D.A. [center] and entourage

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

A common criticism of elites is that they typically don't ever have to suffer the consequences of their own beliefs and policies.

For District Attorney Larry Krasner, it was a close call this afternoon as he almost had to face the deadly consequences of his radical policies that both the mayor and police commissioner have blamed for escalating gun violence and a record murder rate.

Krasner was politicking this afternoon on the 600 block of Clementine Street in North Philly, with several police officers and bodyguards in tow, when a few blocks away, a gun battle erupted.

"He ran like the bitch he is and got out of Dodge," Stinky Feat, a frequent Krasner critic, reported on Twitter. Stinky added a smiley clown face to his tweet, before dissing the D.A. as a "punk."

When the shooting started, police said, and the sounds of bullets echoed around the densely packed rowhouse neighborhood, Krasner bolted like it was the Penn Relays. His bodyguards joined the race, tossing the district attorney into a car that sped away from the crime scene.

Meanwhile, a half-mile away from where the D.A. was politicking, on the 700 block of East Madison Street, a black male was shot four times in the head. He was transported to Temple University Hospital where he was pronounced dead as the city's 113th murder victim this year. Police reported a firearm was recovered by the scene, but no arrests were made.

At a March 31st press conference, both Mayor Jim Kenney and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw blamed Krasner's turnstile style of justice for the recent surge in gun violence. Both the mayor and police commissioner charged the D.A. was giving too many free passes to criminals  arrested for illegally carrying guns.

"We are calling on the district attorney to vigorously enforce all firearms charges during this time of crisis," Kenney said. "It is imperative that he [Krasner] send a clear message that gun violence will not be taken lightly. This is a message the D.A. can reinforce in his office's handling of all such cases going forward. There needs to be some consequences for carrying an illegal gun in Philadelphia."

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Common Pleas Court Judge Anne Marie Coyle presided this week over emergency hearings designed to expedite the early release of supposedly non-violent inmates.

The judge was expecting to deal with  small-time criminals in jail for low-level, non-violent offenses.

But the 80 case files brought to Judge Coyle's virtual courtroom over two days included some major heroin dealers, and other convicted criminals jailed for crimes that included arson, aggravated assault, domestic violence and assaults against police officers.

The public defender, with the district attorney's approval, wanted the judge to sign off on group releases. But the judge said, no, we're going case by case. The judge subsequently found that none of the defendants fit the criteria of being small-time criminals jailed for low level and nonviolent crimes. So one by one, the judge denied the releases and ordered all 80 criminals to be kept in jail.

For doing the job she was elected to do, Judge Coyle was attacked by the D.A. and the public defender's office, and vilified by the Inquirer. Finally, after the Inquirer published the judge's photo, a gang of protesters on Wednesday verbally attacked, harassed and tried to spit on the judge as she was escorted by cops to and from the Criminal Justice Center.

Besides the crazed demonstrators she had to wade through, Judge Coyle was up against a dedicated team of social justice warriors.

Let's face it, the public defender's office and D.A. Larry Krasner -- the self-described "public defender with power" -- as well as the Progressive reporters and editors at The Philadelphia Inquirer are all playing on the same team.

They view criminals as the victims of an oppressive criminal justice system that's racist, sexist, etc. So when the coronavirus hit, everybody on the team decided it was a great time to use the health crisis as an excuse to empty the jails.

Standing in the way was Judge Coyle, a former prosecutor for 15 years in the D.A.'s office who's got a reputation among her fans as being a strict but fair judge. The Inquirer, however, did an analysis a while back that found the judge sentenced criminals who had violated the terms of their probation to state prison at a higher rate than any other judge in Philadelphia.

The judge, who carries a heavy case load, explained at the time that this may have been the result of overseeing serious cases in a major trials courtroom. But her record upset the Inky's social justice warriors.

On Tuesday, the Inquirer ran a story with the headline, "A Philly judge has denied every inmate's bid to get out of jail amid the coronavirus. defense lawyers are trying to cut her out of the process."

The story reported that the judge over two days had rejected every bid for early release, and in four cases, had actually increased bail. Now that's what you call moxie!

That prompted the public defender's office to send a letter to the leadership of the First Judicial District to complain about the judge. Amazingly, email that amazingly was "obtained by The Inquirer" -- a fancy way of saying it was leaked -- so they could write a hit piece on the judge on behalf of the social justice warriors agitating to empty the jails.

According to the email from the public defender, the judge told the lawyers lobbying for early release "that they should be careful what [they] wish for." And then she sent them packing, and kept all their clients in jail.

"We are compelled to reach the unfortunate conclusion that Judge Coyle does not share the understanding reached by all of the stakeholders involved in this extraordinary circumstance," Chief Defender Keir Bradford-Grey wrote in a email that managed at the same time to be both lofty and condescending.

So yesterday, the public defender's office moved to withdraw another 70 cases before Judge Coyle because they believe it was not in their clients' best interest to argue their cases in front of the judge. It was time for the public defender's office to go judge-shopping for a more pliable jurist, which happens to be illegal, but Larry Krasner won't let that get in the way of his revolution.

So far, according to the Inquirer, the public defender's office has succeeded in releasing 380 prisoners early because of the coronavirus. City officials told the newspaper that one inmate has already died of the disease and that 54 more inmates were infected.

In the Inquirer story, District Attorney Larry Krasner, who's been stonewalling this blog for the past nine months, huffed to the newspaper that he fully supported the public defender's plan to go around Judge Coyle.

"There's not much point in doing all that work and then having every single case rejected," Krasner told his favorite newspaper.

Later that day, the Inquirer updated the story to add Judge Coyle's photo. So the protesters outside the Criminal Justice Center were able to recognize the judge when she was coming to and from court.

A Unicorn Riot video posted on youtube.com Wednesday shows the protesters chanting "Free Our People" as they honked horns and agitated outside the courthouse, accompanied by a couple of coffins with slogans written on them that equated judicial inaction with murder.

On camera, the host of the video yelled at Judge Coyle over blaring car horns, wanting to know if she considered the inmate who died of the coronavirus "blood on your hands."

It didn't matter that the judge wasn't the one who put away the inmate who died.
Protesters screamed at the judge, calling her a racist and a murderer. A few tried to spit on her but missed. They told the judge, who was carrying her King Charles spaniel, that the coffin was for her.

One rabid dreadlocked protester, who was interviewed after she appeared on camera screaming at the judge, said, "All they want to do is lock us up and rape us."

OK, you're a lunatic. Another angry protester explained her screaming at the judge by saying in an on-camera interview, "People are dying and she's playing politics."

After they got through protesting at the courthouse, somebody hung a banner over a Schuylkill River expressway tunnel that said "JUDGE COYLE IS A MONSTER." The cops subsequently took it down.
A supporter of the judge went on Facebook to point out that the judge had actually risked her health by showing up in court while the public defenders and prosecutors made virtual appearances. The prisoners, of course, showed up in court files.

"Anne Marie has never forgotten that she is an elected official who serves the people not the criminals," the supporter wrote, adding, "Krasner you are a POS!!!!!!"

By A. Benjamin Mannes 
for BigTrial.net

On April 17, 2020, a Virtual Public Safety Briefing was hosted by District Attorney Larry Krasner, Violent Crime Unit Chief Anthony Voci and DA’s communications director Jane Roh to discuss crime statistics in the city. 

This briefing struck many in the public safety community as strange, first because it heavily covered crime statistics; a task that is the responsibility of the police not the District Attorney, and that it seems to have marked a drastic shift in messaging for the District Attorney.

Since his election, D.A. Krasner has been almost uniform in his messaging toward his progressive base, and not appearing to have a “tough on criminals” tone.

However, this conference, in light of a steady rise in homicide since his election and the murder of Cpl. James O’Connor by a murder suspect and his friends who were all on the street despite recent criminal charges; Krasner’s “briefing” was more of an attempt at public reassurance than a simple update on ongoing prosecutions in the city.

The briefing started with updates on the O’Connor homicide and their charging of the other two occupants of the room charged that O’Connor’s murderer was held up in a multiple shooting on a SEPTA bus. 

It was a case that struck many as eerily familiar to the “Death Wish” inspired Bernard Goetz shooting of New York in 1984. The other case discussed by Krasner was the senseless murder of a child by her own mother who had previously had the child removed by child welfare investigators in the past…but somehow got her child back. 

Marion Barry: another crime stat spin doctor

 These types of updates are normal and expected for a DA’s Office, as the public wants to know how cases are being charged. What felt strange is the fact that Krasner started to cover the city’s crime statistics and highlighted the fact that while commercial burglaries and homicides are up; all other crimes are down.

From the viewpoint of a former police officer, this felt a lot like a common unethical law enforcement practice called “stat fixing”, and having experienced it first hand in the Charles Ramsey-led DC Metropolitan Police department; I am wondering why a District Attorney is reporting crime statistics that may have more “spin” than actual validity.

First, it’s important to understand that all crime statistics are reported to the FBI’s next generation crime reporting system, the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) to be published in the annual Uniform Crime Report (UCR). The UCR is considered a public “report card” on a jurisdiction’s public safety. 

However, it’s important to understand that NIBRS doesn’t track casest hough the courts (only those closed by arrest or reported formally), as well as those classified by police as a non-criminal “incident” or as “unfounded,” a category for when police say the victim is lying or the reported crime did not occur. While the FBI seeks ways to plug these gaps, many police commanders looking to “game” the use of computer statistics as a measurement of law enforcement success in a furtherance of political objectives have found just the unethical (and possibly criminal) method to do so.

