Courthouse security scare briefly delays jury selection in Marilyn Mosby perjury trial
BALTIMORE - Marilyn Mosby declined to comment as she entered court in Greenbelt for the second day of jury selection in her perjury trial.
Moments later as proceedings were set to begin, there was a security scare outside that shut down access to the federal courthouse.
The bomb squad was brought in to evaluate a suspicious pickup truck.
It turned out there was no danger.
"The security situation at the U.S. Courthouse at Greenbelt, Maryland has been resolved. There is no danger to the courthouse. The courthouse campus has reopened and court proceedings are resuming," the court said in a statement shortly before noon.
Eventually, police gave the all clear, but it delayed the painstaking process of selecting a jury by two and a half hours.
The case was moved from Baltimore to Greenbelt at Mosby's request because she did not feel she could get a fair trial in the Baltimore area.
The high-profile trial is still set to last into the week before Thanksgiving.
It hinges on whether Mosby lied to get a penalty-free withdrawal from her retirement account to buy several Florida vacation homes—a move the federal government allowed only for those who had a hardship related to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mosby is expected to take the stand and testify that she had losses from her Mahogany Elite travel business despite not yet taking a single client.
From the beginning, the former Baltimore City state's attorney has blasted the government's theory of the case.
"I want of the people of Baltimore to hear it from me: I have done nothing wrong. I did not defraud anyone to take my money from my retirement savings, and I did not lie on any mortgage application," Mosby said at a press conference in January 2022.
On jury selection today, Judge Lydia K. Griggsby said in court, "We have quite a lot of work to do. I had hoped we'd be able to complete the process today. We'll see how far we get, but I do have skepticism."
