By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

The state Superior Court today cleared the way for a retrial of Msgr. William J. Lynn by rejecting an appeal to toss the case against him because of intentional prosecutorial misconduct and double jeopardy.

The monsignor, however, did score one legal victory. In a separate decision, the Superior Court ruled in Lynn's favor to limit the number of supplemental cases of sex abuse that can be introduced as evidence at a retrial, to show a pattern spanning decades of covering up sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

The Superior Court's two opinions issued today mean that both sides can proceed with the sequel in their long-running grudge match, once again starring Detective Joe Walsh. Only this time around, Walsh, the D.A.'s former ace lead detective on the case, will be testifying on behalf of the defendant, about prosecutorial misconduct in the D.A.'s office.

Besides Walsh, there's one big difference between the first and second trials of Msgr. Lynn. Today, a three-judge panel for the state Superior Court said they looked for but could not find "a single instance" of intentional prosecutorial misconduct. But in the retrial, Lynn's lawyers are holding a trump card that they may soon flash to trial Judge Gwendolyn Bright -- newly discovered evidence of intentional prosecutorial misconduct that's a slam-dunk. It's seven pages of prosecutor's notes that the D.A.'s office repeatedly told three different judges over the years didn't exist, only to have those notes mysteriously reappear eight years later, on the eve of a retrial. If the state Superior Court was looking for conclusive evidence of intentional prosecutorial misconduct, Lynn's lawyers have got the goods.

At his original trial in 2012, Lynn, the archdiocese's secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, was convicted on one count of endangering the welfare of a child, and sentenced to 3 to 6 years in jail.

He served 33 out of 36 months of his minimum sentence, plus 18 months of house arrest. His conviction, however, was overturned twice on appeal by the same Superior Court that ruled today for a third time on the same case. The first time the state Superior Court overturned Lynn's conviction, in 2013, the state Supreme Court came back in 2015 to overrule the Superior Court, and reinstate Lynn's conviction. The Superior Court in 2016 then decided to overturn the monsignor's conviction for a second time.

Detective Walsh came forward last year to testify that he had repeatedly questioned the star witness against Lynn, former altar boy Danny Gallagher, about numerous factual discrepancies in his various claims of abuse. And that during a pre-trial prep session, Walsh testified, Gallagher either didn't respond to his questions, claimed he was high on drugs, or entertained the skeptical detective with new stories of abuse.

Gallagher had falsely claimed that he was raped by two priests and a Catholic schoolteacher, telling many different versions of the imaginary crime spree. Some of those tales are transparently ridiculous; others are contradicted by other witnesses in the case. They include teachers, priests and nuns at St. Jerome's Church in Northeast Philly, where Gallagher claimed to have been repeatedly victimized in an unprecedented fashion [three rapists conspiring with each other to pass around the hapless altar boy like a piñata] as well as members of Gallagher's own family, who also contradicted Danny Boy's tall tales.

None of the results of Walsh's grilling of Gallagher were reported to the defense. That prompted Judge Bright to rule it was prosecutorial conduct serious enough to warrant a new trial for Lynn, if the state Superior Court, in a previous 2016 ruling, had not already granted the monsignor a new trial. But, Judge Bright ruled, the D.A.'s machinations didn't amount to intentional prosecutorial misconduct, which would have led the judge to blow out the case.

The Superior Court agreed.

"At the conclusion of the hearings, the trial court found that while the Commonwealth failed to provide Lynn with certain aspects of Detective Walsh's investigation, there was no evidence this failure constituted misconduct severe enough to warrant dismissal of Lynn's charges," the Superior Court wrote in a 16-page opinion authored by Judge Jack A. Panella.

The Superior Court also agreed that the D.A.'s office, under Rufus Seth Williams, was not guilty of "intentional prosecutorial misconduct," Judge Panella wrote, which would justified throwing out the case on the grounds of double jeopardy.

Here we come to the crucial part of today's Superior Court decision.

"We are unable to find a single instance during the multiple hearings on the mater where Lynn produced evidence of the Commonwealth's intent in withholding this information," the Superior Court opinion states. "It is not clear that the prosecution was even aware of the content of Detective Walsh's witness preparation interview."

"While this does not excuse the Commonwealth from performing their duties under Brady," the Superior Court wrote. The court was referring to the landmark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case of Maryland v. Brady, which established that prosecutors have a duty to turn over any evidence that might benefit a defendant."It certainly undermines the assertion that the Commonwealth intentionally withheld the content of the witness preparation interview," the Superior Court concluded.

Lynn's lawyers had asserted that the D.A.'s office acted "intentionally and in bad faith" by placing a witness on the stand "who it alone knew would lie," the Superior Court wrote. But the Superior Court panel of judges found that "inconsistencies in evidence . . . do not equate to the introduction false evidence."

Whether Danny Gallagher is a flaming liar is an issue "solely for the jury to evaluate as to credibility," the Superior Court wrote. As to whether Assistant District Attorney Sorensen knowingly presented false evidence," the Superior Court wrote, there is no evidence of that because, according to Detective Walsh, Sorensen "repeatedly told him she believed" Gallagher's testimony.

"We will not disturb this determination," the judges wrote.

But now that the case is going to be retried, Lynn's lawyers are free to disturb this determination.

They can start by calling retired Detective Walsh to the stand, and have him testify about what a lying dirtbag Danny Gallagher is. Walsh can also testify about Assistant District Attorney Sorensen's costuming hatred of the church, and her blind, single-minded zealotry in the crusade to bag Msgr. Lynn as the designated fall guy for the sins of the archdiocese against children spanning four decades.

And then, Lynn's lawyers can introduce that compelling, newly evidence of intentional prosecutorial misconduct we spoke of earlier --- seven pages of notes typed by Sorensen on Jan. 28, 2010. That's the day Sorensen and Detective Drew Snyder interviewed Gallagher, along with Gallagher's parents, at the D.A.'s office. The interview took place right after Snyder had bailed that ne'er-do-well Danny Gallagher out of jail, so the D.A. could audition the third-rate conman for a starring role in their witch hunt they were about to stage against the monsignor and the church.

Meanwhile, the second issue decided by the state Superior Court today was laid out in a separate 15-page opinion. In that opinion, also written by Judge Panella, the Superior Court decided to limit the supplemental cases of sex abuse at the Msgr. Lynn retrial, which will be presented as evidence against Lynn, in addition to Danny Gallagher's fables.

At Lynn's original trial, the trial judge, M. Teresa Sarmina, allowed the prosecution to introduce into evidence 21 supplemental cases of sex abuse dating back to 1948, three years before the monsignor was born, to show it was business as usual in the archdiocese to cover up sex abuse.

The 21 supplemental cases, however, were the reason why the state Superior Court overturned Lynn's original conviction in 2016. The appeals court ruled that the prejudicial effect of the supplemental cases far outweighed their evidentiary value. And that Judge Sarmina had abused her discretion by letting the prosecution essentially put Lynn on trial for the previous sins of the archdiocese against children dating back to 1948.

In hearings before the retrial of the case, Judge Gwendolyn Bright ruled that prosecutors could introduce as evidence only three supplemental cases of sex abuse. The D.A.'s office had requested that nine such cases be introduced as evidence, but today, the Superior Court upheld Judge Bright's pretrial ruling.

The supplemental cases of sex abuse allowed by Judge Bright involve three notorious clerical offenders with a total of at least 35 alleged victims between them -- Fathers Robert Brennan, Nicholas Cudemo, and Michael Bolesta.

"Because we find no error in the trial court's determination that the six excluded instances of other acts of evidence were marginally probative but highly prejudicial, we cannot find the the trial court abused its discretion excluding these instances," the Superior Court wrote in upholding Judge Bright's ruling.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

A confidential internal review of the Louis Freeh Report on the Penn State sex abuse scandal, conducted by the university's own trustees, found factual mistakes, "deeply flawed" methodology, and faulty  opinions that Freeh's own staffers took issue with.

The trustees also accused Freeh of having a conflict of interest in his dealings with the NCAA.

It was the Freeh Report that the NCAA relied upon in 2012 to impose draconian sanctions on Penn State, including a $60 million fine, a bowl game ban that lasted two years,  the loss of 170 athletic scholarships and the elimination of 111 of Joe Paterno's wins, although the wins were subsequently restored.

On Friday, a group of 11 trustees called on the full 38-member board to release the full 200-page critique of the 267-page Freeh Report, formally renounce Freeh's findings, and try to recoup some of the $8.3 million that the university paid Freeh.

"I want to put the document in your hands so you can read it yourself, but I can't do that today," said Alice Pope, a trustee and St. John's University professor about the internal review of the Freeh report.

But the materials that Pope and six other trustees had to sue the university to obtain are still under seal according to a 2015 court order. And the university's lawyers have recently advised the 11 minority trustees that the report they worked on for two years remains privileged and confidential, and out of reach of the public.

 So yesterday, Pope called on the full board to release the 200-page report as early as their next meeting, on July 20th. But chances are slim and none that the board's chairman, Mark Dambly, and other majority board members will ever willingly open Pandora's box. They don't want to reveal to the public the facts that have cost the university millions of dollars in legal fees to keep buried for the past six years. Facts will present further evidence of just how badly the trustees, Louie Freeh, and the attorney general's office throughly botched the Penn State investigation.

The full board of trustees, Pope noted yesterday, never voted to formally adopt the findings of the Freeh Report, which found that Penn State officials had covered up the sex crimes of Jerry Sandusky.

"Rather, the board adopted a don't act, don't look and don't tell policy" Pope said that amounted to a "tacit acceptance of the Freeh Report." A report that Pope said has resulted in "profound reputational harm to our university along with $300 million in costs so far."

In addition to the $60 million in fines, the university's board of trustees has -- while doing little or no investigating -- paid out a minimum of $118 million to 36 alleged victims of sex abuse, in addition to spending more than $80 million in legal fees, and $50 million to institute new reforms aimed at preventing future abuse.

That internal 200-page report and the materials it draws upon may still be privileged and confidential, But Big Trial has obtained a seven-page "Executive Summary of Findings" of that internal review dated Jan. 8, 2017, plus an attached 25-page synopsis of evidence gleaned from those confidential files still under court seal.

According to the executive summary, "Louis Freeh and his team disregarded the preponderance of the evidence" in concluding there was a cover up at Penn State of Jerry Sandusky's crimes.

"Louis Freeh and his team knowingly provided a false conclusion in stating that the alleged coverup was motivated by a desire to protect the football program and a false culture that overvalued football and athletics," the executive summary states.

According to the executive summary, the trustees faulted Freeh and his investigators for their "willingness . . . to be led by media narratives," as well as "an over reliance on unreliable sources," such as former Penn State Counsel Cynthia Baldwin.

Freeh, the executive summary states, also relied on "deeply flawed" procedures for interviewing witnesses. The interviews conducted by Freeh's investigators weren't done under oath, or subpoenas, and they weren't tape-recorded, the executive summary wrote. That led to "biased reporting of interview data" and "inaccurate summaries" of witness testimony.

At yesterday's press conference, Pope said the 11 trustees wanted to know the degree of cooperation Freeh's team had with the NCAA and the state attorney general's office during their investigations. According to statecollege.com, state Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman has previously stated that the coordination between Freeh and the NCAA during the Penn State investigation was at best inappropriate, and at worst "two parties working together to get a predetermined outcome."

In the executive summary, the trustees cited "interference in Louis Freeh's investigation by the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General, wherein information gathered in the criminal investigations of Penn State officials was improperly (and perhaps illegally) shared with Louis Freeh and his team."

This is a subject Big Trial will explore in a subsequent blog post. But earlier this year, I wrote to Louis Freeh, and asked if he and his team was authorized to have access to grand jury secrets. He declined comment.

Yesterday, Freeh issued a statement that ripped the minority trustees. "Since 2015," he wrote, "these misguided alumni have been fighting a rear-guard action to turn the clocks back and to resist the positive changes which the PSU students and faculty have fully embraced." He concluded that despite criticism of his report by the minority trustees, to date, they have produced "no report, no facts, news and no credible evidence" that have damaged the credibility of his investigation.

But in the executive summary, the trustees blasted Freeh for having an alleged conflict of interest with the NCAA, and they cited some credible evidence to prove it.

"Louis Freeh's conflict of interest in pursuing future investigative assignments with the NCAA during his contracted period of working for Penn State," the executive summary states, "provided motivation for forming conclusions consistent with the NCAA's goals to enhance their own reputation by being tough on Penn State."

In a criminal manner, such as the Jerry Sandusky pedophilia investigation, the NCAA had no legal standing. But the NCAA justified its intervention in the case by finding that a lack of institutional control on Penn State's part opened the door to the Jerry Sandusky sex scandal.

In their synopsis of evidence, the trustees relied on internal Freeh Group emails that showed that while Freeh was finishing up his investigation of Penn State, he was angling for his group to become the "go to investigators" for the NCAA.

On July 7, 2012, a week before the release of the Freeh Report on Penn State, Omar McNeill, a senior investigator for Freeh, wrote to Freeh and a partner of Freeh's. "This has opened up an opportunity to have the dialogue with [NCAA President Mark] Emmert about possibly being the go to internal investigator for the NCAA," McNeill wrote. "It appears we have Emmert's attention now."

In response, Freeh wrote back, "Let's try to meet with him and make a deal -- a very good cost contract to be the NCAA's 'go to investigators' -- we can even craft a big discounted rate given the unique importance of such a client. Most likely he will agree to a meeting -- if he does not ask for one first."

A spokesman for Freeh could not immediately be reached for comment.

