Here’s a name that hasn’t been cropping up in the news all that much lately. You may recall Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby from some of our coverage here over the years. She’s the one who botched the response to the Freddie Gray riots and subsequent attempts to blame the police for them. Well, she and her husband, City Council President Nick Mosby are back in the headlines this week, but not because of any high-profile prosecutions she has going on. It turns out that federal investigators have been looking into the couple’s finances and finding, shall we say… some irregularities. The Mosby’s have been in trouble with the IRS for a while now and the State’s Attorney’s private finances have been under scrutiny. So for someone who seems to have so much trouble managing her money, it seems rather odd that she purchased two vacation homes in Florida worth more than a million dollars in just the past six months. (Baltimore Sun)

Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby has purchased two homes in Florida for more than $1 million combined since September, including a condo on the Gulf of Mexico that closed just days before her campaign said it was exploring setting up a legal defense fund for her mounting attorneys’ fees.

Mosby bought a condominium on a barrier island just north of Sarasota for $476,000 in February. She financed the Longboat Key property with a 30-year, $428,400 loan, according to Sarasota County property records.

Meanwhile, property records in Osceola County show Mosby paid $545,000 in September for a 4,000-square-foot property near Disney World. The records show Mosby used a $490,500 loan for that purchase in Kissimmee.

Those are some pretty nice vacation properties. One is close to Disneyland and the other one is right on the coast. The couple’s attorney tried to explain the opulent purchases away by saying “She works. She’s an elected official. She has savings.”

Perhaps so. But do you really want to brag about how much your clients have in savings when the IRS has placed liens in the amount of tens of thousands of dollars against their Baltimore properties and they’re setting up a legal defense fund to pay their legal fees while a grand jury investigates them? Granted, it’s still possible that there’s some rational explanation for all of this. Marilyn Mosby makes a pretty good living in her current position, bringing in $238,772 annually.

Her husband, as the new City Council President makes $128,583. So they’re doing fairly well, but it doesn’t sound like they’re doing “two mansions in Florida” well. And prior to landing his City Council positions, Nick Mosby had jobs with Verizon and the state gas and electric company. He wasn’t exactly coming from a background with the Rockerfellers. Mr. Mosby’s bio indicates that even when he was in high school, he was telling his classmates that he wanted to be the Mayor. He’s really aspired to nothing but political and government salary positions his entire life.

The feds are also asking questions about a private company that Marilyn Mosby started while serving in public office called Mahogany Elite Travel and Consulting. She has curiously insisted that the company “only exists on paper.” But when the media filed Public Information Act requests for emails relating to the company’s affairs that were on her city work computer, she told them to go pound sand and that she wasn’t going to turn them over because it was nobody else’s business.

As I said above, it’s still possible that this is all one big series of misunderstandings and that the couple is handling everything on the up and up. But this is Baltimore we’re talking about. When was the last time anyone there rose to power without being corrupt? After watching one mayor go to prison for racketeering. another convicted of embezzlement, and multiple others going down for tax evasion, it’s hard not to be suspicious. Too many powerful people in Baltimore politics have looked at the municipal government as their personal piggy bank and treated the city’s treasury accordingly. Maybe the Mosbys are the exception to the rule, but it wouldn’t be terribly shocking if they aren’t.