This means, as I personally saw in DC at the hands of the same Chief and same PSA-system later brought to Philadelphia; things like thefts if there was no direct evidence on scene were classified as “lost property."

Domestic violence cases where both parties weren’t on scene or no visible injuries were seen were considered “domestic incidents”. Property as a result of criminal incidents like, vandalism, break-ins, and even shootings were classified as “damage to property” and, as many Philadelphia realtors and landlords can attest – criminals who burglarized vacant, unoccupied properties were suddenly considered “squatters”, instead of defendants for second-degree burglary charges. Unfortunately, this behavior is not unique to Philadelphia, as it was unfortunately seen in New York and even highlighted on the epic HBO show “The Wire” in regards to Baltimore.

Put simply, when an administration who spent the last two years talking about how “unfair” the criminal justice system is and how they need a more progressive, “hands off” approach starts to tout falling crime rate and notes aggressive charging of violent criminals, we should all be a bit suspicious.

What anyone simply following public reports and press coverage in Philadelphia over the last month knows is that:

1. Commissioner Outlawhas demanded that most arrests be curtailed for a warrant later to be issued amid the COVID-19 outbreak;

2. Most businesses are closed as well as public gathering places like playgrounds and corner bars, and . . . 

3. As a result, crime reports have gone down.

So, if the police aren’t bringing most suspects in to be fingerprinted, street narcotics and warrant enforcement is suspended and facilities are closed – it will of course reflect the downward falling crime stats that Krasner reported. 

What it doesn’t show is how many people are using fake names or worse, simply not being stopped due to Outlaw’s orders, meaning that the enforcement of these “warrants to be issued” will be scarce in the future. Furthermore, if most people are inside, there’s simply not that many street crimes to be reported. 

Does this mean crime is down? No. Unfortunately, it means that crimes are being perpetrated inside homes amid a population that traditionally underreports crimes committed by people known to them – so a true number of domestic violence and sex assault cases is unknown.

Furthermore, for a city that led the nation in urban opioid overdoses, it’s simply not plausible for anyone with a brain to believe that narcotics abuse is down in Philadelphia. In watching the briefing, it seemed as if this huge criminal justice issue was seemingly overlooked by Krasner.

If you want to find the truth, don’t just examine what is said by a politician, but what is missing as well. For a District Attorney who throughout his campaign and administration had rallied against narcotics enforcement under the guise of “not criminalizing addiction," who had vocally endorsed the concept of “safe injection sites” in Philadelphia to have nothing to say on narcotics enforcement in the same month that the COVID-19 outbreak was used to declare a moratorium on drug arrests – should strike anyone as strange. 

This also begs the question, especially to anyone in drug corridors like Kensingtonand Frankford, to how many people are still dying of opioid overdoses while everyone is focused on the Coronavirus?

The video briefing’s coverage of crime stats typically covered by the police department made more sense when Krasner got to the topic that took up the bulk of the conference, which is his ongoing mission to reduce the city’s jail population. This makes sense, because if the city feels unsafe given the statistically valid rise in homicides, then nobody will support his agenda of simply releasing people from jail. However, if they feel that their District Attorney is suddenly “tough on crime”, then maybe this plan won’t but society at risk.

The truth is, Krasner advocated for releasing people completing city sentences and those accused of “nonviolent” crimes. The problem with this is that in the very same briefing, Krasner admitted that, with the exception of court-ordered drug treatment, the destinations of these released prisoners is widely unknown. 

Therefore, he’s using the excuse of COVID-19, with an infection rate far lower inside Philadelphia jails (where on-site medical screening is offered) than in many of our city’s communities; to release criminals without the oversight and proper processing of a parole/probation screening by a shuttered First Judicial District.

More ironically, 24 minutes into the video, Krasner made the contradictory statement that he “does not intend to drop cases because of the caseload” or backlog created by the pandemic and said, “We intend to vigorously pursue and focus upon truly serious crime and also intend to engage on progressive prosecution that has been the benchmark of this administration."

You can’t have your cake and eat it too, DA Krasner. Any undergraduate sociology and/or criminology class shows that criminal behavior grows from quality of life crimes to “truly serious crime." Had you prosecuted Cpl. O’Connor’s murdererfor possession of drugs and gun charges as seriously as prosecuted by your peers nationwide, Cpl. O’Connor would be alive today because his murderer would be in prison and not on the street.

This contradiction is further highlighted in minutes 28 & 29 of the briefing, when Krasner said that “No violent offenders were to to be released.” First, let’s define violent. Krasner has on numerous occasions defined drug trafficking as a nonviolentcrime. Anyone who has spent time in a high-intensity drug trafficking area knows that the process of retaining drug territory and maintaining a collection and secure transport of merchandise & receivables in the business of illicit drug sales is incredibly dangerous.

Worse, Krasner himself stated that he and the Public Defender are advocating for prisoner releases. Is that his job? No. The courts and correctional system are solely responsible for the post-sentencing retention and rehabilitation of prisoners. Meanwhile, there have been 116 murders in Philadelphia. If the Krasner administration is doing their job effectively, this number shouldn’t be up 16%; which may be why they seem focused on presenting a questionably rose-colored picture of crime stats.

It may also be why the District Attorney is using public funds better used to prosecute offenders in the creation of a “data lab” led by campaign supporter and statistician Oren Gur, who is frequently seen on twitter defending the offensive tweets of Krasner communications director Jane Roh. 

Gur’s job is to seemingly “spin stats” that seek to justify the radical experiment in progressive criminal justice undertaken by the Krasner administration, despite the Police Department’s own daily public reporting of crime statistics and those published annually by the FBI.

In summary, history shows us that when most crimes are seemingly dropping except for murders, then there may be an unethical or even unlawful under-reporting of crime stats at hand. In the early 1990s, DC Mayor and famed drug user Marion Barry said, “if you take out the killings, Washington actually has a very low crime rate."

Well you can’t disappear a body, so a city’s homicide rate is a great reflection of the safety of that city. Therefore, anyone listening to the reporting of crime from the administration of District Attorney Larry Krasner are best to take those words with a very large grain of salt.

A. Benjamin Mannes, MA, CPP, CESP, is a Subject Matter Expert in Security & Criminal Justice Reform based on his own experiences on both sides the criminal justice system. He has served as a federal and municipal law enforcement officer and was the former Director, Office of Investigations with North America’s largest medical board.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Attention Philadelphia, District Attorney Larry Krasner is using some bold-face BS and a batch of misleading crime statistics to try and cover up how his permissive policies have fueled gun violence in the streets.

Krasner, who was publicly trashed last month at a joint press conference held by the mayor and police commissioner for his revolving door style of justice, held his own virtual press conference last Friday, with just an underling present. There weren't any other city officials around, or any reporters, not even on Zoom, so that nobody could question Krasner's desperate lies, fraudulent claims or deliberately deceptive stats.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, of course, has given fellow progressive Krasner a complete pass while Philadelphians this year are shooting and killing each other at record rates. But here at Big Trial, we're going to hold Krasner accountable.

At his virtual press conference, Krasner tried to con his fellow citizens into believing his big lie that crime in the city is actually down. Just the opposite is true. And no amount of lying, or spin-doctoring with phony crime stats is going to wash the blood off Krasner's hands.

Krasner began his virtual press conference with a big dog and pony show that featured Anthony Voci, his hapless chief of homicide.

What a pathetic character this guy is. When he was last seen on Big Trial, Voci was unsuccessfully trying to schedule a cuddle-fest for himself and other whiny, wimpy-ass prosecutors in the D.A.'s office with a therapy dog, cat and Easter bunny.

At the virtual press conference, Voci gave a speech about how he and his top assistant have "literally worked every single day since March 13th combing through a variety of evidence" in the five weeks since the March 13th murder of Corporal James O'Connor.

After telling everybody how hard he was working, Voci ponderously detailed the usual gumshoe procedures in a criminal investigation while trying to make it sound like he had just invented a vaccine for the coronavirus.

According to Voci, he and his top assistant have spent the past five weeks "combing through a variety of evidence not the least of which includes correspondence, phone calls, emails and importantly forensic evidence."

Uh oh. Voci may have committed a faux pax here, or as far as conspiracy theorists are concerned, maybe he purposely shot himself in the foot so the D.A. could throw another case. In talking about emails, Voci may have given the defense lawyers who will represent O'Connor's killers a gift. Now they can ask for all of the city's emails in regards to this case, and if something's been deleted, the defense lawyers can start yelling about prosecutorial misconduct.

In a case where the death penalty is in play -- a punishment that Krasner has vowed he would never seek -- defense lawyers may now have an argument for dropping or reducing the charges, or maybe even getting the case thrown all together. For Voci, it was all in a day's work.

To cops who watched the virtual press conference, Voci had made a highly unusual and highly inappropriate admission. Said one angry veteran cop, "I am fucking sick right now because I can see from a mile away how they just gave [O'Connor] up."

A seasoned former prosecutor agreed with the veteran cop's assessment.

"He [Voci] has just opened up a Pandora's box that allows the defense to engage in a fishing expedition," the seasoned former prosecutor said. Voci should have kept his mouth shut about the evidence because it's inappropriate. The defense, the seasoned prosecutor said, could also make hay about the fact that it took the D.A.'s office five weeks to bring charges against the other suspects.

After he got through gift-wrapping a present for defense lawyers in a cop killing case, Voci finally got around to announcing that the district attorney's office had charged two more suspects with the murder of Sgt. O'Connor and the attempted murder of seven members of a SWAT team that OConnor was leading the day he was killed, plus the D.A.'s office also hit the two suspects with a conspiracy charge.