At yesterday's press conference, Pope also raised the issue of a separate but concurrent federal investigation conducted on the Penn State campus in 2012 by Special Agent John Snedden. The federal investigation, made public last year, but completely ignored by the mainstream media, reached the opposite conclusion that Freeh and the attorney general did, that there was no official cover up at Penn State.

Pope stated she wanted to know more about the discrepancies between the parallel investigations that led to polar opposite conclusions.

Back in 2012, Snedden, a former NCIS special agent working as a special agent for the Federal Investigative Services [FIS], was assigned to determine whether Spanier deserved to have a high-level national security clearance renewed. During his investigation, Snedden placed Spanier under oath and questioned him for eight hours. Snedden also interviewed many other witnesses on the Penn State campus, including Cynthia Baldwin, who told him that Spanier was a "man of integrity."

About six months after Baldwin told Spanier this, she flipped, and appeared in a secret grand jury proceeding to not only testify against Spanier, but also against former Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley, and former Penn State Vice President Gary Schultz.

Baldwin, who had previously represented Spanier, Curley and Schultz before the grand jury, testified  last month before the disciplinary board of the state Supreme Court, where she has been brought up on misconduct charges for allegedly violating the attorney-client privilege.

After his investigation, Special Agent Snedden concluded in a 110-page report that Spanier had done nothing wrong, and that there was no coverup at Penn State.

That's because, according to Snedden, Mike McQueary, the alleged whistleblower in the case, was an unreliable witness who told many different conflicting stories about an alleged incident in the Penn State showers where McQueary saw Jerry Sandusky with a naked 10-year-old boy. "Which story do you believe?" Snedden told Big Trial last year.

In his grand jury testimony, McQueary said his observations of Sandusky were based on one or two "glances" that lasted only "one or two seconds," glances relating to an incident at least eight years previous. But in the hands of the attorney general's fiction writers, those glances of "one or two seconds" became an anal rape of a child, conclusively witnessed by McQueary.

"The graduate assistant went to his office and called his father, reporting to him what he had seen. The graduate assistant and his father decided that the graduate assistant had to promptly report what he had seen to Coach Joe Paterno . . . The next morning, a Saturday, the graduate assistant telephoned Paterno and went to Paterno's home, where he reported what he had seen."

But the alleged victim of the shower rape never came forward, and, according to the prosecutors, his identity was known "only to God." Days after the presentment, McQueary wrote in an email to the attorney general's office that they had "slightly twisted his words" and, "I cannot say 1000 percent sure that it was sodomy. I did not see insertion."

On top of that, all the witnesses the grand jury presentment claimed that McQueary reported to them "what he had seen," the alleged anal rape of a 10-year-old boy, plus another witness cited by McQueary, a doctor who was a longtime family friend, have all repeatedly denied in court that McQueary ever told them that he witnessed an anal rape. 
 "I've never had a rape case successfully prosecuted based only on sounds, and without credible victims and witnesses," Snedden told Big Trial. As for the Freeh Report, Snedden described it as "an embarrassment to law enforcement."

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

A judge last week ripped District Attorney Larry Krasner for not doing his homework in the Meek Mill case.

According to a startling, 47-page order and opinion issued by Common Pleas Court Judge Genece Brinkley, in jumping on the bandwagon to free Meek Mill, the office now run by Progressive Larry was "abdicating its responsibility to conduct a review of this case."

Progressive Larry was already down with the plan to let the rapper out of jail, vacate his prior conviction and grant him a new trial. But the judge wrote that she remained "unconvinced" that Mill's conviction should be overturned, "considering the obvious lack of investigation and review" emanating from the D.A.'s office. So the judge denied the newly freed rapper's request for a new trial.

According to the judge, when Progressive Larry latches onto a cause, as in the Meek Mill case, he doesn't let logic or facts, or the duties of his office, get in the way of his emotions. And he didn't let an apparent conflict of interest bother him either.

In her order and opinion, the judge also gave citizens a frightening look inside the assembly line now being run out of the public defender's office, where, with the full cooperation of the D.A., hundreds of drug dealers are getting free passes out of jail right here in the cradle of liberty. It's law enforcement progressive-style, where the goal is to free as many criminals as possible, so they imperil the rest of us.

As a public service, the judge, in her order and opinion, provided readers with a blow-by-blow account of her embarrassing examination of Assistant District Attorney Liam Riley, who was representing his boss in court, and championing the cause to free Meek.

The judge began by asking Riley a simple question.

Before you put your stamp of approval on Meek's petition for a new trial, the judge wanted to know, did you ever speak to any of the arresting officers? The cops who on Jan. 23, 2007, after running an undercover operation, observed the artist formerly known as Robert Williams, at the corner of 22nd and Jackson Streets, selling crack cocaine to a confidential police informant?

The Judge: "Now, for the D.A.'s office, so that the record is complete with regard to all of these stipulations, before you entered into these stipulations, Mr. Riley, did you subpoena or speak to retired Police Officer Reginald Graham?"

ADA Riley: "I did not, Your Honor."

The Judge: "Did you subpoena or speak to his lawyer, Mr. Abdul-Rahman?"

ADA Riley: "I did not, Your Honor."

The Judge: "Did you subpoena or speak to Police Officer Sonya Jones, who conducted the undercover surveillance with Police Officer Graham back on Jan. 23, 2007?"

ADA Riley: "No, I did not, Your Honor."

The Judge: "Did you subpoena or speak to Officer James Johnson, or any of the other back-up officers involved in the paperwork on Jan. 24, 2007?"

ADA Riley: "No, I did not, Your Honor . . ."

The Judge: "Did you speak to anyone at the FBI regarding their investigation of retired Police Officer Reginald Graham before you agreed to anew trial in this case? That happened on April 16th."

ADA Riley: "I did not speak to him, Your Honor."

The Judge: OK. Did you subpoena or speak to retired federal prosecutor Curtis Douglas?"

ADA Riley: "I did not."

The Judge: "Did you actually review any of the 302 investigation reports of the federal government involving Police Officer Jett, who was one of the police officers involved in the arrest?"

ADA Riley: "I cannot say I reviewed the 302s, Your Honor. I am one of a number of people who have worked on these police misconduct investigations overall. So there -- I'm sure people in our office have."

The Judge: "OK, well your name is on everything that was submitted."

ADA Riley: "Correct, Your Honor, I'm clear I did not do that at all."

Now that should give every citizen about the way Progressive Larry the ideologue is handling the duties of his office.

In her 47-page opus, the judge recounted what happened after the undercover officers observed Williams selling crack cocaine to a confidential informant. When Williams saw the cops, he rode away on a dirt bike.

The very next day, the cops watched Williams make another drug sale to another confidential informant. According to the judge, when the cops confronted him, Williams responded by pointing a loaded gun at the officers before he took off running.

In a subsequent search of his home, after his arrest, according to the judge, the police discovered "13 red packets and 13 clear jars with purple tops of marijuana, 128 grams of marijuana in a clear Ziploc baggy, and $6,808 in U.S. currency."

The cops were just getting started.

"From the dining room table, police discovered 6 grams of marijuana and a black gun holster," the judge wrote. "From the basement police recovered 11 grams of crack cocaine in one clear baggy, and a black bag that contained 213 grams of marijuana, as well as a variety of drug paraphernalia, including razor blades covered in white powdery residue, new and used clear plastic packets, clear jars with purple tops, and box of Remington 40 caliber bullets."

That's in addition to a gun that Williams kept in his pants, a "9 mm Luger semi-automatic loaded with 8 live rounds, with an obliterated serial number."

But now that he's a famous rapper, free Meek Mill!

In another section of her order and opinion, the judge questioned Public Defender Bradley Bridge on the process by which his office is getting hundreds of convicted drug dealers out of jail.

The current freedom train starts with our top law enforcement officer, Progressive Larry Krasner. Progressive Larry keeps a "Do Not Call List""regarding officers from which there have been credibility issues that have risen," Bridge told the judge.

Everything about the Do Not Call List, as in do not call them as witnesses, is murky. What a cop has to do to get on Larry's list. What a cop has to do to get off Larry's list, short of death. And the big question is whether due process has anything to do with Larry's list.

In the case of retired Police Officer Reggie Graham, the cop who arrested Meek Mill, here's what happened when he landed on Larry's Do Not Call List. Over at the Public Defender's office, Bradley Bridge automatically knows that whenever a cop lands on Larry's list, there's automatic questions he plans to raise about the legitimacy of any arrests the cop might have made. So Bridge proceeds to try and get as many people as possible previously arrested by that cop out of jail.

In the judge's 47-page order and opinion, she describes that process. According to Bridge, you land on the list if you're guilty of "criminal charges, deceit or brutality." Again, there's a question of due process.

The public defender meets with the D.A., to "determine the viability of a claim that the conviction was gained by corrupt police officers at a time that the corruption was known to have existed," Bridge told Judge Brinkley.

The cases are then "consolidated for review, and relief is granted by agreement of the parties," the judge wrote. If the D.A. has no further evidence "other than the testimony of the corrupt police officer," the case is "nolle prossed," meaning abandoned or dismissed, at the "very same hearing," the judge wrote.

"Bridge has averred in his affidavit that he has worked on vacating over 1,500 convictions and filed an additional 6,000 PCRA [Post Conviction Relief Act] petitions based upon police officers on the Do Not Call List," the judge wrote.

The cases are consolidated and presented to one judge "in order to ensure a consistent process," the judge wrote. It's assembly line justice. However, there appear to be some flaws in the freedom train, starting with the capabilities of Public Defender Bridge.

In the case of rapper Meek Mill, the judge wrote, "Bridge inaccurately stated the facts of Defendant's case" to Judge Brinkley. According to the judge, Bridge said that the defendant pleaded guilty to a single charge, possession with intent to distribute, and was sentenced on Aug. 19, 2008 to two-to-four years in jail, plus probation for eight years. Bridge also stated that the rapper never filed an appeal under PCRA.

But, the judge wrote, the true facts are: the defendant never pleaded guilty, he was convicted at a nonjury trial. He was also charged with three other crimes, including a violation of the Uniform Firearms Act, possession of an instrument of crime, and simple assault.

Bridge also got the sentencing date wrong and the sentence; the defendant was sentenced on Jan. 16, 2009 to 11 1/2 to 23 months in jail, plus 10 years probation, the judge wrote. And the defendant did file a PCRA appeal, in 2018!

Way to go Bradley!! For those of you scoring at home that's five errors on the basic facts of the record of one defendant.

In his PCRA petition on behalf of the rapper, Bridge stated that he is "still not aware" of the facts that "justified Officer Graham's placement on the secret list," the judge wrote. And that Bridge went out and got three of Officer Graham's prior cases dismissed, "without ever making himself aware" of how and why Officer Graham wound up on the D.A.'s Do Not Call list, the judge wrote.

The judge seemed shocked at the way Bridge was going about his business, without any facts at his disposal, other than the D.A.'s Do Not Call list.

"The records in those cases remain void of any investigation that would have informed Bridge as to the facts know to the District Attorney that would justify Officer Graham's placement on the list," the judge wrote. The judge added that "having taken notice of how inaccurate the facts were," and how Bridge bungled applicable case law in his petition on behalf the rapper, "This court cannot rely on Bridge's testimony regarding how such PCRA petitions should be handled."

The judge said she found similar mistakes made by Bridge in other PCRA petitions made by the public defender in attempting to toss previous arrests made by retired Officer Graham. "It is not clear whether Bridge's statements were intentional misrepresentations or innocent errors," she wrote.

During the hearing where Bridge got three previous Graham arrests tossed by Judge Sheila Skipper Woods, Judge Brinkley wrote, "It is undisputed that no findings of fact of law were actually put on the record. As a result, this Court is not bound by those determinations."

Now we finally get to due process, and the flaws in the operation of the freedom train. During his appearance in Judge Brinkley's court, Public Defender Bridge testified that he filed a group of 1,400 PCRA petitions involving arrests made by Officers Thomas Liciardello, Brian Reynolds, Perry Betts, Michael Spicer, John Speiser and Linwood Norman; all former members of the Narcotics Field Unit South.

More than 1,000 of the unit's arrests have already been overturned to date, most involving convicted drug dealers who had pleaded guilty. Hundreds of these cases were dismissed on the accusations of a government informant, a corrupt former officer named Jeffrey Walker, even before the officers went on trial in a 26-count federal racketeering case.

These aren't nickel bag arrests. In two of those arrests, Mohammed Samhan and Kit "Fatboy" Poon, were caught red-handed in 2012 with more than 200 pounds of marijuana worth more than $2 million. Both drug dealers decided to cooperate, before they were sprung from jail by Bradley Bridge, with the cooperation of former District Attorney Rufus Seth Williams.

Then, the narcs went to trial in federal court. On May 14, 2015, a jury found those six cops not guilty on all 47 charges contained in 26 separate counts. The jury foreman told this reporter the case was so easy to decide they could have been done in ten minutes, because the government had no evidence to prove any of the charges, other then the seemingly rehearsed and amazingly similar stories, complete with the same catch phrases, told by a bunch of drug dealers, and the accusations of corrupt cop Jeffrey Walker.

In her opinion and order, Judge Brinkley explained the process of how the public defender's office goes about getting convictions of drug dealers thrown out en masse. It's pretty shocking stuff:

"Bridge testified that he would provide the court with a spread sheet and the court would go through the list, typically giving each case 10 to 15 seconds of consideration, and grant relief in bulk," Judge Brinkley wrote. "He [Bridge] stated that as many as 150 cases were reviewed in one sitting. In all of those cases, no evidentiary hearing took place," the judge wrote, "and the court granted relief solely based upon agreement of the parties without any further inquiry. He [Bridge] testified that this had been the process for the past 23 years."

