Baltimore City Council President Nick Mosby closed a nearly yearlong saga over a legal-defense fund formed in his name by complying with a Board of Ethics order.
The order, issued in May after the board found Mosby violated city law, directed the council president to accept no payments from the fund and to ask organizers to stop raising money on his behalf. Mosby also was ordered to request from the fund a list of all donors and donations for the ethics board.
A statement released Tuesday by the Board of Ethics said the board was “confident” Mosby had complied with the order “within the time frame set by the board.”
Last month, a Baltimore Circuit Court judge upheld the ethics board’s findings that Mosby violated city ethics law by indirectly soliciting donations for the fund and by failing to disclose its existence on his ethics filing in 2022, which covered activity in 2021.
That ruling kicked off a 30-day window for the council president to appeal the decision to a higher court; he chose not to take the case further. After that, the Board of Ethics gave Mosby five days to comply or face penalties of up to $1,000 a day. Monday was the deadline for compliance.
Mosby’s spokeswoman, Monica Lewis, said late Tuesday that the council president “appreciates the court’s ruling that he never accepted any money.” He also “stands by” the court’s decision requiring elected officials to disclose trusts, “even in the event where they receive zero benefit,” Lewis said.
“The matter is now closed and Council President Mosby is focused on continuing his service to the people of Baltimore,” she said.
The fund was established for the legal defense of the council president and also his wife, former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, as federal authorities investigated their financial dealings. Nick Mosby was not charged, but Marilyn Mosby is facing charges of perjury and making false statements related to early withdrawals from her city retirement account and the purchase of two Florida houses. Her trial has been delayed until at least the fall.
Marilyn Mosby lost her 2022 reelection bid and left office in January. Last week, Nick Mosby announced he will seek a second four-year term as council president in 2024. Both are Democrats.
The Board of Ethics found that Nick Mosby raised money for the fund indirectly. Both direct and indirect fundraising are prohibited by the city’s ethics ordinance. Records showed the council president was aware of the fund’s existence by at least August 2021, when the board raised concerns with him about the fundraising effort.
The board also found that Mosby should have disclosed the trust on his annual ethics filing with the city. Such filings require candidates and city employees to disclose entities with which they do business. Mosby’s attorney, Robert Dashiell, had argued the trust should not be considered a business entity.
Circuit Judge Lawrence Fletcher-Hill sided with the Board of Ethics on both of those findings.
“He could have formally disclaimed that membership interest,” Fletcher-Hill said of Nick Mosby. “He could have said, ‘I do not want to be a beneficiary. I do not want to receive any proceeds from this trust.’ But he did not do that. In the absence of having done that, I find that he had an ownership in the trust.”
Fletcher-Hill sided against the Board of Ethics regarding its third finding: that the council president accepted gifts from controlled donors. Those are people who seek to do business with certain government officials or entities.
According to the Board of Ethics, the Mosby’s legal defense fund received $5,000, its largest individual contribution, in August 2021 from the “resident agent” for a contractor that is a city-certified minority- or woman-owned business. The business was a subcontractor on a deal considered by the city’s spending board in 2020, the board reported.
It also received a $100 donation from the executive director of a nonprofit organization that was awarded a multi-thousand dollar grant by the city in March 2022.
The ruling did not name those donors or further identify their connections to the city, but the ethics board found both to be “controlled donors” under city ethics law, which bars elected officials from receiving contributions from such donors, solicited or otherwise.
The list of donors Nick Mosby was ordered to request would be the first public accounting of donations to the legal-defense fund. Such funds are not covered by campaign finance laws, which require detailed reporting of donors to campaign committees.
Prominent supporters and community leaders encouraged contributions to the fund, posting information about it on Facebook and appearing at news conferences to promote it. According to the Board of Ethics ruling, the fund received $14,352 in donations as of a year ago from 135 individual donors.
The list has not yet been supplied to the Board of Ethics. The board’s order requires only that Nick Mosby request the list from the legal-defense fund’s trustee.