"Thank you, Mr. Voci, I appreciate that," Krasner said when Voci was finally done.
Some obvious points need to be made here. First and foremost, the district attorney's refusal to prosecute gun crimes and his turnstile style of justice for dangerous, armed drug dealers is directly responsible for the murder of Corporal O'Connor.

This is something that both Voci and Krasner would like you to forget.

But on Jan. 24, 2018, Hassan Elliott, the original suspect charged with O'Connor's murder, pleaded guilty to carrying firearms without a license. Three times later that same year, Elliott was brought before a judge on alleged parole violations. Three time he could have wound up in jail, but three times the D.A.'s office gave him a pass, and let him out.

On Jan. 29, 2019, Elliott was arrested again and charged with possession of a controlled substance. He could have been thrown in jail that day to serve another 16 months, but the D.A.'s office let him go again. On March 27, 2019, Elliott's drug case came up. Elliott didn't even bother to show up for court, but the D.A.'s office did Elliott another big favor by dropping the drug charge because of "prosecutorial discretion."

If the D.A. had simply done his job on some four different occasions, Elliott, 21,  Elliott would have been in jail and Corporal O'Connor would still be alive. According to police, it was Elliott who used an automatic rifle to fire the shots through a rowhouse door that killed O'Connor.

Now let's talk about Bilal Mitchell, whom the D.A.'s office arrested on Friday and charged with the murder of Corporal O'Connor, the attempted murder of seven other members of the SWAT team, plus a conspiracy rap.

Mitchell was holed up with Elliott when O'Connor was murdered. The very month before that murder, the police twice arrested Mitchell, 19, for drug dealing, and also charged him with carrying illegal guns.  At the time of the drug arrests, Mitchell had three open juvenile cases and one previous arrest as an adult, and was on a GPS monitor.

At any time during this one-man crime spree, the D.A.'s office could have put Mitchell in jail. But what did the D.A.'s office do? They set low bail both times on the drug charges this past February, and waved goodbye as Mitchell hit the streets, only to continue his career in crime.

At their virtual press conference, intrepid crimefighters Voci and Krasner were patting themselves on the back for waiting five weeks to charge Mitchell, and a third accomplice, Khalif Sears, 18, with the murder of O'Connor, the attempted murder of the seven other SWAT team members, plus the conspiracy rap.

But the plain truth is that any competent D.A.'s office could have charged all three suspects with murder, attempted murder and conspiracy the day O'Connor was killed, five weeks ago.

Now, onto Krasner's misleading presentation on "crime statistics around the period of the pandemic."

"I would say in terms of crime statistics, we have a very complicated and somewhat mixed report," Professor Krasner began with his deceptive lecture on crime, as seen only through the demented eyes of Larry Krasner.

"In general, overall, simply by looking at the police department's own statistics," the district attorney asserted, "I'm sure you are aware that crime overall is down. And I'm sure you're also aware that violent crime overall . . . that is also down," the D.A. claimed.

Reality check, Mr. D.A.: overall crime is up, according to police statistics, and so is violent crime. And here are the latest stats as of yesterday to prove it:

-- homicides, up 17%, from 100 murders this time last year, to 117 as of yesterday.

-- armed robbery, up 10%, from 559 this time last year, to 613 as of yesterday.

-- aggravated assault with a firearm, up 19%, from 676 this time last year, to 803 as of yesterday.

-- commercial burglary, up 22%, from 338 this time last year, to 412 as of yesterday.

-- theft of motor vehicle tags, up 14%, from 438 this time last year, to 498 as of yesterday.

-- retail theft, up 40%, from 2,262 this time last year, to 3,170 as of yesterday.

-- auto theft, up 22%, from 1,794 this time last year, to 2,186 as of yesterday.

-- shooting incidents, up 64%, from 451 this time last year, to 741 as of yesterday.

-- shooting victims, up 14%, from 374 this time last year, to 427 as of yesterday.

So there you have it folks, when it comes to the soaring crime rate, Larry Krasner is a complete liar. But even at his virtual press conference, Krasner had to admit that some categories of crime were way, way up.

"We are nonetheless having a pretty terrible experience with shootings, with homicides and a very significant spike in commercial burglaries," the D.A. admitted, thereby proving that you can't lie to all of the people all of the time.

Now, for his next trick, Larry tried to pull some rabbits out of the hat in terms of magical crime statistics.

What Krasner did at his press conference was to take a week from this month, April 8th to 14th, and compare it with an average week of crime between January 2017 and March 14, 2020.

What he was trying to do was compare the city's crime rate on pandemic lockdown versus the city's crime rate back when things were normal.

So according to Krasner's stats, homicides, which usually average between 4 to 8 during the week of April 8 -14, were up to just 9 homicides during the week of April 8th the April 14th. Just a slight increase.

But in incidents of rape, Krasner said, which normally average between 16 and 22 incidents a week, was down to only 9 incidents between April 8th and 14th. So crime is actually going down in that category.

With robbery with a gun, there is normally 35 1/2 to 50 incidents a week, but this year, between April 8th and 14th, it's only 36, Krasner said. So once again, according to the D.A., crime is going down.

You get the idea.

Big Trial asked a seasoned professor of criminology who has several decades of experience on the street as a cop, but prefers to remain anonymous, to critique Krasner's presentation.

"What he is not doing is comparing the overall citywide [crime] totals from this time last year, to this time this year," the seasoned criminology professor said. "The reason he is not doing that is because crime is way up. He doesn't want to admit that."

"If you believe Krasner's argument that crime is down, explain how retail theft is up 40%, citywide, with all the stores that are currently closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic?" the seasoned professor asked. "This is just one quantitative illustration of how Krasner's policies of not arresting retail theft offenders for any crime where the value of the stolen items are less than $500, are directly and negatively having an effect on the rising crime rates." 

An Innocent Man -- Photo Credit: Richardo Brazziell/American-Statesman

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

On Twitter, District Attorney Larry Krasner has been praising a Netflix documentary that profiles the work of Patricia Cummings, head of the D.A.'s Conviction Integrity Unit.

It was Cummings who got Chester Hollman III out of jail in 2019 after he had served 28 years for a murder he was falsely convicted of. It's a featured episode of the "Innocence Files" a nine-part series now airing on Netflix. "Thank you for taking such care with Chester Hollman's story," the D.A. tweeted on April 16th. "Honored to be part of this important series."

But don't expect Krasner the film critic to be praising another documentary that's coming out in June.  "Outcry," a five-part Showtime series, also deals with the work of Patricia Cummings, but this time around, she won't be presented in a flattering light. Outcry is the story of Greg Kelley, an 18-year-old high school football star in Texas who in 2014, was sentenced to 25 years in prison without parole for sexually assaulting a four-year old child in a day care.

Only Kelley was falsely convicted. And the list of villains includes Patricia Cummings,  Kelley's defense lawyer at the time, whom a judge found, was not only ineffective, but she also had an undisclosed conflict of interest. It turns out that Cummings had as a former client the woman who owned the day care where the attack took place. And she had a son who not only lived there, but he was also a real dirt ball who was suspected of being the real child abuser. But Cummings kept quiet about her conflict for three years while Greg Kelley, an innocent man, rotted in jail.

Talk about a conviction that lacked integrity! But Cummings apparently doesn't want to talk about the Kelley case; she did not respond to a request for comment.

Neither did Stonewall Larry Krasner nor Silent Jane Roh, Krasner's alleged spokesperson, who hasn't answered a question posed by this reporter since last August.

The Netflix documentary tells the story of Chester Hollman III, falsely convicted in 1993 for the murder of 24-year-old Tae Jung Ho, a University of Pennsylvania student killed two years earlier in a robbery gone bad.

Patricia Cummings and Chester Hollman/photo credit: Hannah Yoon

The cops arrested Hollman because on the night of the murder, he happened to be driving a white Chevy Blazer, the same SUV that was the getaway vehicle for the killer who murdered Ho. But two witnesses who originally claimed they saw Hillman at the murder scene subsequently recanted their testimony, and a judge exonerated Hollman.

Hollman received a personal apology in court for his wrongful conviction from none other than Patricia Cummings, head of the D.A.'s Conviction Integrity Unit.

"I apologize to Chester Hollman," Cummings told the judge who freed Hollman in 2019. "I apologize because he was failed, and in failing him, we failed the victim and we failed the community of the City of Philadelphia."

But Greg Kelley, who, through his attorney declined to be interviewed for this story, has never gotten an apology from Patricia Cummings. Even though, court records show, he definitely deserved one.

"I just spent three years of my life in prison," Kelley said, after he was released on bond in a 2017 video. "Patricia, if you're watching this, I want to let you know I trusted you. I thought you cared about me as much as I cared about you. I believe that you worked your investigation around the person that really did this."

Kelly was referring to Jonathan McCarty, a former friend of Kelley's. Jonathan's mother, Shama McCarty, was the owner of the day care where the sexual assault of the four-year-old child took place.

But even after a judge found that Cumming's representation of Kelley was deficient, and let her former client out to jail, Cummings stayed on the attack. Not only did she refuse to admit her errors, but she devoted her efforts to attacking Kelley and his new lawyer.

In a response to the court, Cummings described the judge's finding that her representation of Kelly was deficient as a "strange and alarming procedure . . . designed to hide from the public and press what is actually happening in this case."