Bridge then explained to Judge Brinkley that he filed PCRA petitions against former Officer Graham based on two events. The first event, the judge wrote, was an article in the Inquirer alleging that Officer Graham had been placed on the D.A.'s Do Not Call List.

The second event Bridge referred tp occurred on March 25, 2018, when Progressive Larry Krasner actually gave Bridge a copy of his top-secret Do Not Call List.

A grateful Bridge stated that he promptly went out and "filed a total of 290 post-conviction petitions solely based upon the District Attorney's" Do Not Call List. And that three of the petitions had already been granted thanks to "the streamlined process" already in place where the D.A. and the public defender agree that the defendants require "immediate relief without an evidential hearing."

All that's needed in Philadelphia for a convicted drug dealer who probably pleaded guilty to get out of town, Judge Brinkley wrote, is for a judge to write: "PCRA is granted. Motion for New Trial Granted. Commonwealth's motion to nolle prosse is granted due to credibility of the arresting officer and no additional evidence available."

 The judge then overturns the prior conviction and grants a new trial.

As another public service, Judge Brinkley recounted her questioning of Public Defender Bridge, about what he did to investigate the credibility of Officer Graham, who was accused of corruption by another corrupt cop, Jeffrey Walker:

The Judge: "You didn't do any investigation at all?"

Bridge: "No. I take that back. I mean, I take that back. I did look at some internal affairs investigations involving him [Officer Graham]."

The Judge: "Did you speak to retired Police Officer Graham yourself?"

Bridge: "I have not."

The Judge: "OK. Did you subpoena or speak to his lawyer, Mr. Abdul-Rahman?"

Bridge: "I did not . . ."

The Judge: "Did you subpoena or speak to anyone -- I'm sorry, Police Officer Sonya Jones, who conducted undercover surveillance with Police Officer Graham back on Jan. 23, 2007?"

Bridge: "I did not."

The Judge: "Did you subpoena or speak to Officer James Johnson or any of the other back-up officers that were in the police paperwork for the date of arrest . . . 1/242007?"

Bridge: "I did not."

The judge then asked if Bridge had ever talked to any FBI agents "specifically about [Officer] Graham?"

"I don't recall," Bridge said. "No, I don't think so."

The Judge: "Ok, were you aware of retired Police Office Graham's cooperation with the federal authorities back in 2014?'

Bridge: "I read about it, but I didn't have that information."

The Judge: "You didn't have that information?"

Bridge: "No."

Bridge also told the judge he never spoke with anybody from the Philadelphia Police Department's Internal Affairs or Officer Graham or his lawyer, before "agreeing with the Commonwealth that there were credibility issues related to Graham."

"When asked what exactly he did do," the judge wrote, "Bridge stated, 'I examined the District Attorney's Do Not Call List. I saw the allegations contained on the list . . . It was based on that that I went forward and filed the post-conviction relief."

It turns out that retired Officer Reggie Graham was a federal informant who, during 2013 and 2014, when the FBI was investigating the narcs, "provided unsolicited information to federal investigators," the judge wrote. And one of those corrupt officers that Graham informed on was Jeffrey Walker, the judge wrote, before Graham put in for a transfer.

"Officer Graham did all of this in order to disassociate himself from both Walker and the other corrupt officers," the judge wrote. "As a result, Walker was then transferred and Officer Graham was not . . . A few months thereafter, Walker was arrested for planting drugs in a vehicle."

When Walker got arrested, guess who was his lawyer? Why it was ace defense lawyer Larry Krasner, a fact noted by the judge.

"Notwithstanding the issue of a possible conflict of interest," Judge Brinkley wrote, Krasner as D.A. "agrees to PCRA relief in the form of a new trial."

Instead, because he had the appearance of a conflict of interest, Krasner probably should have disqualified himself.

Walker told the feds he gave Graham an envelope stuffed with cash, but Graham told the FBI he threw it in the trash.

"Officer Graham further explained that shortly before Walker was arrested, Walker confided that the other corrupted officers pulled guns on Walker and threatened to kill him because they found out he was talking to the FBI and ADA Douglas," the judge wrote. "Officer Graham then contacted ADA Douglas out of concern for Walker's safety."

As a result of cooperating, the judge wrote, Graham had his tires slashed and all the window in his apartment broken.

In her opinion, Judge Brinkley wrote that "disgraced former Officer Jeffrey Walker is not credible" as the main accuser against Meek Mill's arresting officer, Reggie Graham. Graham, who broke his silence on the case during an interview with Steve Volk of Philly mag, continues to proclaim his innocence, the judge noted.

The judge noted that Walker "was not present" at Meek Mill's arrest "and therefore had no personal knowledge of the case." Walker was also the prosecution's main witness at the racketeering trial of the six former members of the Narcotics Field Unit South, the judge wrote, and the jury obviously didn't believe him when they acquitted all six officers on all 47 charges.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Lawyers for Graham Spanier have called on the state Superior Court judge who wrote the June 26th opinion upholding the former Penn State president's conviction on one count of endangering the welfare of a child to recuse himself from the case because of an undisclosed conflict of interest.

In a 16-page application for recusal filed yesterday, Spanier's lawyers argue that state Superior Court Judge Victor P. Stabile should disqualify himself because he previously testified in a lawsuit against Penn State and Spanier, and also attacked Spanier in an old email as an "emperor" in "new clothes."

In the application for recusal, Spanier's lawyers seek the vacating of the Superior Court's decision upholding Spanier's conviction, and a chance to reargue their appeal before a new panel of judges, or the entire Superior Court.

Three days after Judge Stabile authored a 2-1 Superior Court decision upholding Spanier's conviction, Spanier got an email from an old colleague, Philip McConnaughay, former dean of the Penn State Dickinson School of Law [DSL] from 2002 to 2013.

In the email, McConnaughay informed Spanier that "between 2003 and 2006, Judge Stabile, then a lawyer in private practice, was a leader of a group of DSL alumni who were stridently opposed to Penn State's plans to either relocate DSL or to create a second campus of DSL in State College," Spanier's lawyers wrote.

While leading that opposition, Stabile "made critical personal comments about those Penn State administrators, including Dr. Spanier, who favored such a plan," Spanier's lawyers wrote.

"Emails and documents from that period that Dr. Spanier has obtained in the past few days demonstrate that there are grounds for Judge Stabile's recusal from participation in this matter. In light of this information, the Court should vacate the Panel's decision, and the matter should be reassigned and reargued before another panel or before the Court en banc."

Penn State had previously proposed moving DSL from it's longtime location in Carlisle, PA to Penn State's main campus in State College. The plan "was eventually abandoned in favor of a proposal to create a two-campus law school, with facilities in Carlisle and State College," Spanier's lawyers wrote.

Both the plan to merge the two institutions, and the two-campus plan "met with substantial and vociferous opposition from a faction of the DSL alumni," Spanier's lawyers wrote. During that period, Stabile, a DSL graduate from 1982, was a member of DSL's General Alumni Association [GAA] board of directors. Stabile also served on a five-person committee of the GAA board that "criticized the proposal" put forward by Penn State, and in the process, "made several disparaging comments about those members of the Penn State administration who favored the proposal, including Dr. Spanier," Spanier's lawyers wrote.

"I still do not understand why Penn State bothered to merge Dickinson if it seems intent on changing everything about the school," Stabile wrote in a 2003 email. "They could have built their own damn school in State College and accomplished the same thing without eradicating an institution."

In another email a few days later, Stabile wrote about the plan to relocate DSL, "There is a certain arrogance here that is unacceptable."

In their brief, Spanier's lawyers cite emails critical of Spanier that were sent to the GAA, of which Stabile was a member, referring to "that chief hustler Spanier" who was allegedly "pushing for approval Saturday" for the two-campus proposal.

A report issued by the GAA board, endorsed by Stabile, described the Penn State administration as "incompetent" and criticized Spanier several times, Spanier's lawyers wrote.

"For example, the report questioned Dr. Spanier's motives in proposing the two-campus model and implied that he [Spanier] falsely attributed the original relocation idea to the DSL dean, rather than the Penn State administration," Spanier's lawyers wrote. "The report posed a rhetorical question regarding Dr. Spanier's alleged motives in putting forth the two-campus proposal: 'Surely it has nothing to do with an employment contract extended in 2003 and expiring in the next year?'"

The report also contended that Spanier "promoted in his biography his role in the DSL merger but hid his responsibility for other mergers that allegedly failed," Spanier's lawyers wrote, quoting the report.

In January 2005, the DSL Board of Governors met to vote on whether to agree with Penn State, and move forward with the two-campus plan. The day before the vote, Stabile sent an email to the GAA board, complaining that "I can't imagine why many think this is a great proposal. The emperor certainly has new clothes . . ."

"The crisis here has been been wholly fabricated by PSU," Stabile wrote. In the same email, Stabile also claimed that the two-campus plan would result in "complete subjugation by DSL."

"I have no more words left; the process that has proceeded through does not do justice to our profession, nonetheless to its leadership -- and this is an institution that teaches the rule of law!!" Stabile wrote. "Count me as embarrassed and disgusted."

In February 2005, three DSL alumni sued Penn State, Spanier, and the DSL board of governors, seeking to stop implementation of the two-campus plan. At a GAA board meeting a couple days later, Stabile "advocated intervening on behalf of the plaintiffs in their suit against Dr. Spanier," Spanier's lawyers wrote.

That's just what happened.

On May 19, 2005, Stabile testified in that litigation about his opposition to the two-campus proposal. He admitted during that dispute, "emotions were running high on both sides," Spanier's lawyers wrote.

During his testimony, Stabile described the reaction to GAA's opposition to the two-campus plan as "very hurtful to see us cast in this light. Stabile also admitted while testifying that he "was particularly hurt" to be "dismissed as . . . merely angry or somewhat of a malcontent."

"The standard for recusal requires a judge to recuse from hearing a matter where the judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned," Spanier's lawyers wrote. "Recusal is warranted where a judge has a 'personal bias or interest which would preclude an impartial review' or where 'his participation in the matter would give the appearance of impropriety,'" Spanier's lawyers wrote.

It's not necessary for a judge to have an actual conflict of interest to recuse himself, Spanier's lawyers wrote. Merely having "an appearance of impropriety alone forms an independent basis for recusal even when no actual bias, unfairness, or prejudice is shown" on the judge's part, Spanier's lawyers wrote, quoting case law.

"Disqualification is mandatory 'in any proceeding in which the judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned,'" Spanier's lawyers wrote. "Avoiding the appearance of impropriety . . . is mandatory."

"Judge Stabile should recuse from this matter because of his prior role in strenuously and personally opposing the actions of Dr. Spanier and Penn State University regarding Dickinson School of Law," Spanier's lawyers wrote.

Stabile's past actions provide a "substantial basis to request Judge Stabile's recusal." Documents also reveal a "strident and personal reaction from Judge Stabile" to the proposals from Spanier and Penn State to move DSL, Spanier's lawyers wrote.

Stabile was "a leader of a faction of the alumni that severely criticized" Spanier, his lawyers wrote. In addition, Stabile and others "met, communicated, and prepared reports that attacked the motives, the integrity, and the competence of Dr. Spanier and other administrators involved in the two-campus proposal. Judge Stabile strongly opposed the proposal, actively worked to stop it [including by testifying in litigation filed against Dr. Spanier to accomplish this goal] and admitted that he was 'hurt' by the criticism of his opposition."

During the "bitter dispute over the two-campus proposal," Stabile "exhibited anger and personal animosity toward the Penn State administration, headed by Dr. Spanier," his lawyers wrote. Although "any bias or prejudice" against Spanier "may have diminished in the decade or so since the dispute took place," Stabile's partisan involvement "is something that should have been disclosed when Dr. Spanier's appeal was assigned to a panel that included Judge Stabile," Spanier's lawyers wrote.

Then, Spanier's lawyers quoted the standard for judicial disclosure of an apparent conflict of interest:

"Where a court has specific knowledge of a private matter or situation in which his or her impartiality may reasonably be questioned, it is his duty to disclose that information to the parties."

Judge Stabile, Spanier's lawyers argued, clearly failed to meet that standard.

Spanier, convicted on June 24, 2017, was given a sentence of 4 to 12 months, with at least two months to be served in jail. His sentence, however, has been suspended pending his appeal.

The filing seeking the recusal of Judge Stabile was the second filing in the case made yesterday by Spanier's lawyers, who also appealed the state Superior Court's upholding of Spanier's conviction on technical grounds.


The basic problem is that the attorney general's office indicted Spanier on Nov. 1, 2012 for allegedly endangering the welfare of a child back in 2001, by supposedly not doing anything about the alleged shower rape witnessed by Mike McQueary.

The technical problem on appeal is that the statute of limitations for endangering the welfare of a child [EWOC] is two years, so the Commonwealth's indictment of Spanier missed the mark by more than a decade. To uphold Spanier's appeal, the Commonwealth invoked an exception to the statute of limitations that wasn't law until 2007, an exception that wasn't raised by the Commonwealth at trial, nor considered by the jury.

In a 15-page application for rearmament, filed yesterday, Spanier's lawyers argue that in upholding Spanier's conviction"on the basis of a statue-of-limitations exception the Commonwealth never raises constitutes a dramatic departure from longstanding due process jurisprudence." Under state law, the Commonwealth was required "to give a defendant notice on the specific basis on which it alleges a prosecution is timely," according to the brief written by Timothy K. Lewis, Samuel W. Silver and Bruce P. Merensteain of Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP of Philadelphia.
Spanier's lawyers also argued that the Superior Court cannot uphold a conviction "when the jury was not instructed to find, and did not find, that the prosecution was timely."

