(Reuters) — Baltimore’s best prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, explained on Friday she was innocent of wrongdoing, a working day after she was indicted on federal costs of perjury and filing false mortgage purposes connected to the acquire of two Florida family vacation homes.

Mosby, elected state’s legal professional in 2015, stated she was the sufferer of a “ploy” by political adversaries looking for to unseat her and was decided to “fight with just about every ounce in my remaining and to distinct my identify.”

“I’m below ahead of you nowadays to point out unequivocally that I am harmless,” she reported in a 10-minute statement sent to reporters as she choked back again tears. She took no issues at the conclude.

Mosby, 41, is accused of falsely declaring 2 times to have suffered a work-similar monetary hardship from Covid-19 in order to request two early withdrawals totaling $90,000 from her city personnel retirement account.

Prosecutors explained Mosby utilized the revenue she obtained — $36,000 in May possibly 2020 and $45,000 on Dec. 31 of that yr — towards down payments on getaway properties in Kissimmee and Long Boat Key.

The two counts of perjury stem from Mosby’s allegedly untrue statements of coronavirus-associated money duress at a time when she was earning a gross annual income of nearly $248,000 in full, the indictment asserts.

She is also charged with two counts of building phony statements on property finance loan apps in search of a overall of far more than $900,000 in loans to obtain the Florida homes. The indictment suggests Mosby failed to disclose federal tax delinquencies ensuing in a $45,000 lien imposed by the Internal Income Support in 2020.

Mosby denied the two sets of allegations, declaring, “I did not defraud everyone to acquire my funds from my retirement savings, and I did not lie on any home loan application.”

Baltimore tv station WBAL-Tv cited Mosby’s attorney, A. Scott Bolden, as declaring in a media job interview that his consumer experienced other business enterprise pursuits, which include a vacation company influenced by the pandemic, and that she had consulted with financial advisers right before producing the home loan software.

According to Mosby, prosecutors refused her supply to personally current proof on her very own behalf to the grand jury that in the long run indicted her.

Mosby mentioned political opponents “have experienced a target on my again” considering the fact that she produced countrywide headlines in 2015 by submitting criminal expenses in opposition to six police officers in the demise of Freddie Grey, a younger Black male who suffered a fatal spinal harm whilst staying transported in the back of a law enforcement van. None of the 6 officers billed in his loss of life was convicted.

Mosby ran for place of work as a portion of a motion of “progressive prosecutors” promising to tackle systemic racism in the U.S. criminal justice process.

U.S. Legal professional Erek Barron, a former state delegate who was nominated to his article by President Joe Biden, has declined to remark on the situation, according to the impartial, nonpartisan information web site Maryland Matters.