In response to Cummings, Keith S. Hampton, Kelley's appeals lawyer, told the Austin American-Statesman, "She's as wrong on the law now as she was back then."

In a Dec. 12, 2017 memorandum, Hampton argued that Kelley should get out of jail because he had been deprived of his right to effective assistance of counsel. Cummings, Hampton wrote, not only advised Kelley to take a plea bargain and waive his rights to appeal, but she also hid a conflict of interest.

Cummings & Kelley in court

Beginning in 2005, Cummings had represented a former client, Nimesh Dissanayaka, who was charged with indecency with a child. He was a half-brother of Jonathan McCarty, and the son of Shama McCarty. Cummings had also represented Dissanyaka's brother, Dinusha, who was also Shama McCarty's son and Jonathan McCarty's half-brother.

According to Marjorie Bachman, Cummings co-counsel in the Kelley case, Cummings prior relationship to the McCarty family posed a "NASCAR-sized red flag" when it came to defending Greg Kelley.

Kelley's appeals lawyer agreed.

"She could not protect her former client's interests without abandoning Greg Kelley's interests," Hampton wrote. "Her loyalty to Greg Kelley was diluted by her continuing duty to her former client," wrote Hampton, who argued that Cummings was "effectively the McCarty family attorney."

Cummings, however, had told the court that she didn't think she really had a conflict of interest because she had never represented Jonathan McCarty.

But Jonathan McCarty's "face bore a striking resemblance" to Kelly's, Hampton wrote. And Cummings' loyalty to the McCarty family blinded her to the possibility that Jonathan McCarty might have been the real child sex abuser.

Evidence in the case did point to Jonathan McCarty.

The victim, who was four-year old at the time of the assault, said he was attacked at the daycare in Shama McCarty's home by an assailant who wore SpongeBob pajama pants.

Greg Kelley didn't own a pair of those pajama pants but Jonathan McCarty did. Greg Kelley didn't collect child porn but Jonathan McCarty did. He had it stashed on his home computer and cellphone. On social media he had also posted a photo of a dancing seven year old girl with the caption, "My dream boat."

Jonathan McCarty also had been accused  by four different women of sexually assault after they had been drugged. In 2019, he was sentenced to four years in jail for drug possession.

It was Hampton's position that Cummings had "doomed" her client by talking him into waiving his rights to appeal and accepting a 25-year jail sentence. But Cummings claimed the decision to waive the right to appeal was made by her client.

Cummings also had claimed in an affidavit that she had "talked extensively" to Kelley about the ramifications of waiving his right to appeal, Kelley, however, testified that he had no such recollection of discussing that issue with his lawyer.

Kelley recalled that Cummings told him he had a proposed plea bargain deal on the table for 25 years in jail. And he said if he didn't take it, Cummings told him the judge could sentence him to anywhere between 25 and 99 years in jail.

When Kelley asked Cummings what his chances were on appeal, according to Kelley's testimony, she replied, "I don't know, I can't say."

Co-counsel Marjorie Bachman was asked in court about whether Cummings had talked extensively to Kelley about the ramifications of waiving his right to appeal.

"Not true," she replied.

In court, Cummings continued to deny that she had done anything wrong in her representation of Kelley. But her client had a different recollection.

Kelley testified that after the guilty verdict, he tried to comfort a visibly distraught Cummings by telling her "You know what, Patricia, you did what you could do."

"And that's where she kind of just broke down crying, and told me . . . 'Don't say that,'" he testified.

In a Jan. 17, 2018 reply brief, Hampton, Kelley's appeals lawyer, ripped Cummings for "her self-absorption, deserved embarrassment and ruthless efforts to exonerate herself from her professional failures by effectively prosecuting her former client." She also personally attacked Hampton, the prosecutors in the case, as well as the judge, Hampton wrote.

In a ruling filed Dec. 19, 2017, Donna King, the presiding judge of Williamson County, Texas, wrote that Cummings "had represented multiple members of the McCarty household as far back as 2005," for a half-dozen cases that included public lewdness, indecent exposure, a juvenile sex crime, and aggravated robbery.

"The court concludes that [Cummings] labored under a conflict of interest in her representation of [Kelley] due to the fact that she had previously represented members of the McCarty family . . . [and] her long longstanding friendship with and loyalty to members of the McCarty family," the judge wrote.

In addition to Cummings' conflict of interest, newly discovered evidence showed that Kelley had moved out of the McCarty home, where he had been staying temporarily, the day before the sexual assault.

And the day of the sexual assault, Kelley's phone records show, he was helping his brother move.

Kelley's conviction was overturned in 2019 and the county prosecutor announced he had no plans to move forward with the case. Kelley, then 24, said he was going back to school at the University of Texas, and hoped to resume his football career.

He also announced plans to marry Gaebri Anderson, his high school sweetheart who had stuck by him while he was in jail. The couple got married this past January.

Meanwhile, the Showtime series is scheduled to air this June. Cummings, according to Hampton, declined to be interviewed for the series.

"But they do have prior footage of her," Hampton said, adding, "She does not look good."

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

When it comes to prosecuting gun crimes in Philadelphia, District Attorney Larry Krasner presides over a revolving door for criminals that puts them right back out on the street again, so they can wreak more havoc.

In July of 2019, court records show, the D.A.'s office prosecuted 236 gun cases. And as of March 16th, the last day the courts in Philadelphia were open, records show, 66 cases, or nearly 28 percent, had either been dropped, dismissed or lost by the D.A.'s office.

If you get arrested for illegally carrying guns in the city, your chances of walking are almost twice as good as getting convicted. Of those 236 cases stemming from July 2019, as of March 16th, only 37 defendants, or 15.6%, were found guilty. And all 37 of those cases were the result of plea bargains that for the criminals, turned out to be deals just too good to pass up.

Why? Because defendants who pleaded guilty to gun crimes typically were either put on probation and walked immediately. Or they pleaded guilty in order to get a sentence well below state sentencing guidelines for gun crimes.

And if you're one of those rare defendants in a gun case who has to go to trial, your chances of walking are still good. Why? Because out of the 236 gun cases from July of 2019, only 2 cases ever made it to trial. And the D.A.'s office lost both cases.

Photo Credit: Mark Allen Johnson/Zumapress.com

How about that for a record of futility?

Out of a total of 236 gun cases from July 2019 that were prosecuted by the D.A.'s office under Larry Krasner, not a single defendant to date has been convicted by a judge or a jury of being guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
The futility of the Philly D.A.'s office in prosecuting gun cases has happened by design. Three big reasons explain why Larry Krasner operates that revolving door for suspects accused of gun crimes.

The Three Big Reasons For The Revolving Door

Reason No. 1: the D.A.'s Progressive polices. D.A. Krasner, who opposes cash bail, presides over an office that sets low bail for most cases, bail that for dangerous, armed drug dealers amounts to chump change.

And D.A. Krasner, who opposes "mass incarceration," also has a standard office policy of giving criminals minimum sentences that are always well below the state's legal guidelines.

Any requests for substantial jail time in the Progressive office of D.A. Krasner have to be approved by a supervisor. And any substantial jail time for a crime of violence, such as murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault or gun charges, has to be personally approved by either Krasner or his first assistant.

The second factor behind the revolving door: the general incompetence of the D.A.'s office under Krasner.

Krasner, a career gadfly of a defense lawyer who dedicated himself to radical left-wing causes, has zero experience as a prosecutor. His first action when he took over the D.A.'s office was to fire his 31 most senior prosecutors. He promptly hired 60 rookie prosecutors, 18 of whom couldn't even pass the bar exam.

The incompetence of the D.A.'s office under Krasner can be seen at every level of the criminal justice process. It starts when Krasner's prosecutors try to convince a judge at a preliminary hearing to hold a defendant over for trial. And it ends when Krasner's prosecutors go to court to try cases and lose.

The third factor behind the D.A.'s revolving door for gun crimes is the subversive war being waged  against cops from inside the criminal justice system. As a defense lawyer, Krasner sued the Philadelphia Police Department 75 times. In his Progressive D.A.'s office, he has continued his war on cops in an internal campaign led by Assistant District Attorney Patricia Cummings, head of the D.A.'s Conviction Integrity Unit.

Photo Credit: Mark Allen Johnson/Zumapress.com

Cummings, who has serious integrity issues of her own, has sent out hundreds of letters to cops on Krasner's behalf informing them that they have been placed on the "do not testify" list, meaning the D.A.'s office will not call them as witnesses in any case.

Cummings has also sent out hundreds more letters formally notifying cops that certain damaging information from their personnel files, no matter how old, is about to be voluntarily turned over by the D.A.'s office to defense lawyers.

In other words, every month, the D.A.'s office is hard at work seeking to either disqualify or damage the credibility of more cops as witnesses in court, so the D.A.'s office can drop, dismiss or lose even more cases.

A Variety Of Offenses

The 236 gun cases from July 2019 were for a variety of offenses.

Of the 236 cases, 166 involved the illegal possession of a firearm. Of those 166 cases, 99 defendants, or 42%, were criminals barred from possessing firearms because they had prior convictions for serious felonies.

Of the 236 cases, 68 defendants, or 29%, were accused of using a gun during the commission of a felony, such as a shooting, attempted murder, robbery or kidnapping.

The D.A.'s Pathetic Record At Preliminary Hearings
At preliminary hearings, a judge has to decide whether a defendant already in custody after an arrest for an alleged gun crime should be held over for court to face charges.