There are other problems with the EWOC charge that the corrupt legal system of Pennsylvania fails to recognize -- even McQueary admitted in writing he never saw an anal rape of a 10-year-old boy by Sandusky, as alleged in the grand jury presentment. The marquee crime in that indictment amounts to fiction. A jury also found Sandusky not guilty of that crime. The victim has never come forward, and a federal investigation, previously undisclosed, determined that McQueary was not a credible witness.

At Spanier's trial, according to his lawyers, it was the state's burden to give a criminal defendant notice when the prosecution is pulling some legal games to get around the statute of limitations, which in this case had clearly lapsed by more than 10 years.

The other legal problem with Spanier's conviction was that the state's original child endangerment law, passed in 1972, did not apply to Spanier when the alleged crime that never happened, the 2001 shower rape witnessed by McQueary, supposedly occurred.

In 2001, the child endangerment law, as previously discussed on this blog, did not apply to supervisors such as Spanier; it only applied to people who had direct contact with children, such as parents, teachers and guardians.

In 2007, the state legislature amended the child endangerment law to include supervisors. So convicting Spanier of a law that wasn't in effect when the crime allegedly occurred violates what's know as "the Ex Post Facto and Due Process Clauses of the state and federal constitutions, which do not permit a jury to convict a defendant for violating a state statute enacted after the conduct on which the conviction is based," Spanier's lawyers wrote.

According to Spanier's lawyers, "Pennsylvania law is clear: the Commonwealth must provide a defendant with notice of the specific exception . . . on which it relies to salvage an otherwise time-barred prosecution" at a "reasonable time before trial."

The exception that the Superior Court relied on to get around the statute of limitations was enacted by the state Legislature when it amended the child endangerment statute in 2007 to include supervisors. According to the exception, if the victim who was abused was under 20 years of age when the abuse occurred, the victim had until his 50th birthday to file criminal charges.

But that exception wasn't even law when the shower incident allegedly occurred. Spanier's lawyers also point out that the jury was never instructed on the exception "despite Dr. Spanier's repeated requests that the jury be instructed on the statute of limitations."

"The trial court's failure to instruct the jury on what it must find to conclude that the prosecution was timely and the lack of a jury finding that the prosecution is timely renders Dr. Spanier's conviction invalid," his lawyers concluded.

"Over Dr. Spanier's objections, the trial court instructed the jury that it could find him guilty of child endangerment if, among other things, he employed or supervised someone else who was supervising the welfare of a child," Spanier's lawyers wrote.

But that language "did not become part of the child endangerment statue until January 2007, almost six years after the events on which Dr. Spanier's" conviction was based on," Spanier's brief states.

"An instruction that permitted the jury to convict Dr. Spanier of violating a statute that was not in existence at the time of the events forming the basis for that conviction is a violation of the Ex Post Facto and Due Process Clauses of the federal and state constitutions," Spanier's lawyers wrote.

In upholding Spanier's conviction, the Superior Court relied on a case known as the Commonwealth v. Lynn, as in Msgr. William J. Lynn, the former secretary for clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

In the Lynn case, Spanier's lawyers argue, the state Supreme Court held that Lynn was the "point man" who was "specifically responsible" for handling all child abuse allegations because he was "uniquely responsible for safeguarding all of their physical and moral welfare, and he supervised and directed the priests who directly interacted with [the children]."

But Spanier 's case doesn't measure up to these standards, his lawyers concluded.

"No evidence was presented that Dr. Spanier was the 'point man' for all child-abuse allegations, that he was 'specifically responsible' for handling such allegations, that he was 'uniquely responsible' for safeguarding the welfare of minor children, or that he supervised or directed an actual child abuser," Spanier's lawyers wrote.

Sandusky was a retired former employee when the 2001 shower incident allegedly occurred.

In the latest edition of Mob Talk Sitdown, reporters George Anastasia and Dave Schratweiser talk about the latest federal indictment rumors, and why former mob boss Joey Merlino had a steak dinner in New York City with Robert De Niro.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

To make his closing argument today on behalf of Frank Fina in an ethics case, lawyer Joseph McGettigan sunk to the occasion by applying a fresh coast of slime to many of his client's perceived enemies.

At the end of a three-day hearing before the state Supreme Court's disciplinary board, McGettigan started out by attacking the  investigation of Fina as "dishonorable and shameful."

The disciplinary board, McGettigan said, had gone out of its way to "smear a man and mischaracterize his honorable conduct."

McGettigan was just warming up. By the time he sat down, he had implied that the two women who filed the original ethics complaint against Fina were Penn State "truthers" possibly acting in consort with lawyers for any or all of five criminals that crime-buster Fina had previously put away. McGettigan also attacked the disciplinary board's counsel for supposedly siding with those "five convicted criminals" in a campaign to "defame, denigrate and criticize a hard-working public servant."

At the Jerry Sandusky trial in 2012, McGettigan and Fina worked side by side as prosecutors on behalf of the state attorney general's office.

Today, the scene of the legal battle was the disciplinary board, where Fina is accused of violating the attorney-client privilege during a 2012 grand jury session where he questioned former Penn State Counsel Cynthia Baldwin about her interactions with three former clients.

In his scorched-earth summation, McGettigan went through the cast of characters that he said were standing on both sides of this ethical battle. On his side, McGettigan said, was Fina the "hardworking public servant," the "honorable" Cynthia Baldwin, a former state Supreme Court justice; and Ron Castille, a former chief justice of the state Supreme Court who testified pro bono today as an expert witness on Fina's behalf.

And on the disciplinary board's side, McGettigan said, were the two Penn State "truthers" who had viciously attacked his client by filing their complaint, "probably" at the behest of "defendants' lawyers." Also on the disciplinary board's side, McGettigan said, were five criminals that Fina had played a central role in convicting. They include former Penn State President Graham Spanier, former PSU Vice President Gary Schultz, former PSU athletic director Tim Curley, convicted child abuser Jerry Sandusky, and former state Attorney General Kathleen Kane.

Spanier was convicted on one count of endangering the welfare of a child; Curley and Schultz pled guilty to one count each of child endangerment. Sandusky got convicted on 45 counts of the sexual abuse of children. And Kane, after engaging in a messy public feud with Fina, had to resign after she was convicted of perjury, conspiracy and obstruction of justice. The charges emanated from Kane's decision to leak secret grand jury information to a Philadelphia Daily News reporter, in an ill-fated attempt to get back at Fina.

"Convicted, convicted, convicted, convicted, convicted," McGettigan intoned as he ran down the roster of Fina's political adversaries; adversaries that McGettigan implied, were still trying to get back at Fina through the useful idiots at the disciplinary board.

McGettigan had harsh words for Amelia C. Kittredge, the disciplinary board's counsel who brought the case against Fina. McGettigan ripped Kittredge for bringing a "bizarre and inexplicable" case that  McGettigan said included no fact witnesses.

"I don't need no stinking witnesses," McGettigan cracked about Kittredge's case. Instead, McGettigan said, Kittredge relied on a "blizzard of paper" and a paid expert witness to attack Fina.

It was straight out of Alice in Wonderland, McGettigan said: "Verdict first; trial later; evidence never."

In Kittredge's defense, she apparently believed that all she needed to prove her case was to presentthe disciplinary board with court transcripts that showed that Fina had clearly misled a grand jury judge about his intentions when he was trying to get the judge's permission to question Baldwin.

When Fina appeared before the grand jury on Oct. 22, 2012, he told Judge Barry Feudale that he wanted to call Cynthia Baldwin as a witness, but he claimed that he wouldn't get into any areas of questioning that would violate the attorney-client privilege.

Fina is accused of breaking Rule 3.10 of the Rules of Professional Conduct which states: "A public prosecutor or other government lawyer shall not, without prior judicial approval, subpoena an attorney to appear before a grand jury or other tribunal investigating criminal activity in circumstances where the prosecutor or other government lawyer seeks to compel the attorney/witness to provide evidence concerning a person who is or has been represented by the attorney/witness."
But no hearing was ever held to let a judge decide whether Baldwin's testimony would violate the attorney-client privilege of Spanier, Curley and Schultz. Instead, the transcript showed, Fina urged the judge to "put those matters on hold" regarding the attorney-client privilege so "we can address that later on."

"We need not address the privilege issue," Fina told the judge, because "we are not going to ask questions about" the grand jury testimony of Spanier, Schultz and Curley, or any communication Baldwin may have had with her former clients.

As for violating the attorney-client privilege, that was a "risk" Fina told the judge that the prosecutor was willing to take. But under Rule 3.10, Kittredge said, rather than letting the prosecutor taking a risk of violating the privilege, the judge should have held the hearing and then made the decision as to whether Baldwin should testify.

Instead, the judge told Fina to proceed with the questioning of Baldwin under the assumption that "you're not going to get into any inquiry as to [Baldwin's] representation" of her former clients.

But on Oct. 26, 2012, when Fina questioned Baldwin in front of the grand jury, he "did elicit" what the disciplinary board described as "extensive . . .  attorney-client privileged communications between Baldwin and Curley, Schultz, and Spanier" as well as "confidential information" pertaining to the three former clients.

Fina's questioning of Baldwin was "calculated," the disciplinary board's counsel wrote, to solicit damaging information that would attack the credibility of Baldwin's three former clients. In the petition, the disciplinary board cited 73 examples from the grand jury transcript where Fina elicited confidential testimony from Baldwin that violated the attorney-client privilege.

The actions of Fina and Baldwin in the grand jury were so egregious that it prompted the state Superior Court to throw out a total of eight charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and conspiracy against Schultz, Curley and Spanier.

But at the ethics board today, McGettigan said in order to prove her allegations against Fina, Kittredge should have produced Baldwin's three former clients to testify that the attorney-client privilege had indeed been broken.
"Where's Spanier, Schultz or Curley," McGettigan told the three-lawyer panel hearing the case against Fina. "They should be here."

"They lied to her," McGettigan said about how the three Penn State administrators allegedly dealt with Baldwin. Meanwhile, McGettigan said, Kittredge didn't have the guts to say it, but she was basically calling Baldwin a liar whens he claimed she advised the three Penn State officials that she represented the university, and not those officials personally.

Kittredge, McGettigan said, didn't prove any of the elements of her case. The subpoenas that were sent out to Spanier, Curley and Schultz were signed by other deputy attorney generals and approved by the grand jury judge. Fina's name wasn't on any of the subpoenas, McGettigan said.

Baldwin's clients, McGettigan said, gave up the attorney-client privilege when they lied to her about what they knew about two shower incidents from 1998 and 2002 involving Sandusky and young boys. McGettigan claimed that the PSU trio had conspired to keep quiet about Sandusky's activities, to protect the university. It was an accusation never proven in court, but that didn't stop McGettigan from going well beyond the scope of what the disciplinary board was there to figure out.

"They were dormant," McGettigan said about the Penn State officials, "but he [Sandusky] wasn't," McGettigan said. "He preyed upon children because of what they did."

The three officials lied to the "honorable" Baldwin, their employer and a grand jury, McGettigan said. He asked the disciplinary board to find Frank Fina innocent. He closed by saying that if Kittredge had any sense of honor, she would stand up and apologize for falsely accusing Fina of ethical violations.

Kittredge, who sat stone-faced during McGettigan's closing, did not take him up on his offer.

Earlier, when she gave her closing statement, Kittredge claimed that Fina had deliberately misled the grand jury judge and had deliberately and repeatedly violated the attorney-client privilege when he questioned Baldwin.

The hearing trequired by Rule 3.10 of the Rules of Professional Conduct was never held, Kittredge said. More proof of that, she said, was that attorneys for Spanier, Curley and Schultz never had a chance to appear before Judge Feudale, and argue why Baldwin should not have been allowed to testify against her former clients before the grand jury.

Instead, Kittredge said, Fina made the "self-serving declaration" that Penn State's lawyer had waived the attorney-client privilege on behalf of Penn State. Even though the university never waived the privilege when it came to prior communication between Baldwin and her clients.

In his defense before the ethics board, Fina's lawyers claimed that Baldwin's three former clients had waived the attorney-client privilege when they allegedly entered into a criminal conspiracy to lie to Baldwin and the grand jury about what they knew about Sandusky, allegations, of course, that were never proven in court.

However, according to Kittredge that defense was an "after-thought," by Fina, an issue never raised previously.

In order to invoke the crime-fraud exception, Kittredge said, Baldwin would have had to have been on the conspiracy, and she clearly wasn't. So the crime-fraud exception, she argued, didn't apply.

Instead, Kittredge said, Baldwin did the worst thing a lawyer could do by not only betraying her client, but also proceeding to testify against them.

Meanwhile, Kittredge said, all Fina offered in his defense were excuses. She urged the board to find him guilty.

Earlier in the day, former state Supreme Court Justice Castille testified as an expert witness on behalf of Fina. Castille claimed that the three former Penn State officials voluntarily gave up the attorney-client privilege when they allegedly lied to Baldwin.

"These three people conspired together to protect Penn State by hiding evidence," he said. "You can't lie to your lawyer and expect them to continue to be your lawyer."

About the disciplinary board's case against Fina, Castillo said, "They went overboard." The disciplinary board also overlooked the written opinions and rulings of two judges in the case who consistently backed Fina's actions, Castille testified. He called the case against Fina "a travesty of justice."

