loans they weren't prosec. And we're not even talking about PPP. Governor Hogan, this brings me back to my point from five minutes ago, Governor Hogan gave the feds money to prosecute fraud related to the CARES Act. You want to know when he did it? When?

Shortly after Marilyn was indicted. That was by design so that they could ensure that they did whatever they needed to to lock her up. They literally targeted that money to CARES Act-related fraud. So if you receive a pardon, Marilyn, what do you do moving forward? I mean, I'm able to live my life again. I'm able to continue to fight for justice.

I mean, this is not... You go back into politics? I don't know if I... Let me tell you right now, I'm a little jaded in right now at this moment but i'm not gonna stop fighting for for for justice and fighting for what's right in this country i think um you know that for me it's a calling um so i just want to be able to to live again i want to be able to to be with my babies and when they're not babies, my teenagers,

um, and, and establish my life again. Like I deserve to live. I think I've, I've sacrificed a lot, um, to ensure that the skills of justice are fair. So what's the call to action? What do we, what do we need people to do? We need people to, this petition where is it um it's on uh justice for maryland mosby.com um the petition is calling on president biden to issue a pardon to do the right thing because sometimes even good people need to be called to account and to be asked to do the right thing so we'll keep doing it you can debate if he's good or not but go ahead lennard not today not on this not in the call to action. And I think the other thing that's important for people to do is to spread the word. Talk about this case.

If you know that this is ridiculous, that someone is facing 40 years in prison, one for something they didn't do, but especially something around withdrawing money from their own retirement account. Speak up, because if we don't, it can happen to any of us. That is the point. So I think those are the two calls to action for those that were listening. What's that again? Justiceformarylandmosby.com. Sign that pardon petition

and also make sure that you're sharing this story. I have faith in God, none in the Biden administration, but it would be the right thing for them to do. We appreciate you for sharing your story. They're about to argue, so let them argue. I have faith in God but none in the Biden administration but it would be the right thing for them to do so hopefully God can move some hearts

yeah and sometimes and I know you probably heard this so much and I know you probably hate hearing it but you know somebody told me actually a couple months ago that sometimes God does things that we don't understand and pulls people out of our life at the right time because it could have got a lot worse so I always think about things like that when things happen like this

because that's the reason why there's no answer to why but maybe that is your why you know no and i appreciate that the one thing that like i said i got closer this whole sort of crucible made me wiser stronger and more empowered in my faith and And I recognize that God will give his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers. Right. And so I'm so grateful. That's why I started it with expressing my gratitude because like I've been at my lowest and he's gotten me through and I'm still here and I'm still standing. And I know that he will have the final say at the end of the day. And he does not forsake the righteous. And I know that I've done nothing wrong final say at the end of the day. And he does not forsake the righteous. And I know that I've done nothing wrong.

And at the end of the day, I'm just I surrender. I know who's in control. Let's put it out there with the website again. www.justiceformarylinemosby.com. Go sign the petition. That's right. It's Marilyn Mosby. It's The Breakfast Club.

Good morning. Wake that ass up in the morning. That's right. It's Marilyn Mosby. It's The Breakfast Club. Good morning.