Of the 236 cases from July 2019 that went to preliminary hearings:

-- 13 cases were dismissed outright by judges for lack of evidence.
-- In 3 cases the judge either threw out the gun charges against the defendant because of a lack of evidence, or the gun charges were withdrawn by the prosecutor.
-- 20 cases were dismissed by judges due to a lack of prosecution.
-- 23 cases were voluntarily withdrawn by the D.A.'s office due to prosecutorial discretion.

To sum up, the cases withdrawn and completely over after the preliminary hearing stage of the criminal justice process amounted to 56. Three more defendants went to trial on other charges, but the gun charges against them were dismissed.

The D.A.'s Pathetic Record At Sentencing

As of March 16th, 54 cases from those July 2019 gun arrests were disposed of. Here are the dispositions:

-- 2 defendants arrested by the cops for allegedly committing gunpoint robberies were sent by the D.A.'s office back to juvenile court, rather than being prosecuted as adults.
-- 5 defendants were sent to diversionary programs where they would receive counseling rather than jail time.
-- 5 cases were dropped by the D.A.'s office due to prosecutorial discretion.
-- 2 cases were dismisssed by judges due to lack of prosecution.
-- 1 case was abated because the defendant, Enrique Hernandez, 37, was shot to death on Sept. 8, 2019.
-- 14 defendants negotiated a guilty plea.
-- 23 defendants agreed to plead guilty, but no deal was struck on a sentence.
-- 2 defendants went to trial and were found not guilty.

Of the 14 defendants who negotiated guilty pleas that included agreed-upon sentences:

-- 7 defendants were sentenced to probation, meaning they didn't have to serve a day in jail.
-- 7 defendants were sentenced to jail; but five of the 7 were granted immediate release or early parole by the D.A.'s office on the day they signed their plea bargain, regardless of whether the defendants had months left to serve on their jail sentences.

Of the 23 defendants who pleaded guilty but the plea bargain didn't include an agreement on a sentence, as of March 16th, only 9 of these defendants had been sentenced.

Three of those defendants who pleaded guilty got state sentences because they had prior convictions.

The 3 state sentences:

-- 3 to 6  years in jail for a felon who was barred from possessing a firearm, and also had prior convictions for aggravated assault on a cop, and possession of an unlicensed firearm.
-- 2 1/2 to 5 years in jail for a gunpoint robbery with two victims.
-- 3 1/2 to 7 years in jail for two separate gunpoint robberies.

Of the remaining six defendants:

-- 5 defendants got 11 1/2 to 23-month sentences; but 4 of those 5 got immediate parole.
-- 1 defendant was sentenced to no further penalty, meaning he left court without having to do any jail time or go on probation.

To sum up, of the 23 defendants who agreed to a plea bargain and have been sentenced as of March 16th, 17, or 74%, immediately walked and didn't have to serve another day in jail.

Keep in mind that all of these sentences handed out under plea bargains were way below state sentencing guidelines for gun crimes that call for maximum sentences of:

-- 5 years for conviction of a first-degree misdemeanor.
-- 7 years for a third-degree felony.
-- 20 years for a first-degree felony, which usually involves using a gun in the commission of a shooting, kidnaping, murder, rape or robbery.

So you see everybody accused of a gun crime gets a break from their Uncle Larry.

A prime example of the weak sentences handed out by the D.A.'s office is Eric Beverly, 21, of Frankford. He was arrested on July 7, 2019 for attempted murder after he tried to shoot another person to death. The eight charges filed against Beverly included attempted murder, aggravated assault, simple assault, reckless endangerment, and four firearms charges.

Beverly had a prior conviction for a gunpoint robbery. In 2018, he was sentenced to 3 to 6 years in jail and 5 years probation after he pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, robbery with intent to commit serious injury, conspiracy, theft, assault, and possession of an instrument of crime.

So what did the D.A.'s office do when it came to arranging a plea bargain for Beverly's arrest in July 2019, when he tried to shoot somebody to death?

On Jan. 7th of this year, the district attorney allowed Beverly to enter a negotiated guilty plea to a single gun charge, possession of firearms. As part of his plea bargain, the D.A.'s office dropped the other seven charges, including attempted murder and aggravated assault.

Beverly was sentenced to time served, 23 months, plus two years of probation. But the plea bargain arranged by the D.A. called for running Beverly's new sentence for possession of firearms concurrent with his old sentence on the 2018 gunpoint robbery. So Beverly wound up not having to suffer any additional penalty for his most recent crime -- when he tried to murder somebody with a gun.

The Poster Boy For The Guns Of July

But if you're looking for a poster boy for Krasner's permissive policies stemming from the arrests of July 2019, it would have to be Franciso Ortiz, 29, of Northeast Philadelphia.

On July 13, 2019, police arrested Ortiz and charged him with carrying an unlicensed firearm, possession of a prohibited fireman, and carrying a firearm in public.

Bail was set that same day at $100,000. It was a relatively low amount considering Ortiz had twice pleaded guilty in 2009 for two different arrests on illegal gun charges, for which he served a total of 10 years in prison before being released in April 2019.

But on July 30, 2019, Ortiz's lawyer made a motion to lower his bail to $50,000, and the D.A.'s office went along with it. So on July 30, 2019, after putting up 10 percent of that bail, or $5,000, Ortiz walked out of jail and promptly embarked on a bloody spree of drug-related shootings.

On Sept. 18th, police say, Ortiz shot a 22-year-old man to death who was outside his home while his girlfriend and child were inside.

On Oct. 19th, police said, Ortiz opened fire on another man driving through the Hunting Park section of the city. The victim  responded, police said, by allegedly using his child as a human shield.

Ortiz shot 11-month-old Yazeem Jenkins four times, including once in the head and once in the chest. If the child survives, doctors said, he'll be a quadriplegic.

Less than 24 hours later, according to police, Ortiz supplied an AK-47 assault rifle that was used by two other men in another drug-related shoot-out that resulted in the murder of a two-year-old girl in her mother's living room. The mother, who was holding her baby in her arms, was shot in the head and back.

Ortiz is now being held without bail on three open cases containing some 39 charges that include murder, attempted murder, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, plus numerous weapons offenses.

The Revolving Door Is Why The Mayor And Police Commissioner Have Turned On Krasner

Krasner's pathetic record on prosecuting gun crimes is why our normally wimpy mayor and his brand new, seldom-seen police commissioner have publicly turned on the D.A.

At a March 31st, at a joint press conference, Mayor Jim Kenney said,  "We are calling on the district attorney to vigorously enforce all firearms charges during this time of crisis. It is imperative that he [Krasner] send a clear message that gun violence will not be taken lightly."

"There needs to be some consequences for carrying an illegal gun in Philadelphia," the mayor concluded. "If you're carrying a gun illegally you need to be locked up and kept there."

"There has to be teeth, there has to be consequences" to illegally carrying a gun in the city, echoed Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw. "We can't see a revolving door."

But under Larry Krasner, that's exactly what we have.

Repeat Offenders
Of those 236 gun cases from July 2019, five defendants were arrested twice. So that means out of the 236 cases there were a total of 231 defendants.

Of the 231 defendants, 45, or 19.5%, had open cases during the prior 12 months. And at least 35 defendants, or 15%, were arrested again after their July arrests. That's a total recidivism rate, past and future, of at least 34.6%.

Photo credit: Street Photographer Boogie

The number of 45 defendants who were arrested in the last 12 months, however, is probably higher, as the D.A.'s office has been marking many prior cases as "Limited Access," meaning the press and public can't see them.

For example, on July 18, 2019, the police arrested Kenneth Saunders, 43, of North Philadelphia and charged him with possession of a firearm, aggravated assault, firearms not to be carried without a license, carrying firearms in public, simple assault, and reckless endangerment.

Saunders had a prior record. In 2005, he was found guilty of carrying firearms without a license, carrying firearms in a public place, endangering the welfare of children, and reckless endangerment. He was sentenced to 11 1/2 to 23 months in jail plus three years probation.

In 2010, he pleaded guilty to manufacture, delivery and possession with intent to manufacture or deliver, and was sentenced to 24 months of probation. In 2013, he was found in contempt of court and sentenced to five to 10 days in jail.

In 2015, he was pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm, carrying a firearm without a license, and was sentenced to 4 to 10 years in jail and seven years probation.

But on Nov. 4, 2019, all six charges filed against Saunders for his most recent July 2019 arrest were withdrawn and are now marked "LA Case" for limited access, meaning the press and public can't see them.

It's amazing all the favors Uncle Larry does for criminals.

Krasner's Defense Of His Record: The Earth Is Flat

In the grand tradition of figures don't lie but liars can figure, Krasner has a history of inventing his own statistics to back his arguments that the earth is flat.

At a virtual press conference on April 17th, held without reporters, either in person or on Zoom, Krasner came up with his own freshly-baked crime stats in an attempt to show that the crime rate was going down, rather than up.

To get there, he compared the crime rate of the city on pandemic lockdown for one week this April to the crime rate of the city on an alleged week averaged over the past three years.

This was at a time when police statistics on major crimes committed so far this year, such as homicide, armed robbery, aggravated assault with a firearm, commercial burglaries and shooting incidents, were all arrows on a graph pointing straight up when compared with the crime rates of the previous year.

But Krasner has his own stats, and apparently he only believes what his stats say.

It's called inventing your own reality. And it  helps if you can find somebody dumb enough to run with it.

Fortunately for Krasner, he works in a town where the alleged newspaper of record shares his enlightened views on how to remake society into a Progressive Utopia.