Castille, as did Fina's lawyers, also implied that the Superior Court decision that upbraided Fina for misconduct and blew out the most serious charges against the Penn State administrators should have been appealed to the state Supreme Court, where Castille said, "I would have reversed it."

It's not the duty of the state Superior Court to discipline lawyers, Castille argued; that role belonged to the "D Board," as Castille referred to it. Fina's lawyers claimed the decision not to appeal the state Superior Court ruling was an act of political retaliation against Fina, as orchestrated by then attorney-general Kathleen Kane.

Earlier in the hearing, Amy Zapp, a chief deputy attorney general, testified that she had prepared a lengthy appeal of the state Superior Court decision.

"I remember thinking that it was very wrong," Zapp said. But she testified that she subsequently found out through a press release that then AG Kane had declined to file Zapp's appeal.

Zapp said the state Superior Court ruling against Fina did not change her opinion of him.

"I have a high regard for his work," Zapp said.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

After a lengthy examination of his own conscience, State Superior Court Judge Victor P. Stabile has concluded that he doesn't have a conflict of interest with former Penn State President Graham Spanier.

And so yesterday, the judge in a one-sentence order denied a petition by Spanier's lawyers for recusal.

In June, Judge Stabile was the author of a 2-1 Superior Court decision that upheld Spanier's conviction last year on one count of child endangerment in connection with the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal.

Spanier's lawyers had filed the motion for recusal, saying that years before he was a judge, Stabile had testified in a civil case filed against Spanier and Penn State over the fate of the Dickinson School of Law. At the time, Stabile was a graduate of DSL and a member of its alumni association who was  opposed to Spanier and Penn State's plan in 2003 to relocate the law school from Carlisle to State College.

In his order issued yesterday, Stabile stated that Spanier's application for the judge's recusal and request for a re-argument on Spanier's appeal before a new panel of state Superior Court judges or the entire court was "DENIED."

In an accompanying 23-page memorandum, the judge explained his decision, saying the case where he testified against Spanier and Penn State was "a completely unrelated matter" from a dozen years earlier.

Upon receipt of Spanier's recusal motion, the judge wrote, "I engaged in a conscientious determination of my ability to assess this appeal in an impartial manner, free of bias or interest in its outcome. I can state with clear conscience that I felt no compulsion of bias, partiality, or interest in the outcome of this case to prevent me from deciding this matter solely on its merits, regardless of the fact" that the case involved Spanier.

More than 20 years ago, the judge wrote, Penn State announced that "it would affiliate and then merge with DSL located in Carlisle." During a reception, the judge said, he "briefly met" Spanier, "simply to introduce myself as a member of the DSL community." It was the only interaction he ever had with Spanier, the judge wrote.

In 2003, when PSU proposed moving DSL to State College, Carlisle "had been the home of DSL for more than 170 years," the judge wrote. As a member of the General Alumni Association of Dickinson, the judge said, he was rightly concerned, but noted he was just of many people who opposed the proposed move of the law school.

"In summary, I was one person with the GAA who joined a cacophony of people, representatives, and organizations that expressed an interest in the future of DSL and opposition to its closure and relocation to State College," the judge wrote.

In his memorandum, the judge conceded that "an appearance of impropriety may itself be enough to warrant judicial recusal." But, he wrote, the party seeking recusal "bears the burden of producing evidence to establish bias, prejudice or unfairness which raises a substantial doubt" as to a judge's ability to "preside impartially."

And if a recusal motion is filed after a decision has been rendered, "the burden of proof is more exacting," the judge wrote. He quoted the state Supreme Court as saying that "one of the strengths of our system of justice is that once decisions are made by our tribunals, they are left undisturbed."

Continuing to quote the state Supreme Court, the judge wrote that the courts generally "are loathe to reopen the controversy for another airing, save for the greatest of need."

In their motion for recusal filed, Spanier's lawyers argue that Judge Stabile had allegedly attacked Spanier in an old email as an "emperor" in "new clothes."
The judge denied that. That old emperor quote, he wrote, didn't refer to Penn State administrators or Spanier.

"I generically referenced 'PSU' and nowhere criticized any individual by name," the judge wrote.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

On Oct. 1, 2014, Brett Swisher-Houtz, "Victim No. 4" in the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse case was called to testify as a witness in a civil case.

A gravy train on which Lubert was the conductor.

Lubert blamed the university's plight on poor judgment exercised by Penn State's top officials. He was presumably talking about former   university President Graham Spanier, Vice President Gary Schultz, Athletic Director Tim Curley, and Coach Joe Paterno.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Wading through that thick grand jury report issued by state Attorney General Josh Shapiro on the Catholic Church was like touring a cemetery.

Out of the 250 or so alleged predator priests whose alleged perverted exploits are chronicled in the report's 1,356 pages, I counted at least 117 confirmed dead bodies. Another 13 of these ancient men of the cloth who were born before 1940 had the dates of their deaths listed in the report as "unknown."

Some of these codgers were born back in the 1920s; the birthday of the most ancient alleged pervert was way back in 1896, seven years before the Wright Brothers flew their first airplane.

The most ancient predator priest whose death could be confirmed was born in 1869, four years after the Civil War ended. Another alleged predator priest laid out in the report had been dead since 1950, before Eisenhower was president. The crimes these priests allegedly committed against children in six dioceses around the state were from the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. One alleged victim, identified as Bob from Reading, was 83.

Was this news? Or something that should have run on the History Channel?


In Philadelphia, the attorney general's report brought back memories of the groundbreaking 2005 grand jury report on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia done by former D.A. Lynne Abraham.

"There's nothing new here; it's the same playbook," said Alan J. Tauber, a criminal defense lawyer whose priestly abuse clients include Msgr. William J. Lynn. According to Tauber, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro "took the [Philadelphia] grand jury report and he like replicated that, he served subpoenas, he got the secret archive files; they [the AG's office] basically replicated" the Philadelphia grand jury report of 2005.

Certainly the evasive tactics of the church to keep the clergy's sins out of the courts and the newspapers were familiar, as if the six dioceses profiled in the report were all operating out of the same playbook used in Philadelphia.

Which they were.

As for counselor Tauber, he was just getting warmed up.

"This report is like the explorer, John Cabot, who lands on Cape Cod in 1497," Tauber declared. "And the press is treating Cabot like he's Christopher Columbus, and he just discovered America."

Ah the press. Over at The Philadelphia Inquirer, where criminal indictments are typically treated as though the prosecutor, face glistening, just brought them down from Mount Sinai, it was a jail break. The Inky's social justice warriors cranked out seven news stories and a column decrying the church's historic sins as though it had just happened yesterday.

From the look of the Inky's front page, you would have thought that the terrorists had flown airplanes into a couple of skyscrapers again, or we had just landed an astronaut on Mars. Instead, some headline-seeking prosecutor -- Shapiro --had just issued an autopsy report on one of the media's favorite whipping boys, the Roman Catholic Church. And on the Inky's front page, Josh was getting the treatment reserved for unfolding natural disasters.

"Thank God for the criminal investigators and prosecutors," raved crusading columnist Maria Panaritis. "Thank God for the grand jury subpoenas . . . Thank God for the courage of the victims. For without them, Attorney General Josh Shapiro and his team would have had no real case to root out and unveil decades of depravity and systemic abuse by clergy, overseen by complicit [churchc] superiors."

A separate story detailed a child porn ring in Pittsburgh run by priests in the 1970s. Three of those priests were arrested 30 years ago on unrelated sex abuse charges.

Note to the guys in black robes -- maybe it's not such a great idea to hang onto all those records you've been hoarding under lock and key for so many decades on the orders of the Vatican. Have you guys ever heard of a shredder? It would have saved a lot of grief.

Over at the law office of Lynne Abraham, the former D.A. didn't seem upset by the knock-off report that Shapiro cranked out.

"Didn't you know that imitation is still the sincerest form of flattery," Abraham wrote in an email. She too was struck by the similarities between what happened in Philadelphia, and what happened in the six other dioceses around the state.

"It's as though the priests learn how to read and then pass out a script -- 'How to molest little kids,'" Abraham said about the familiar grooming tactics of the alleged predators. As far as Abraham was concerned, she'd be happy if there were more grand jury reports on sex abuse.

"Every prosecutor in the country should be doing the same thing, but it will be the same report over and over again, this time naming thousands," she said. "Sexual perversion runs deep and continuous in the priesthood. After all, it's been going on for centuries."

And to prove it, all you have to do is read the AG's report. As far as Josh Shapiro was concerned, everything old was new again.

"We, the members of this grand jury, need you to hear this," the report says. "We know some of you have heard some of it before.  There have been other reports about child sex abuse within the Catholic Church. But never on this scale. For many of us, those earlier stories happened someplace else, someplace away. Now we know the truth: it happened everywhere."

The AG's claim to fame was record numbers -- after all, they had rounded up 300 alleged predator priests who had allegedly raped and abused more than 1,000 victims.

By comparison, the AG pointedly noted, Boston only had between 150 to 250 predator priests, Philadelphia, only 60 predator priests, and Altoona-Johnston, only 50 predator priests.

Josh wins.

The AG's report did detail some fresh perversions -- notably a priest during the early 1980s who, after allegedly forcing a boy to give him oral sex, allegedly washed the boy's mouth out with a squirt of purifying holy water, a fresh supply of which the padre just happened to be carrying.

The alleged perpetrator, however, Father Thomas J. Benestad, a former pastor who's 73 and retired, the report noted, "vehemently denies" the accusations.

The AG report stated that a church investigation had sided with Benestad and that a local D.A. had said the alleged crimes were past the state of limitations, so no charges were ever filed. Other than the lurid charges stated in church records by the same dumb guys who write down everything and keep it forever, there was no other proof offered by the AG that these crimes had actually happened.

Then there was Father Gregory Flohr, who, back in 1969, allegedly used a rope to tie up an altar boy in the confessional, before allegedly sodomizing him with a crucifix, sized 7" by 5" by 1."

Father Flohr could not be reached for comment, as he's been dead for 14 years.

Now, we all know that Catholic priests have done many horrible things to many children, and that bishops conspired to systematically cover it up. But perhaps some skepticism is required because the charges contained in the AG's report are accusations and there will be little due process since only two of the 300 priests mentioned in the report could be charged with crimes.

Here in Philadelphia, we know that not every accusation of sex abuse turns out to be true.

We once had a former altar boy named Danny Gallagher who claimed that a priest allegedly stripped him naked, tied him up with altar sashes and proceeded to rape him inside the church. Gallagher also claimed that another priest allegedly held him captive in the sacristy and behind locked doors, anally raped him for five hours. Gallagher also claimed that a schoolteacher who gave him a ride home in his car allegedly strangled the altar boy with a seat belt while beating him and raping him.

All of those accusations were dutifully written down in church records, but none of it turned out to true. The lead detective in the case came forward to testify that he caught Gallagher telling many lies, and that Gallagher had even admitted to the detective that he had made up many of his stories of abuse. As a result of the detective coming forward, the schoolteacher who had been convicted of rape, got out of jail nearly a dozen years early.

It was too late, however, to help one of the accused priests, who died in jail.

Of course, while the detective was coming forward and Danny Gallagher's credibility was going up in smoke, the Inquirer willfully ignored it, except for running a brief AP story when the schoolteacher got out of jail. Now that's what you call objective reporting.

And sometimes, even an accusation from a certified victim turns out to be not true.

For example, that 2005 grand jury report on the Philadelphia archdiocese lists a victim named Ruth who was repeatedly raped as a child by a predator priest who got her pregnant, and then paid for an abortion.

Decades later, after Ruth got into therapy, she started telling wild stories about black Masses held underground at the seminary, and a ceremony where she was allegedly "married" to the archbishop of Philadelphia, who, supposedly, along with other priests, proceeded to rape her on the altar.

Detectives determined that the stories weren't credible. A group of sympathetic women who organized to support Ruth disbanded, after they came to the same conclusion.

When the Philadelphia D.A.'s office put priests on trial in 2012 for abuse, Ruth showed up in the courtroom as an observer. I asked a prosecutor why he didn't put Ruth up on the witness stand. He smiled and said if he did that, it would be a gift to the church's defense lawyers.

Shapiro was on safer ground when he talked about the institutional coverup in the church.

"The main thing was not to help children, but to avoid 'scandal,'" the report said. "Abuse complaints were kept locked up in a 'secret archive.' That is not our word but theirs; the church's Code of Canon Law specifically requires the diocese to maintain such an archive. Only the bishop can have the key."

Yeah, yeah, here in Philly, we heard all that 13 years ago, in the grand jury report on the Philadelphia archdiocese. The playbook when the church discovered they had an alleged pervert priest on their hands was always the same. Send the padre off for evaluation at a church-run psychiatric center. Diagnose whether the priest was a pedophile by asking the priest if he was a pedophile. If he denied it, there was no proof.

If a priest had to be removed, "don't say why," the AG's grand jury report said. Tell the parishioners he's on sick leave, or suffering from nervous exhaustion. Or don't say anything. Just ship him off to another parish, where he can set up shop again with fresh victims. And for God's sake, don't bother telling anybody.

On This Week, David Zubik, the bishop of Pittsburgh, told host George Stephanopoulos, "The church of Pittsburgh today is not the church described in the grand jury report."

The bishop's right, and that applies as well here in Philadelphia.

They may have done it only because they had a gun held to their heads, but the bishops have been forced to clean up their act. In Philadelphia, a recent case with one of Alan Tauber's more notorious clients, Father Mark Haynes, illustrates that point.

