Marilyn Mosby’s defense team came to court today hoping to win favorable procedural rulings ahead of her mortgage fraud trial scheduled for later this month.

Instead, what Baltimore’s former top prosecutor got were mostly defeats.

Mosby wanted the judge to bar prosecutors from bringing up the outcome of her previous trial on perjury charges – jurors had found her guilty of lying in order to make an early withdrawal from her retirement fund to buy two Florida properties.

But U.S. District Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby ruled that Mosby’s past conviction could be mentioned because it raises questions about her credibility.

Appearing before Griggsby in federal court in Greenbelt, the defense also sought permission to  introduce testimony about a comment made by Mosby’s recently divorced husband, City Council President Nick Mosby.

The defense wanted to introduce a 2020 conversation between Nick Mosby and a banker that would bolster its argument that Marilyn Mosby did not know about a $45,000 IRS lien that she failed to disclose when applying for mortgages on the properties.

“I’m not really understanding the relevance of whatever Mr. Mosby thought or did,” Griggsby said, according to The Daily Record’s Madeleine O’Neill.

Nick Mosby was seeking a bank loan to pay off the $45,000 IRS lien when he told the loan officer that his wife was not being included on the application because “it’s my obligation. I want to take care of it.”

Several other comments allegedly made by Nick Mosby that the defense wanted to introduce were likewise nixed by Griggsby.

The judge didn’t rule today on all the questions raised.

She said, for instance, that she will decide later whether the defense can introduce a statement that Mosby called a bank official and “was livid” when she learned of the IRS lien.

The second Mosby trial is scheduled to start on January 18. In November, a jury convicted Mosby on the perjury charges.

• Marilyn Mosby is found guilty of two counts of perjury (11/9/23)