Useful Idiots At The Inquirer

A great example of this synergy happened on June 18, 2019, just a couple of weeks before the gun arrests of July 2019 took place. On that day, D.A. Krasner sat down with gullible reporters from his favorite newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and tried to explain why his radical policies had nothing to do with the escalating crime rate.

As the Inquirer dutifully reported at the time, the interview with Krasner was conducted after yet another weekend of violent crime in Philadelphia. The Krasner interview was also done to rebut Richard Ross, the police commissioner at the time, who had publicly stated that there was a perception among criminals that if they were caught in Philadelphia carrying illegal firearms, they would suffer no consequences.

If that criticism sounds familiar, it's the same charge that Mayor Kenney and the new police commissioner made last month against Krasner.

But back on June 18, 2019, Krasner defended himself by making the argument to the useful idiots at the Inquirer that his administration had approved for prosecution more than 98% of gun cases in 2018. And that his prosecution rate on gun crimes was so much better than the 97% percent rate of prosecution rate for guns crimes that was posted by the D.A.'s office in 2017 under R. Seth Williams.

Hey Mr. D.A., what does it matter if your office approves 98 percent of gun cases for prosecution, but it's so permissive and incompetent that only 15.6 percent get convicted? And they all walk immediately, or get sweetheart deals way below the sentencing guidelines?

That's just what happened regarding the 236 gun crimes that the D.A.'s office allegedly prosecuted from July of 2019. The cops made the arrests but the D.A. let the criminals out the back door.

What's the response of the D.A.'s office to the statistics in this story?

As usual, both "Stonewall" Krasner and Jane "The Mute" Roh, his alleged spokesperson, along with Patricia 'Integrity Challenged" Cummings, did not respond to a request for comment.

Only a fool -- or a Progressive reporter at the Inquirer -- would believe any of Krasner's ridiculous arguments and bogus stats about the crime rate not going up, and the great job his office is doing of prosecuting gun crimes.

Photo Credit: Andrew Kramer/KYW News Radio

But that's exactly what the useful idiots at the Inquirer continue to do.

On April 24th, under the bylines of three reporters, the Inquirer ran a story with the headline "Even a pandemic can't slow Philly's gun violence."

In the story, the Inky reported that since the mayor had shutdown the city, "at least 135 people have been shot -- an average of more than four a day -- often in neighborhoods long plagued by gun violence."

The story went on for more than 40 paragraphs, recounting the circumstances behind one recent shooting after another. But at any point in that long story did the Inky hold the D.A. accountable?

Nope. In that long story, the Inquirer devoted just one he-said, she-said paragraph to the question of whether  the D.A.'s office was responsible for the escalating gun violence in the city:

"The violence in Philadelphia has reignited a simmering tension between the police and District Attorney Larry Krasner. Last month, Kenney and Commissioner Danielle Outlaw faulted Krasner's office for not aggressively prosecuting suspected gun offenders -- a charge Krasner has called inaccurate and unnecessarily divisive."

Nothing to see here folks. Whether the D.A.'s office is responsible for escalating gun violence is just a political debate. And hey, while people are shooting and killing each other out on the streets, and kids are getting caught in the crossfire, we wouldn't want to be unnecessarily divisive.

Apparently, the card-carrying Progressives at the Inquirer can't bring themselves to tell the citizens of Philadelphia that the Progressive policies of District Attorney Krasner have been a bloody disaster.

Krasner, a blind ideologue, is headed over a cliff, but sadly, he's taking the city along with him.

If you're going to continually let criminals walk on gun charges, armed and dangerous drug dealers will continue to shoot in out on the streets.

There will be more deaths, more people wounded, and more babies and children caught in the crossfire. And more handwringing by the mayor and police commissioner.

Meanwhile, the Inquirer will keep quiet about it because they've got Progressive Larry's back.

To prop up Krasner, the Inquirer has broken every journalistic rule in the book. As they repeatedly fail the public by refusing to report the obvious facts that would show the D.A.'s raw culpability for the daily carnage out on the streets.

sBy Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Twenty-two years ago, John Ruane was a cop patrolling the North Philly Badlands when he interrupted a turf battle between rival drug dealers.

"We drove right into the middle of an execution in progress," recalled Ruane, now a trustee at the FOP. Four drug dealers were in the process of dispatching a rival drug dealer. But when the cops showed up, Ruane said, "the four shooters turned their guns toward us."

Bullets struck the Ford Bronco that Ruane and two fellow cops were riding in. Ruane saw a bullet hole in the window of the Bronco at eye level; another 9 mm round caught the bottom edge of the back of Ruane's police vest. It was another case of being saved by Kevlar, the bulletproof plastic in police vests. The distance between the bullet hole and the edge of the vest was about the size of a thumb.

The drug dealer who shot Ruane, Alberto "Hawk" Pagan, wound up getting sentenced to jail in 1999 for 22 to 44 years for the attempted murder of a police officer, as well as other charges.

Imagine Ruane's surprise when he heard from fellow cops that halfway through his prison term, Pagan was not only back on the streets again, but also on Facebook, seeking "to make female friends."

"Thanks D.A. Larry Krasner for NOT letting me know you let out the guy who shot me 22 years ago, out of prison halfway through his 44 year sentence!" Ruane wrote Tuesday night on social media. "Apparently he [Pagan] has been making new friends on FB since his release in November."

According to the state parole locator, the 61-year-old, 5-foot-4, 170-pound Pagan was released on Dec. 3rd, but his newfound freedom lasted only five months.

"Ironically Karma caught up with him last night on Byberry Road in Parkwood where he was shot multiple times and killed," Ruane wrote. "Sorry ladies, he's back off the market again . . . If the politicians won't protect the police, then what chance do the rest of the law abiding citizens have???"

How did Pagan get out of jail 22 years early?

As usual, the district attorney's office isn't talking. District Attorney Larry Krasner and Jane Roh, his spokesperson, did not respond to a request for comment.

Also, the probation department doesn't answer questions about individual cases.

When some criminal gets out of jail early, the D.A.'s office is supposed to notify crime victims like Ruane, but in this case, nobody bothered.

"I was told that was the law," Ruane said about notification of victims, "but it's not enforced."

There wasn't much information available about the circumstances surrounding Pagan's murder. Ruane wondered if Pagan was trying to reclaim his share of the local drug business, now booming, when he was shot to death.

If so, it wasn't anything that Pagan hadn't done to others.

Pagan's career as a drug dealer is described in another case, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Aurelio "June Bug" Ramos. In a 1987 state Supreme Court decision affirming the conviction of Ramos on third-degree murder charges, the court described Alberto "Hawk" Pagan as a rival drug dealer responsible for the execution of Frank Morales, described as a small-time drug dealer from Eighth and Butler.

The murder of Morales, according to trial testimony, was ordered by "Hawk Pagan, a rival drug dealer in the Eighth and Butler area . . . in retaliation for encroaching upon Hawk's territory."

Witnesses at trial said they had heard Pagan previously warn Morales that he would be killed if he was caught selling drugs on Pagan's turf.

When Pagan went to trial, he was convicted on one count of attempted murder, three counts of aggravated assault, three counts of reckless endangerment, along with firearms charges. Ruane remembers the trial judge, the late Lisa Richette, exclaiming from the bench, "Oh my God," when she heard the details about the shootings.

"She was horrified," Ruane remembered.

In 2015, Pagan, representing himself, went to court to protest that his appeal had been turned down under the Post-Conviction Relief Act. Pagan had claimed that his original sentence was illegal. He also claimed that he had newly discovered evidence, a handwritten statement from Maria Caraballo, who claimed she hadn't been notified of Pagan's original trial so that she could have appeared as an alibi witness.

But on Feb. 17, 2015, the state Superior Court determined that Pagan's appeal was without merit. It was only the latest denial in Pagan's appeal process that court records say had been going on without success since 2012.

What happened to change Pagan's legal fortunes? At present, we have no explanation, other than our current D.A., Larry Krasner, never met a criminal he didn't like, or want to do a favor for.

As for Ruane, he said he went on social media earlier this week because he wanted to point out that the D.A. was failing in his duty to protect the citizens.

As for the demise of Hawk Pagan, Ruane said, "We're not crying over it."

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Police yesterday arrested a top advisor in the Philadelphia district attorney's office for allegedly leaving her four-year-old daughter unattended in a parked car.

Cops were on routine patrol on the 200 block of Rittenhouse Street in the Mount Airy section of the city at 3:21 p.m. when they were flagged down by an unknown male who informed them about the child who had been left alone in the back seat of a gray Ford Fusion.

The police made contact with the child, unlocked the car door through an open window and took the child into custody. The victim's mother, identified as Dana Lynn Bazelon, 40, of Center City, returned 34 minutes later with her other six-year-old child.

The mother told police that she went for a walk with her son and didn't want to wake her daughter because she hadn't been sleeping well. Bazelon told the police that she is an employee of the D.A.'s office, as an assistant district attorney. On her Facebook page Bazelon states that she is a "proud Philadelphian" and "criminal justice reformer" who is a "policy advisor" to D.A. Larry Krasner.

Police placed the mother in custody and transported Bazelon and her two children to the Special Victims Unit. The four-year-old was reported by police to be in good condition.

In 2018, Bazelon was credited with drafting a new policy that made it easier for people with criminal records to get those records expunged, except for those charged with domestic abuse.

Bazelon, who has a close personal relationship with Krasner, was said to be under consideration for becoming his chief-of staff with the recent departure of Arun Prabhakaran. He resigned to become executive vice president for the Urban Affairs Coalition.