In 2015, the cops caught Haynes going on the net and posing as a teenage girl, while the priest was seeking to solicit naked photos from other girls.

The day after he was arrested, the archdiocese booted Father Haynes out of the rectory. There was no church-ordered therapy at a church-run institution, no cover-up, no transfer to another  parish, not even an offer to provide Haynes with counseling.

Instead, Haynes was out. Days later, in every pulpit of the archdiocese, a priest read a statement from the church outing Father Haynes as an alleged predator priest under arrest, and asking any past victims to come foreword.

Two adults did just that, claiming that 30 years ago, they'd been abused by the priest. The statements of the two alleged victims jacked up the sentencing guidelines for Father Haynes, who had pleaded guilty to seven counts of child pornography and destruction of evidence.

In 2016, a judge sentenced the 56-year-old priest to 20 years in jail, a $15,000 fine, and upon his release, ten years of supervised probation. The priest also was said to be cooperating with a voluntary laicization process where he would be defrocked.

"The archdiocese's response was an up-to-the-minute textbook response to allegations like this," Tauber said.

Yes, thanks to the efforts of prosecutors like Lynne Abraham, there's been a radical change in the behavior of the bishops. But it didn't get much notice in the media hoopla over Shapiro's report.

To sum up, Shapiro's knock-off report about ancient sex crimes in the church didn't tell us anything new. But the coverage of it now serves as a fresh example of media bias.

By Ralph Cipriano

He was the only son of the Big Bambino, but even that couldn't save him from the political firestorm over DROP.

Seven years ago, Frank "Franny" Rizzo Jr. was one of a half-dozen incumbent City Council members who -- under the city's extravagantly generous Deferred Retirement Option Plan, or DROP -- were eligible to "retire" for a day at the end of their terms, collect six-figure cash bonuses, and then, upon winning reelection (and making a quick trip to the bank), go right back to work the next day.

This being Philadelphia, it was all completely legal.

The rest of the story in Philadelphia magazine can be read here.

By Ralph Cipriano and George Anastasia
for BigTrial.net

As president and CEO of the gigantic Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market, Sonny DiCrecchio, AKA "Sonny D," was always doing good deeds for those in need. Like sending a boy stricken with cancer to the Super Bowl. Or taking 135 homeless kids from a shelter out on a shopping spree to buy Christmas presents.

"A Person Never Stands So Tall As When They Kneel To Help A Child -- Sonny D." That's the quote that volunteers wore on the backs of their matching purple jerseys when they chaperoned the annual "Sonny D's Holliday Shopping Party," sponsored by Sonny and his wife, Michelle.

"It's beautiful what Sonny and Michelle do for the children,"said Karen Patton-Faucett, assistant director of Stenton Family Manor, a shelter for families, during a 2016 tribute video to Sonny D posted on youtube.com. Over the years, the scores of volunteers who flocked to Sonny D's annual shopping party to help homeless kids pick out presents and wrap them included then-Eagles Quarterback Donovan McNabb.

But they may have to cancel the party this year. A woman who answered the phone at the produce market said that Sonny D "resigned" suddenly on Aug. 15th, and left without leaving much forwarding information. Meanwhile, a forensic accountant is digging through the market's financial records, searching for missing money that's said to be between $3 million and $5 million. The FBI is on the case; agents interviewed Sonny D voluntarily for three days, without benefit of a lawyer. As a result, multiple sources say, Sonny's in big trouble. Instead of a do-gooder, the feds see him as a scam artist who financed his good deeds with stolen money.

When he talked to the feds in August, several sources say, DiCrecchio basically confessed to taking the money. The feds, according to those same sources, told DiCrecchio he was going to jail, and if he wanted to make things easier on himself, the only option left was to become a cooperator.

The feds grilled DiCrecchio about his relationships with a couple of convicted felons, former mobster George Borgesi, and former state senator Vincent J. Fumo, both of whom had contracts down at the produce center. The feds wanted DiCrecchio to wear a wire on Borgesi and Fumo, as well DiCrecchio's bosses on the produce market's board of directors.

The FBI also wanted DiCrecchio to front a sting operation where he would dispense money advanced by the feds to targets of the investigation, so the feds could trace what they did with the money. The feds, underworld sources say, told DiCrecchio they wanted him to be their "5K1 boy," but Sonny D had no idea what they were talking about. The feds were referring to Section 5K1.1 of the federal sentencing guidelines that allow for a reduction in a mandatory minimum sentence for a cooperator who renders "substantial assistance" during a federal investigation.

Sonny D could not be reached for comment, and he claims he doesn't have the money to hire a lawyer. But in a lengthy, 1,500-word email to his former bosses, DiCrecchio admitted that he made "mistakes . . . over money." And that as a result of the scandal, he's a "broken soul" seeking forgiveness.

But one thing he wasn't willing to do to "save his ass," he wrote, was wear a wire. He also, according to sources, refused to participate in any sting operation. As Sonny D bitterly wrote to his former bosses, he may be getting treated like he's "some thief" who's the "scum of the earth," but Sonny D's no rat.

THE MARKET

The wholesale produce market, which does about $1.5 billion worth of business annually, is an enormous facility built on 20 acres of formerly abandoned land in the old Philadelphia Auto Mall on Essington Avenue in Southwest Philly.

When the $218 million facility opened in 2011, it was billed as the "world's largest fully-enclosed, fully-refrigerated wholesale produce terminal." The Philadelphia Inquirer described the new facility in a headline as the "world's largest freezer." The main building where DiCrecchio used to work, is a quarter-mile long, bigger than 14 football fields, and employs 1,500 workers.

Fruit peddlers and grocery store owners flock to the wholesale produce market to buy fruits and vegetables grown locally as well as around the globe. The produce is sold in the Italian Market, at the Reading Terminal, and in stores all over the city.

But the word is out about the scandal. For more than a month, fruit peddlers, merchants and mobsters have been buzzing about Sonny D and the missing millions.

"It's all hush-hush down there," one fruit peddler said. "They're not saying anything."

The produce market's board of directors are a frequent target of criticism.

"They look stupid," a merchant said. "How could they not have known what was going on," said another.

THE FEDS MOVE IN

The current federal probe, sources say, began when the FBI began investigating a $750,000 contract for LED lighting systems at the produce center arranged through DiCrecchio. The lighting company is linked to George Borgesi, the nephew of former Philadelphia mob boss Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi.

In 2011, Borgesi was acquitted of 14 counts in a federal racketeering case. But federal authorities are now raising questions about how the lighting contract was awarded. Borgesi, through associates, has insisted it was a legitimate business deal and that the highly efficient lighting systems will prove to be an economic benefit and save money over the long haul.

But Borgesi is an ex-con that the feds are stilling keeping tabs on. In 2001, Borgesi was convicted along with mob boss Joseph "Skinny Joey" Merlino and five others in another high-profile racketeering case, and served a 14-year prison sentence. Since he got out of jail, Borgesi has been associated with various companies such as mortgage lending, electrical lighting and glass installation.

Both Borgesi and his lawyer declined comment for this story. Through associates, however, Borgesi has claimed that all of his business ventures are legitimate. And that all the unwarranted attention from law enforcement makes it more difficult for Borgesi and those who work for him to make an honest living.

An FBI spokesperson declined comment; a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's office did not respond to a request for comment.

According to underworld sources, when the feds came to see him, Sonny D argued that Borgesi had done his time and deserved a second chance. The feds, according to those same sources, replied that Borgesi, who beat murder charges when he was convicted of racketeering in 2011, should have done more time.

GARBAGE MOBSTERS

DiCrecchio and the produce center have a history of dealing with at least one company tied to organized crime. From 2000 to 2010, the produce center had a contract with TopJob, a trash hauler that formerly employed Uncle Joe Ligambi as a salesman. The former mob boss's involvement in the market was detailed in a 2011 racketeering indictment.

According to the feds, TopJob was paid about $17,000 a week to remove trash from the old produce center. Federal authorities alleged that Ligambi's position as a salesman with TopJob was a no-show job for which the mob boss received a weekly salary of $500 to $1,000, plus medical benefits.

Authorities alleged that Ligambi and his family accrued more than $220,000 in medical costs which were paid by insurance companies while Ligambi was a TopJob employee. The government also charged Ligambi with insurance fraud.

But over the course of two trials the government failed to prove its case. DiCreccho testified as a witness, and claimed the trash hauling contract was legitimate. The jury must have believed him; Ligambi was found not guilty of most of the charges he faced. And, after the second trial, the government opted not to pursue two remaining charges that two juries had deadlocked on.

But as far as authorities were concerned, Ligambi was up to no good.

In a 2011, the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation [SCI] cited Ligambi's involvement in TopJob in a report that focused on the mob's alleged incursion into the trash-hauling business. "Uncle Joe" was one of nearly a dozen reputed mob figures linked to various trash companies in the Garden State. The SCI report focused on what authorities described as "garbage mobsters" who had a "hidden hand" in the trash industry.

TopJob is long gone from the wholesale produce market, but FBI agents questioned DiCrecchio about a current trash-hauling contract with another company that the feds thought was suspicious. After DiCreccho departed from the produce market in August, the entire board of directors resigned. A new nine-member board of directors that took office promptly replaced the trash hauler, as well as a firm that was handling recycling down at the produce market.

The new chairman of the board, George Binck of Procacci Bros. Sales Corp., did not respond to a request for comment.

THE FUMO CONNECTION

Sonny D and the former state senator had a working relationship dating back to when Fumo lined up $150 million in state aid to build the new produce center. Prior to Fumo's intervention, DiCrecchio told a federal judge at Fumo's sentencing in 2009, the produce market had negotiated a deal with then Gov. Jim McGreevey to move their operation across the river to New Jersey.

"Our facility was about 43 years old at the time," DiCrecchio told Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter at Fumo's sentencing. The old market was too costly to modernize, DiCreccho testified. What was needed was a brand new facility. According to DiCrecchio, that's when Fumo came to the rescue.

Over a seven-year period, DiCrecchio told the judge, "He [Fumo] was relentless" in getting the deal done to keep the produce market in Philadelphia,  "At every meeting, every meeting, he was pushing."

Fumo, who declined comment, was convicted in 2009 on 137 counts of corruption. After serving a four-year sentence, he started a consulting business advising companies on how to deal with government.

THE LAST WORD

Sonny D had presided over the market for 20 years when he suddenly departed in August. His old bosses may have locked him out, but Sonny D insisted on having the last word. That same month, DiCrecchio sent out his long email to members of the market's board of directors, the subject of which was listed as "My apology to all."

In the email, DiCrecchio expressed regrets over "mistakes" he admitted to making "over money," but  put some of that blame on his bosses, for chronically underpaying him.

"The very first thing and most important thing I would like to say to everyone is that I AM DEEPLY SORRY FOR MY ACTIONS," DiCrecchio wrote. "The regrets I have run so deep that I cannot put it into words. I am so sorry to disappoint so many."

The problem, DiCrecchio said, was that because he wasn't compensated adequately, he was always short on money.

"All the guts and determination I had to stand up to politicians, bureaucrats, attorneys and outright bullies in the system to represent you for 20 years was endless," DiCrecchio wrote his bosses. "But I never had the guts and determination to ask you all for the compensation I deserved for the job I was doing."

In his email, DiCrecchio asked board members to "please look deep into your hearts and conscience and ask, 'Did we treat and compensate Sonny fairly?'"

"I am not asking anyone to say I had the right or to feel in anyway I deserved to do what I did," he wrote.

"I just ask you to put the good I did on the other side of the scale and not to just judge me on the wrongs," he wrote. "GOD help everyone if they had to be judged on only the wrongs or mistakes they made in life, and [were] never given an ounce of credit for ANYTHING they did that was good."

A STAND-UP GUY

It was a sentiment that DiCrecchio previously expressed on the witness stand back in 2009 when he testified on Fumo's behalf at the former senator's sentencing. It was a ballsy decision by DiCrecchio. At the time, most people that Fumo thought were his friends, such as current Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, were running away from from the former senator as fast as they could.

But Sonny D was headed the opposite way.

"I never actually knew the senator as a social friend, but I will say that after the trial was over, I befriended him," DiCrecchio told the judge. "And I honestly did it because I looked at the whole process and I just thought that was unfair," DiCrecchio said about the five-month long trial of Fumo.

"And I just wanted to say that I, you know, I felt, from a man, if you open any of us and just tell it bad, that it's, you know, God knows where we're going to go," DiCrecchio said. "So I just thought that it was my duty to come and say what I needed to say."

The day he showed up to testify, DiCrecchio told the judge how, at the request of Fumo, he had launched a salvage operation down at the market manned by volunteers who sorted through discarded produce to make donations to Philabundance, the Philadelphia food bank that feeds the homeless.

The salvage program that DiCrecchio set up, at Fumo's request, resulted in the wholesale produce market donating to Philabundance three million pounds of produce a year to feed the homeless, DiCrecchio told the startled judge, who gasped, "Three million?"

"Three million pounds a year, yes," DiCrecchio repeated.

Eight years later, writing to his bosses at the food distribution center, DiCrecchio once again argued that the good that men do often gets overlooked, especially when they screw up, only this time he was talking about himself.

"I did not molest kids, sell drugs, scheme with people to deceive you, kill anyone," DiCrecchio wrote his former bosses. "I was asked by the government to set up board members so they could investigate them for taking cash from their own businesses, so I could save my ass. I told them I would not do that if my life depended on it."