Police charged Bazelon with endangering the welfare of a child. When it comes to prosecuting the case, Krasner will have to recuse himself, and turn it over to the state Attorney General's office.

Bazelon, who holds a bachelor of arts degree from Amherst, got her law degree from Georgetown University. She is a former law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Michael Baylson, a former Philadelphia public defender and associate at the law firm of Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg LLP in Philadelphia.

Her father is a federal judge, she's got a sister who's a law professor, and another sister who's a staff writer for The New York Times magazine.

A Philadelphia lawyer who knows and works with Bazelon described her as "a very bright, practical, and very committed person" who also happens to be "accessible, modest and reasonable."

"It breaks my heart to see this happen to her," the lawyer said. "This is such a travesty, it's just a nightmare for her. Police have an enormous amount of discretion about whether to charge a case such as this, and there was no reason to charge this case."

If the case is prosecuted, a few lawyers agreed, the most that will happen is that Bazelon will wind up in Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition, or ARD, where she would receive counseling or do community service.

The lawyer added that he wondered if the decision to arrest Bazelon was the cops way of delivering "a gigantic fuck-you to Larry Krasner."

Kathleen McChesney

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Lawyers for Jerry Sandusky have filed a motion for a new trial based on newly discovered evidence that documents rampant collusion between the criminal investigation of the Penn State sex scandal conducted by the state attorney general's office and the supposedly independent $8 million civil investigation of PSU presided over by former FBI Director Louis Freeh.

Throughout the Freeh investigation, which was the legal basis for the NCAA's unprecedented sanctions imposed against Penn State that included a record $60 million fine, there were "substantial communications" between the AG's office and Freeh's investigators, the motion states. Those communications included a steady stream of leaks to Freeh's investigators emanating from the supposedly secret grand jury probe overseen by former Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina, a noted bad actor in this case.

The collusion and leaks between the AG's office and the Freeh Group are documented in three sets of confidential records filed under seal by Sandusky's lawyers; all those records, however, were previously disclosed on Big Trial. The records include a private 79-page diary kept by former FBI Special Agent Kathleen McChesney, the co-leader of the Freeh investigation, in 2011 and 2012; a seven-page "Executive Summary of Findings" of a 2017 confidential review of the Freeh Report conducted by seven Penn State trustees; and a 25-page synopsis of the evidence gleaned by the trustees in 2017 after a review of the so-called "source materials" for the Freeh Report still under judicial seal.

In documents filed Saturday in state Superior Court, Sandusky's lawyers argued in their motion for a new trial that the collusion that existed between the AG and Freeh amounted to a "de facto joint investigation" that not only violated state law regarding grand jury secrecy, but also tainted one of the jurors who convicted Sandusky.

Juror 0990

According to the motion for a new trial, "Juror 0990" was a Penn State employee who was interviewed by Freeh's investigators before she was sworn in as a juror at the Sandusky trial.

"At no time during this colloquy, or any other time, did the prosecution disclose that it was working in collaboration with the Freeh Group which interviewed the witness," lawyers Philip Lauer and Alexander Lindsay Jr. argue in the 31-page motion filed on Sandusky's behalf.

At jury selection, Joseph Amendola, Sandusky's trial lawyer, had no knowledge "about the degree of collaboration" ongoing between the AG's office and Freeh investigators, Sandusky's appeal lawyers wrote. Had he known, Amendola stated in an affidavit quoted in the motion for a new trial, Amendola would have "very likely stricken her for cause, or at a minimum, used one of my preemptory strikes to remove her as a potential juror."

Had he known the AG and Freeh Group were working in tandem, Amendola stated in an affidavit, he would have also quizzed all other potential jurors about any interaction with investigators from the Freeh Group. And he "would have sought discovery of all materials and statements obtained by the Freeh Group regarding the Penn State/Sandusky investigation."

Coercive Tactics By Freeh's Investigators

In their motion for a new trial, Sandusky's lawyers describe the hardball tactics employed by Freeh's investigators as detailed in a seven-page June 29, 2018 report from the Penn State trustees who investigated the so-called source materials for the Freeh Report. In their report, seven trustees state that "multiple individuals have approached us privately to tell us they were subjected to coercive tactics when interviewed by Freeh's investigators."

"Investigators shouted, were insulting, and demanded that interviewees give them specific information," the seven trustees wrote, such as, "Tell me that Joe Paterno knew Sandusky was abusing kids!"

"Some interviewees were told they could not leave until they provided what the interviewers wanted, even when interviewees protested that this would require them to lie," the trustees wrote. Some individuals were called back by Freeh's investigators for multiple interviews, where the same questions were repeated, and the interviewees were told they were being "uncooperative for refusing to untruthfully agree with interviewers' statements."

"Those employed by university were told their cooperation was a requirement for keeping their jobs," the trustees wrote. And that being labeled "uncooperative" by Freeh's investigators was "perceived as a threat against their employment."

Indeed, the trustees wrote, "one individual indicated that he was fired for failing to tell the interviewers what they wanted to hear."

"Coaches are scared of their jobs," the trustees quoted another interviewee as saying.

"Presumably," Sandusky's lawyers wrote, as a Penn State employee, "Juror number 0990 was subject to this type of coercion."

Sandusky's Lawyers Seek To Depose Freeh, Fina

In their motion for a new trial, Sandusky's lawyers ask the Superior Court for permission to conduct an evidentiary hearing so that Sandusky's lawyers could learn the depth of the collaboration that existed between the AG's office and Freeh's investigators.

At that evidentiary hearing, Sandusky's lawyers wrote, they would seek to depose Freeh, McChesney, and other Freeh investigators that include Gregory Paw and Omar McNeil. Sandusky's lawyers also seek to interview former deputy attorney generals Frank Fina, Jonelle Eshbach and Joseph McGettigan, as well as former AG agents Anthony Sassano and Randy Feathers.

According to the motion, the communications on the part of the AG's office "appear to have included information, and even testimony, from the special investigating grand jury then in session, which communications would be in direct violation of grand jury secrecy rules, and would subject the participants in the Attorney General's office to sanctions."

Sandusky's lawyers are also seeking disclosure of all of the so-called source materials for the Freeh Report. Those records, as previously mentioned, are still under seal in the ongoing cover-up of the scandal behind the Penn State scandal, as led by the stonewalling majority on the Penn State board of trustees.

Sandusky, 75, was re-sentenced on appeal last November to serve 30 to 60 years in prison for sexually abusing ten boys, the same sentence he originally got after he was convicted in 2012 on 45 counts of sex abuse.

According to a Dec. 2, 2011, letter of engagement, Freeh was formally hired by Penn State to "perform an independent, full and complete investigation of the recently publicized allegation of sexual abuse."

But instead of an independent investigation, the confidential documents show that the AG's office was  hopelessly intertwined with the AG's criminal investigation, tainting both probes. According to the confidential documents, the AG's office was supplying secret grand jury transcripts and information to Freeh's investigators, along with trading information on common witnesses and collaborating on strategy.

The records also show that former deputy Attorney General Fina was in effect directing the Freeh Group's investigation by telling Freeh's investigators which witnesses they could interview, and when. In return, Freeh's investigators shared what they were learning during their investigation with Fina. And when they were done, Freeh's investigators showed the deputy AG their report before it was made public.

The Pennsylvania Railroad

In their motion for a new trial, Sandusky's lawyers argue that their client's constitutional rights were trampled under the mad rush to save Penn State's storied football program from the NCAA's threat to impose the "death penalty" on the Nittany Lions.

To save Penn State football, the NCAA and Penn State's trustees had worked out a consent decree with voluntary sanctions. The consent decree, which called for the university's unconditional surrender,   required that two things happen by the opening of the 2012 college football season to save Penn State football: Jerry Sandusky had to be convicted and the Freeh Report needed to be released.

Sandusky was indicted by a grand jury on Nov. 5, 2011, the details of which were leaked to reporter Sara Ganim of the Patriot-News of Harrisburg.

On Nov. 21, 2011, Penn Stated agreed to hire Freeh.

The railroad was running right on schedule. And Judge John Cleland, who presided over Sandusky's trial, demonstrated time and time again that he was willing to sacrifice Sandusky's constitutional rights to keep the trains running on time.

On Dec. 12, 2011, an off-the-record meeting was held at the Hilton Garden Inn at State College, attended by the trial judge, John Cleland, the prosecutors, the defense lawyers, and a district magistrate judge. At the off-the-record hotel meeting, Sandusky's lawyers agreed to waive a preliminary hearing where they would have had their only pre-trial chance to question the eight alleged victims who would testify at trial against Sandusky.

For any defense lawyer, this unusual conference led to a decision that was akin to slitting your own throat. But the defense lawyers were completely overwhelmed by the task of defending their client against ten different accusers, while confined to a blitzkrieg trial schedule.

On Feb. 29, 2012, Amendola sought a two-month delay for the trial that was denied by Judge Cleland.

On the eve of the Sandusky trial, Amendola and his co-counsel, Karl Rominger, made a motion to withdraw as Sandusky's lawyers because, as Amendola told the judge,  "We are not prepared to go to trial at this time."

The motion was denied.

In an affidavit, Amendola stated that "no attorney could have effectively represented Mr. Sandusky" given the "time constraints" imposed by Judge Cleland. Amendola stated that in the days and weeks before the Sandusky trial, he was hit with "more than 12,000 pages of discovery."

Those time constraints, Amendola stated, kept two expert forensic psychologists from participating in Sandusky's defense, which would have included reviewing the discovery in the case.