WHERE THE MONEY WENT

In the email to his bosses, DiCrecchio talked about all the charitable events he had sponsored over the years.
"I used my own money and the market's money to help hundreds of people in need, kids with cancer, people losing their houses (some of them your own employees)," he wrote He said he also helped to get "some of the stockholders' kids into colleges, charter schools . . ."

Meanwhile, when it came to his personal life, DiCrecchio wrote, he was always short on cash. He had to pay for a summer rental home "after I lost my family's money on a bad house deal and did not have the heart or guts to tell them we could not afford it."

But he was always a hardworking employee, DiCrecchio wrote. So hardworking that during his 20 years at the market, he only took three vacations, twice to Disney World, once to St. John's Island.

"My job was 24/7 and I loved my job!!!," DiCrecchio wrote. He talked about his accomplishments that saved the market money, such as a trash contract that cost $1 million a year, until "I brought in another company for $600,000."

"I was never given a raise or rewarded in any way except for ridicule because now stockholders had to pay for offices they got for free, had to pay for their trash instead of dumping it on the ground," DiCrecchio wrote. As part of his duties, DiCrecchio wrote, he did the market's refrigeration, welding and power washing from 2002 to 2011 "for nothing."

"You never received a bill or paid me or specialty refrigeration for millions of dollars of services rendered," he wrote. "I gave you my refrigeration & welding businesses to start the new market. Every tool, lift truck, and trained my people to basically run your market instead of hiring a company for $600K a year," he wrote, adding, "Did I receive a raise for 15 years?"

The answer, he wrote, was no. How about a Christmas bonus?

"No," he wrote, "I didn't even get a thank you card or a cheap plaque from you when we opened the market, just complaints."

"However, I did not do anything out of malice," he wrote. "I just worked 24/7 all along with deep depression I suffered from. I just ask that you tell the real story in it's entirety, not like I am just some thief."

In his long email to his bosses, Sonny sounded bitter about how they had treated him.

"Now I am erased and kicked to the curb like I never existed, barred from a market that your kids and grandkids will enjoy for many years and make good livings," he wrote. "My life is destroyed because of my mistakes, over money that does not breathe. You could easily total what you feel I owe and let me work it off instead of kicking me out like I am the scum of the earth that never existed."

Veteran organized crime reporter George Anastasia will be telling some vintage mob stories while the Rowan Jazz Band plays music that mobsters love.

It's the first-ever "Jazz and Organized Crime" concert being presented at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 1st, at the Pfleeger Concert Hall at Rowan University in Glassboro, N.J.

Anastasia covered the mob for The Philadelphia Inquirer for 35 years, he's also the author of ten books, a journalism professor at Rowan, a staff writer for BigTrial.net, and lately, a talking head on the History Channel.

The Rowan Band will be lead by director Denis DiBlasio. Tickets are $5 and $10 and can be purchased online at rowan.tix.com. The event is sponsored by Rowan's College of Performing Arts, College of Communications and Creative Arts, and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

He wasn't interested in sending anyone to jail; all he wanted was cash.

In February 2009, nearly a full year before he met with the Philadelphia District Attorney's office to press criminal charges, Danny Gallagher, AKA "Billy Doe," the "lying, scheming altar boy," told a social worker for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia that "He has been talking to lawyers," and if "he gets money," he "does not want to press charges."

It was the kind of exculpatory evidence that would have made the district attorney's star witness look like he wasn't out for justice, he just wanted to get paid. The kind of exculpatory evidence that defense lawyers would have used on cross-examination to question Gallagher's motives and impeach his credibility.

So how did the D.A.'s office handle that exculpatory evidence? Simple; they just buried it.

In another blatant example of prosecutorial misconduct under former D.A. Seth Williams, those seven pages of notes from a couple of social workers were never turned over to defense lawyers. Nine years later, however, the notes have mysteriously reappeared, a copy of which was courteously provided to Big Trial. Those notes will be an issue in the retrial of Msgr. William J. Lynn, scheduled for some time next year.

The notes from the social workers are the second recent revelation of blatant prosecutorial misconduct in the long-running Lynn case.

 Previously, in March, seven pages of typed notes from the first interview with Danny Gallagher in January 2010, taken by former Assistant District Attorney Mariana Sorensen, mysteriously resurfaced eight years later. This was after Sorensen and two other assistant district attorneys told three different judges in three different courtrooms over the years that those notes didn't exist.

If you're a prosecutor in Philadelphia going after the Catholic Church, apparently it's Ok to lie to a judge as long as the ends justifies the means.

Keep in mind that the D.A.'s former lead detective in the archdiocese prosecution, Joe Walsh, has come forward to testify that he repeatedly told ADA Sorensen that the evidence he was gathering showed that Danny Gallagher wasn't a credible witness. And that she repeatedly refused to believe him, and eventually responded, "You're killing my case."

A spokesman for District Attorney Larry Krasner did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Krasner, according to sources, was busy out emancipating accused murderers, rapists, prostitutes and drug dealers.

Progressive Larry is on a mission to empty the city's jails, but he has to draw the line when it comes to liberating a Catholic priest falsely accused.

Gallagher, a former heroin user and accused dealer, wound up being the D.A.'s star witness in a historic prosecution that sent two priests and a Catholic schoolteacher to jail for supposedly raping Gallagher when he was a 10 and 11-year-old altar boy.

Gallagher's testimony also resulted in the conviction of a third priest, Msgr. Lynn, who was sent to jail for three years for endangering the welfare of a child. He was the first Catholic administrator in the country to be imprisoned during the ongoing Catholic Church sex abuse scandals, a jail sentence that made headlines around the country.

A jury in 2012 convicted Lynn, the archdiocese's former secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, on one count of endangering the welfare of a child, Gallagher, by exposing him to an abusive priest, Father Edward Avery, whom Lynn was supposed to be supervising.

Lynn served 33 months out of his 36-month sentence, plus 18 years of house arrest, before the state Superior Court overturned his conviction for a second time. But despite the fact that Lynn was an official scapegoat carrying out Cardinal Bevilacqua's orders, and he had basically already served his sentence, new D.A. Krasner has decided to retry the case, presumably for the sake of headlines.

And why not? For prosecutors in the current media climate, going after the Catholic Church is such a rush it's like shooting heroin. Seth Williams got plenty of headlines, even though he had to use a phony victim to stage his witch hunt against the church, propped up by prosecutors who cheated every step of the way.

And since I'm the only reporter in town who called him on it, what was the downside, even for a convicted criminal like Williams, now serving a four-year stretch in a federal prison in Oklahoma after admitting he took bribes, sold his office and stole money from his own mother.

And then Pennsylvania state Attorney General Josh Shapiro came along this summer and got a free ride from the media for basically digging up an ecclesiastic graveyard. In his grand jury report on sex abuse in a half-dozen dioceses in the state, Shapiro chronicled the alleged perverted exploits of 250 priests, 117 of whom were dead, and couldn't defend themselves, along with another 13 priests who were so old they were presumed dead.

The alleged crimes were well beyond the statute of limitations; some dated as far back to the 1940s. But the media played it like it had all jut happened yesterday. What was the aftermath? Prosecutors in 13 states immediately announced plans to launch similar probes. And not to be outdone, the U.S. Attorney's office in Pennsylvania launched a federal probe of the Catholic Church.

And again, why not? The church is a sitting duck. Under century-old Vatican rules, every diocese has to record every accusation against a Catholic priest, whether it's true or false, and keep it forever. So all a prosecutor has to do to generate a fresh set of headlines is to get a search warrant to pry loose a local diocese's old batch of secret archive files.

It's a target that can't be missed.

Meanwhile, the retrial of Lynn, the cardinal's dutiful lackey, is proceeding slowly through the courts. According to the court docket, a pretrial hearing was scheduled for Nov. 15th in the courtroom of Common Pleas Court Judge Gwendolyn Bright.

But on Sept. 28, the D.A.'s office under Progressive Larry Krasner filed yet another appeal in the nine-year-old case to the state Supreme Court. Krasner's office is appealing a decision by Judge Bright to limit the number of supplemental sex abuse cases the D.A. can present in a retrial of Msgr. Lynn, to show a pattern of cover ups in the archdiocese.

The D.A.'s office would like to include as many supplemental cases as possible so they can basically put the Catholic Church on trial, along with Lynn, but the D.A.'s office under Krasner previously lost an appeal of that same issue in state Superior Court. Now, they are appealing to the state Supreme Court.

Back in Common Pleas Court, Judge Bright has a nonsensical gag order still in place that prohibits lawyers on both sides from taking to reporters. So nobody can comment on fresh revelations of prosecutorial misconduct.

But since I'm the only reporter in town still writing about this travesty of a case, here's what those old and previously deep-sixed documents have to say.

On Feb. 6, 2009, Joann Blaney, of the archdiocese's Office For Child and Youth Protection, sent an email to Louise Hagner, victim assistance coordinator. It was Hagner on Jan. 30, 2009 who drove out to Gallagher's home to interview him after he had called in on a sex abuse hot line to report that he had previously been raped by two priests and a schoolteacher.

Gallagher, Blaney wrote to Hagner, had just called and he "also wanted to know what department to call about suing us." In her email, Blaney asked Hagner to call Gallagher back.

In handwritten notes on a print-out of Blaney's email, a social worker wrote that she put in a "call to Dan," and that Gallagher told her "he is upset" because "when he goes to sleep he keeps dreaming the abuse is happening."

"He was slurring his words & I asked him if he was medicated," she wrote. "He said no -- he had not slept in 2 days. He said that he has had problems with drugs."

"The police have not called him yet," she wrote. "He did receive the letter from Tim Coyne to Charles Gallagher. He [Danny Gallagher] called Tim Coyne today because he wanted to find about suing us."

On Jan. 30, 2009, Timothy R. Coyne, director of the archdiocese's Office for Legal Services, wrote to Assistant District Attorney Charles Gallagher [no relation to Danny] to inform him of Danny Gallagher's allegations.

On Feb. 17, 2009, a social worker wrote that she called Gallagher and he reported that he "had a dream on Valentine's Day. The news people were outside his home & and I was standing there too. He said he is concerned that it will become public."

In the handwritten notes, a social worker recorded on Feb. 2, 2009, she called Danny Gallagher back, who said "he is so depressed" because "he has been dreaming about it" again.

"He has been talking to lawyers," the social worker wrote. If "he gets money," she wrote, "He does not want to press charges."

On March 19, 2009, a social worker wrote that she called Gallagher and he told her he had "heard from the D.A." and that he "will probably go on Monday with his Dad."

Previously, Hagner wrote on Jan. 30, 2009, that after she and another social worker drove out to interview Danny Gallagher, "He has been calling lawyers," and that he was concerned about the "statute of limitations."

But for the rest of the year, Gallagher didn't do anything about pressing a civil claim against the archdiocese, and the D.A.'s office did mptjomg to pursue a criminal investigation of Gallagher's allegations. That's because, multiple sources say, the D.A.'s office under former D.A. Lynne Abraham had decided that Danny Gallagher's allegations were B.S.

But after Abraham retired, Seth Williams became D.A. And he was very interested in putting together a case that would land Msgr. Lynn in jail. To make a case, however, Williams needed a victim whose allegations fell within the statute of limitations.

At this point, Danny Gallagher and his far-fetched and endlessly contradictory tales of abuse became useful to Seth Williams and his henchmen.

Nearly a full year after Danny Gallagher first told church social workers about his far-fetched stories of being repeatedly raped, on Jan. 28, 2010, Detective Drew Snyder bailed Danny Gallagher out of Graterford Prison, where he was being held on a probation violation. Snyder drove Gallagher to the D.A.'s office, where his parents were waiting, along with ADA Sorensen.

The fix was in. And by playing the D.A.'s star witness, Danny Gallagher eventually got paid big time.

The D.A.'s office, according to Gallagher's testimony at the trial of Father Charles Engelhardt and schoolteacher Bernard Shero, also supplied Gallagher with a civil lawyer so he could sue the archdiocese and collect $5 million.

That's what happens when a habitual liar has as his enablers prosecutors who cheat.

Former state Senator Vincent J. Fumo will be the featured guest Thursday Nov. 8th at the Parkway Central Library at 1901 Vine Street.

Fumo will be discussing Target: The Senator; A Story About Power And Abuse of Power. The  biography of Fumo, published last November, was written by Ralph Cipriano of bigtrial.net, who will introduce the senator.

The event, which is free, is scheduled to run from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in Room 108 of the Parkway Central Library, sponsored by the Social Science and History Department.

Advanced registration is recommended by signing up here. For any questions, please call the Social Science and History Department at 215-686-5396.

You have to dig deep into Newsweek's profile of Philly D.A. Larry Krasner to find it, but reporter Steve Volk documents how Krasner  trampled on the rights of the families of murder victims in three homicide cases.

Volk talks to the families of three murder victims who weren't notified, as required by state law, when Krasner struck plea bargains with the killers of their loved ones, resulting in lesser charges and reduced sentences. In the story, Progressive Larry, continuing to prove, as one prosecutor memorably put it, that he "doesn't give a fuck about victims," dismisses those violations as "growing pains." But Volk repeatedly asks Krasner, "Whose side are you on?"

The story can be read here.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

The plane that flew over Beaver Stadium towed a banner that said -- "PRES BARRON: WHAT ARE YOU HIDING? RELEASE THE REPORT!"

Former Penn State Trustee Anthony Lubrano took to the skies last month in his campaign to get Penn State President Eric Barron to release the findings of an investigation into the so called "source materials" for the Louis Freeh Report on the Penn State sex scandal. The investigation into the Freeh Report, done by a minority group of trustees, was buried by the majority on the PSU board as part of an ongoing coverup of epic proportions, aided by an astounding lack of curiosity on the part of the mainstream media.

As to what PSU is hiding, Big Trial's readers know the answers, because this past summer, we printed many of those big secrets contained in the confidential "source materials." What are they hiding? That the Freeh Report was filled with faulty opinions dressed up as facts, that Freeh had a conflict of interest, and that Freeh's investigators were colluding with former deputy attorney general Frank Fina in a manner that violated state grand jury secrecy laws and may have contaminated both probes. And that's just for starters.

Fraudulent Freeh

In June, Big Trial printed the highlights of a seven-page "executive summary of findings of that internal review of the Freeh Report, dated Jan. 8, 2017, plus a 25-page synopsis of evidence gleaned from the confidential source materials.

The findings of the minority trustees: Freeh "disregarded the preponderance of the evidence" in concluding there was a cover-up of Jerry Sandusky's crimes at Penn State.

And: "Louis Freeh and his team knowingly provided a false conclusion in stating that the alleged coverup was motivated by a desire to protect the football program and a false culture that overvalued football and athletics."

The Freeh Report, the executive summary found, relied on "deeply-flawed" procedures for interviewing witnesses, and faulty investigative methods that resulted in "biased reporting of interview data" and "inaccurate summaries" of witness testimony.

In their synopsis of evidence, the trustees charged Freeh with a conflict of interest. The minority trustees offered as proof confidential internal Freeh Group emails that showed that while Freeh was finishing up his investigation of Penn State, he was angling for his group to become the "go to investigators" for the NCAA.

On July 7, 2012, a week before the release of the Freeh Report on Penn State, Omar McNeill, a senior investigator for Freeh, wrote to Freeh and a partner of Freeh's. "This has opened up an opportunity to have the dialogue with [NCAA President Mark] Emmert about possibly being the go to internal investigator for the NCAA," McNeill wrote. "It appears we have Emmert's attention now."

In response, Freeh wrote back, "Let's try to meet with him and make a deal -- a very good cost contract to be the NCAA's 'go to investigators' -- we can even craft a big discounted rate given the unique importance of such a client. Most likely he will agree to a meeting -- if he does not ask for one first."

A spokesperson for Freeh, the former judge and FBI director, never responded to a Big Trial request for comment.

In July, Big Trial ran more top secret stuff from the source materials -- a series of internal emails at the Freeh Group that showed that former deputy attorney General Frank Fina was routinely and repeatedly leaking grand jury secrets to Freeh's investigators.

The emails showed that Fina was routinely swapping inside dope with Freeh's guys and playing good cop-bad cop on witnesses such as former Penn State Counsel Cynthia Baldwin, even though the grand jury's investigation of Penn State was supposed to be secret. And that Freeh's investigators, who were acting as private citizens, had no right to access grand jury secrets. 

Leaky Frank Fina

When asked about this breach of grand jury secrecy, and whether Freeh's team was authorized to share grand jury secrets with Fina, Freeh courageously declined comment.

Another big secret contained in those source materials -- Penn State's board of trustees utterly failed in their fiduciary duties to investigate claims of abuse before they paid out $118 million to 36 alleged victims. 

Confidential documents showed that Penn State's trustees, presently engaged in that ongoing coverup, didn't subject the now-wealthy young lads to criminal background checks, depositions by lawyers, or examinations by forensic psychiatrists before they handed out the big checks. The so-called "victims" never even had to divulge their real names while they were cashing in.

No wonder Penn State wants to keep that report on the source materials sealed. Because it makes them looked like easy marks squandering millions of dollars on suspect "victims" with ever-changing and highly implausible stories that were often the product of therapy sessions featuring scientifically discredited memory recovery therapy.

In ordinary times, the shocking degree of incompetence and malfeasance that took place at Penn State during that big sex scandal might have aroused the curiosity of the mainstream media, and maybe even prompted them to reconsider their hysterical rush to judgment in the Sandusky case. 

Especially in the light of another Big Trial bombshell, that the headline allegation of the 2011 grand jury presentment --- that Jerry Sandusky raped a 10-year-old boy in the showers -- probably never happened, according to a previously unknown federal investigation conducted back in 2012 on the Penn State campus by former NCIS special agent John Snedden.

Contrary to what Freeh found, Snedden concluded that there was no cover up at Penn State because there was no credible evidence or a credible witness to show that a sex crime had ever occurred in the PSU showers.

But the mainstream media remains silent on the Snedden investigation and subsequent 110-page report, as well as the accumulating evidence that Penn State, Louie Freeh, and the attorney general, along with cops and therapists, completely botched the Sandusky investigation.

Because the members of the media have their own credibility to protect, or what's left of it.

Memo to the minority trustees: President Barron reports to the board of trustees and not the other way around. He's never going to willingly release that report, and neither will the majority board members.

The only solution: do what Frank Fina did, leak the damn thing. Hopefully, the report is available as a PDF or word document. Email that file to ralph@bigtrial.net and I'll take care of the rest.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Does a convicted felon have the right to post a book review about a case he was involved in?

And after that convicted felon has paid his debt to society, does he also have to forfeit his right to freedom of speech?

According to Amazon.com, the answers are no [on the right to post a book review] and yes [on whether he has to give up his right to free speech.]

Last week, Leonard P. Luchko, a former computer technician for former state Senator Vincent J. Fumo, wanted to post a review of my book on the notorious, long-running Fumo case, Target: The Senator, A Story About Power And Abuse Of Power.

Here's what Luchko wanted to say. Under the headline, "Our Government at its Worst!" Luchko wrote:

"I worked for Senator Fumo for 8 1/2 years and I was prosecuted in this case. I didn't steal a dime and it was my first offense but I went to prison for 23 months, put under house arrest for 3 months then put on probation for 3 years. So when I tell you I didn't think there was a thing I didn't know about this case you would think that I knew what I was talking about."

"Well I was dead wrong! As I read this book I was shocked to find out the things that the government did in this case, the unfairness and the get Fumo at all costs mentality of the government made me sad to be an American. When I read that the judge in our grand jury was a man Senator Fumo blocked from being a judge for 10 years I finally understood the steps the government were prepared to go to get Senator Fumo. Ralph Cipriano has told a story in his book that needed to be told. Everyone I know that read the book loved it!"

Best of all, Luchko gave the book five stars! Initially, Amazon was grateful for his efforts.

"Thanks Leonard P. Luchko," Amazon wrote back. "Your latest customer review is live on Amazon. we and millions of shoppers on Amazon appreciate the time you took to share your experience with this item."

Then, the very next day, they took down the review.

Now he may not be the world's greatest literary critic but Leonard P. Luchko is a true insider when it comes to the USA Vs. Fumo et al. As one of the "et al"s, Luchko went to jail after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

In the book, I recount how Luchko repeatedly offered to cooperate with the feds who were investigating Fumo, but a team of six FBI agents wound up raiding his house at 6:39 a.m. on Oct. 20, 2005 and forcing Luchko to sit through an interrogation in his underwear in front of his 79 year-old mother who was sick with the flu.

Later, when Luchko was in prison, the feds wouldn't let him out to visit his mother who was on her deathbed. And when she died, they wouldn't let Luchko go to her funeral.

Now how's that for compassion? If you know anything about the Fumo case, and the way civil liberties and common decency were trampled on, it was par for the course.

In pursuit of defending Luchko's right to freedom of speech, I had an online chat Sunday with Ashika of Amazon.com.

"Hello my name is Ashkia," she wrote under a perky cartoon picture of herself. "I'm here to help you today."

I responded that I was the author of the book, that Luchko was a participant in the case, and that a book review he had written had at been first published and then taken down by Amazon.com.

Ashika responded cheerfully that there was "No need to worry, I'll surely check this and help you."

She had no answers, but subsequently responded, "I've successfully submitted the form," adding, "they will investigate and get back within 12-24 hours."

That was two days ago.

So I've decided to let the cat out of the bag concerning Lenny's book review. In the meantime, I'm still waiting for my laudatory book review from The Philadelphia Inquirer, where the posse of reporters and editors who used to beat up on Fumo year after year were too frightened to be interviewed for my book.

One of those crusading journalists, however, ace investigative reporter Craig McCoy, did take the time a while back to personally register his objections with me about being quoted in the book.

In the spirit of Amazon, I'd like to thank Craig for taking the time to share his experience with the book. At least he didn't say I misquoted him.

In the book, I recounted how I used to sit next to McCoy at the Fumo trial and marvel at how biased his stories always were in favor of the prosecution. You'd think he was an assistant U.S. Attorney or something.

One day, I asked McCoy if he and I were covering the same trial.

Here's what I wrote in the book that prompted McCoy, who never met a prosecutor he didn't like, to publicly attack me as an unethical reporter in front of a courtroom full of spectators:

"He [McCoy] admitted that when it came to Fumo he was 'so far down the tunnel' that he no longer knew 'which way was up.'"

Today, I'd like to take the high road and apologize to Craig for quoting him accurately on just how biased he was.

Sorry Craig. You can dish it out but obviously you can't take it.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

At The Philadelphia Inquirer last month, people were startled to see former publisher Brian Tierney swaggering around the place again, still acting like a big shot.

It's the same old Brian, they say. Big and bearded; large and in charge. But not everybody's happy about it.

"He's the guy who bankrupted the company," complained Bill Ross, executive director of the Philadelphia Newspaper Guild. "Why would they want him around?"

Inquirer Publisher and Chief Executive Terrance C.Z. "Terry" Egger, who last November, was named Editor & Publisher's Publisher of the year, had an answer.

"All I can tell you is that a few years back the late [H.F.] "Gerry" Lenfest asked Mr. Tierney to join the Board [of Directors] and he accepted," Egger wrote in an email.

That would be the board of directors of Philadelphia Media Network [PMN], the company that owns the Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, and philly.com.

Back in 2015, the Inquirer announced that Lenfest had just appointed an eight-member board of directors for PMN. The board members included corporate and civic leaders but nobody mentioned Tierney, who apparently was subsequently and quietly named as the board's ninth member.

Lenfest, who died last August at 88, was the philanthropist who bought the papers at an auction for $88 million in 2014, and then set up a nonprofit to oversee his holdings. According to Ross, Tierney apparently has been serving on the board for two or three years but nobody ever told the union about it.

Tierney did not respond to a request for comment. Neither did Josh Kopelman, the venture capitalist who in 2016 was named chairman of PMN's board of directors.

Ross, however, had plenty to say about the return of Tierney.

"He's a failed past publisher," Ross said. "The guy who bankrupted the company, screwed all the union pension plans, and paid himself close to a million dollars in salary and Christmas bonuses, including a $4,000 a week pay raise that a judge ordered him to give back."

"He [Tierney] also rewarded all his friends with huge salaries and bonuses before he bankrupted the company," Ross continued. "And let's not forget his brother's law firm, which was also awarded millions in fees from the bankrupt estate."

Tierney was the former Inquirer publisher and CEO of Philadelphia Media Holdings LLC, which bought the two newspapers and philly.com for $515 million in 2006, and promptly went bankrupt three years later.

In the Inquirer newsroom, where they haven't had a raise in more than a decade, reporters and editors hold a grudge against Tierney because he's the guy who steered the company into bankruptcy rather than make a $50 million default payment owed the Newspaper Guild for withdrawing from the Guild's pension plan. The result -- the pension fund's in critical status today, Ross says, and has approximately only seven years of assets remaining.

Instead of $50 million, the pension fund was only able to collect approximately $200,000 in bankruptcy proceedings, Ross said, leaving a gaping hold in the fund.

When the pension plan goes insolvent, it will be up to the guaranteer of the fund, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which is also facing insolvency, to take over and pay reduced benefits to Guild members.

Raiding pension plans is a familiar tactic of Tierney's. When he overspent for the newspapers to the tune of $515 million in 2006, the largest single investor was the pension plan of the now-defunct Philadelphia carpenters union. When the newspapers went bust in 2009, the carpenters' pension fund lost every dollar of the $45 million it had invested, along with $2 million from the carpenters union's general fund.

There's a disturbing track record here for the region's so-called paper of record. When Tierney and his allies bought the newspapers in 2006, the Inquirer didn't disclose the true size of the investments by the carpenters' union, nor the loss of every dollar three years later when the Inky went bankrupt. Nor was the paper upfront in disclosing Tierney's self-enrichment during the lead up to bankruptcy, nor Tierney's recent appointment to PMN's board of directors.

Was Tierney's appointment to the board of directors kept quiet because it might disturb the paper's former creditors who lost millions when the papers went bankrupt? Lawyers for those creditors could not initially be reached for comment.

After Tierney stepped down as publisher he returned to the Inquirer in 2013 to run a national advertising campaign that subsequently flopped. He was paid $25,000 a month to bring in new revenues, but was fired in October 2013 for under-performing.

But now he's back and last month, Tierney stopped by the advertising department to order up a couple of free full-page ads in the Inquirer on behalf of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Ross said, ads that typically run about $75,000. Ross said he had no idea why the ads were free.

"Our advertising members who have to deal with him [Tierney] are totally outraged that he's involved and ordering people around," Ross said. "When he calls people he's arrogant, so he hasn't changed."

Tierney, according to Ross, also bragged to union members about the great job he supposedly did as publisher, leaving the implication that Tierney did a better job than Egger.

Ross wonders with his legacy of bankruptcy and profligate spending, usually to enrich himself and his friends, why anyone would in management would want Tierney back in the building.

"He's acting like he's publisher again," Ross said.

Egger, E&P's Publisher of the Year, did not respond to a request for further comment.