But under Judge Cleland, the Pennsylvania Railroad that Jerry Sandusky was riding on had to stay on schedule. And everybody knew it, including the prosecutors in the AG's office, as well as Freeh's investigators.

In the McChesney diary, on May 10, 2012, she noted in a conference call with Gregory Paw and Omar McNeil, two of Freeh's investigators, that Paw is going to talk to Fina, and that the "judge [is] holding firm on date of trial."

In his affidavit, Amendola, Sandusky's trial lawyer, states that McChesney didn't receive this information from him.

"An obvious question arises as to whether or not the trial judge was communicating with a member of the Freeh Group, attorneys for the attorney general's office, or anyone else concerning the trial date," Sandusky's appeal lawyers wrote.

In their motion for a new trial, Sandusky's lawyers seek to question Judge Cleland at an evidentiary hearing "to determine whether, and to what extent, collusion between the office of the attorney general, the Freeh investigation and the NCAA had an impact on the trial."

And "whether, as a result, defendant's right to a fair trial, and the effective assistance of his counsel, were negatively affected or compromised."

Meanwhile, the trains were running on time.
On June 22, 2012, Sandusky was found guilty.

On July 12, 2012, the Freeh report was issued.

On July 23, 2012, NCAA President Mark Emmert and PSU President Rodney Erickson signed a consent decree that imposed sanctions on PSU football program.

Less than two weeks later, on Aug. 6, 2012, the Penn State football team, under new coach Bill O'Brien, gathered at the practice field at University Park for the official start of training camp.

On Sept. 1, l2012, the Nittany Lions played Ohio University at Beaver Stadium in the season opener, lost 24-14, en route to a 8-4 season.

So Penn State saved its football program at the expense of Jerry Sandusky's constitutional rights.

Frank Fina: Leaker, Bad Actor

In their motion for a new trial, Sandusky's lawyers cite a history of leaks on grand jury investigations that Fina was the lead prosecutor on.

It began with a partial grand jury transcript in the bonus gate investigation that was leaked to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 209.

Next, the indictment of Sandusky was leaked to Sara Ganim in 2011.

Finally, the names of four state legislators who allegedly took bribes from Tyron Ali during an undercover operation -- and the amount of money and gifts that they took -- was leaked to The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2014.

According to Sandusky's lawyers, "this form of prosecutorial misconduct" -- leaking -- had become "entrenched and flagrant" in the AG's office. Especially when Frank Fina was in charge of a grand jury investigation.

Fina has previously been disciplined for his overzealous and unprincipled actions in the Penn State investigation.

In February, the state Supreme Court in a 5-1 decision suspended Fina's law license for a year and a day after the state's office of disciplinary counsel found that Fina had improperly obtained grand jury testimony against three former Penn State officials from their own lawyer.

Fina had threatened to indict former Penn State General Counsel Cynthia Baldwin, unless she became a cooperator in the grand jury against her own clients. To pull that off, the disciplinary board found, Fina had to deceive a grand jury judge about his true intentions when he interviewed Baldwin before the grand jury. And he had to browbeat Baldwin to the point where she was willing to betray the attorney-client privilege by testifying against her clients.

For her misconduct in the grand jury investigation of Penn State, the state Supreme Court gave Baldwin, a former state Supreme Court justice, a public reprimand.

McChesney's Diary

McChesney's diary is replete with constant, ongoing communication between Freeh's investigators and the AG's office while bptj investigations were up and running.

For example, in her diary McChesney makes reference to a 1998 police report that the Freeh team should not have had access to. The report was an investigation into the first incident involving Sandusky showering with a child, but the investigation had cleared Sandusky of any wrongdoing.

In her diary, McChesney doesn't mention how the Freeh Group obtained that police report, but three lines later, McChesney wrote: "Records - IT: Team working with Atty general, will receive in stages."

McChesney's diary portrayed Fina as not only leaking grand jury secrets to the Freeh Group, but also being actively involved in directing the Freeh Group's investigation, to the point of saying if and when they could interview certain witnesses.

McChesney recorded that the Freeh Group was going to notify Fina that they wanted to interview Ronald Schreffler, the investigator from Penn State Police who probed the 1998 shower incident. After he was notified, McChesney wrote, "Fina approved interview with Schreffler."

According to McChesney, members of the Freeh Group "don't want to interfere with their investigations," and that she and her colleagues were being "extremely cautious & running certain interviews by them."

McChesney wrote that the Freeh Group even "asked [Deputy Attorney General Frank] Fina to authorize some interviews." And that the AG's office "asked us to stay away from some people, ex janitors, but can interview" people from the Second Mile, Sandusky's charity.
In her diary, McChesney speculated about the need to have somebody "handle, organize, channel data" from the attorney general's office. GP, she wrote, presumably, Greg Paw, discussed "Piggyback on AG investigation re: docs."

In her diary, McChesney is also extremely knowledgable about what the AG was up to during its supposedly secret grand jury investigation of Penn State. She described the "AG's strategies: may go to new coach to read riot act to [Penn State Associate Athletic Director Fran] Ganter et al."

On March 7, 2012, McChesney wrote that the Freeh Group continued to be in "close communications with AG and USA," as in the U. S. Attorney.

On March 30, 2012, Greg Paw related to McChesney what he learned during a call with Frank Fina. Fina, according to Paw, was "relooking at [Penn State President Graham] Spanier," and that Fina was "not happy with University & cooperation but happy to have 2001 email."

She also knew that the grand jury judge was "not happy with" Penn State Counsel Cynthia Baldwin," specifically "what she [Baldwin] said about representing the university."

In the grand jury proceedings, Baldwin asserted that she had represented the university, and not Penn State President Graham Spanier, Athletic Director Tim Curley, and Penn State Vice-President Gary Schultz. Apparently, the grand jury judge had a problem with that, McChesney wrote.

Freeh's investigators also interviewed Baldwin on several occasions.

Baldwin's grand jury testimony was described by McChesney in her diary as "inconsistent statements." McChesney also noted that "we are getting" copies "of the transcripts."

And the grand jury transcripts on Baldwin weren't the only documents the AG's office was sharing with Freeh's investigators. On April 2, 2012, McChesney recorded being notified by fellow investigator McNeill that "AG documents received re: Curley and Schultz."

In her diary, McChesney continued to log grand jury secrets that not even the defendants in the Penn State case were aware of.

On April 16, 2012, McChesney recorded "next week more grand jury," and that Spanier would be charged. She added that Spanier's lawyer didn't "seem to suspect" that Spanier was going to be arrested. She also recorded that Spanier's lawyer "wants access to his emails," but that Fina did not want Spanier "to see 2001 email chain," where Penn State administrators talked about how to handle Sandusky and his habit of showering with children.
McChesney wrote that the grand jury was meeting on April 25th, and that an indictment of Spanier might come as soon as two days later. She also recorded that Fina "wants to question [people]; then it turns into perjury," which McChesney noted was "not fair to the witness."

More Frank Fina Leaks

On April 19, 2012, Paw "spoke with Fina," and was advised that the deputy attorney general "does not want Spanier or other [defendants] to see documents; next 24 hours are important for case & offered to re-visit over weekend re: sharing documents."

McChesney further recorded that "attys and AG's office staffs are talking & still looking to charge Spanier." Paw, she wrote, was scheduled to meet with Spanier's lawyer tomorrow, and that "Fina said the 4 of them [including Wendell Courtney] are really in the mix." McChesney was presumably referring to Spanier, Curley, Schultz and Courtney, then a Penn State counsel.

The emails from the trio of Penn State administrators, McChesney wrote, would be "released in a [grand jury] presentment and charging documents."

The night before Spanier was arrested, Paw sent an email to his colleagues at the Freeh Group, advising them of the imminent arrest.


Other members of the state attorney general's office were helpful to Freeh's investigators. McChesney wrote that investigator Sasssano divulged that he brought in the son of Penn State trustee Steve Garban because "he had info re [Jerry Sandusky] in shower." The AG's office also interviewed interim Penn State football coach Tom Bradley about his predecessor, Joe Paterno and the 1998 shower incident.

"Bradley was more open & closer to the truth," McChesney wrote, "but still holding back."

On April 26, 2012, McChesney noted in her diary that "police investigators have interviewed 44 janitors, 200+ victims." On May 1, 2012, she wrote that Fina told them that "Spanier brings everyone in on Saturday." Fina also told the Freeh Group that he found out from Joan Coble, Schultz's administrative assistant, and her successor, Kim Belcher, that "there was a Sandusky file," and that it supposedly "was sacrosanct and secret."

McChesney recorded that Fina told the Freeh Group that one of Schultz's administrative assistants "got a call on her way to work on Monday from Schultz." She was told she had to surrender keys, presumably to the locked file. "She's emotional," McChesney wrote. " She may have been sleeping w Schultz."

Both Coyle and Belcher got immunity to testify against Schultz. Meanwhile, there were several leakers on Schultz's supposedly secret file that he was keeping on Sandusky. As McChesney recorded in her diary, "Fina got papers from two different sources."

The cooperation between the attorney general's office and Freeh's investigators went both ways.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

While Philadelphia's new police commissioner remains conspicuously out of sight, rumors are sweeping the department that she may be quitting, supposedly to head back to the West Coast.

The rumor mill had Outlaw returning to her native Oakland, where she previously served as deputy chief, from 2013 to 2017. And where on Feb. 21st, an independent commission fired Anne Kirkpatrick, Oakland's first female police chief, and where they're still looking for a permanent replacement.

When asked about Outlaw's rumored departure, a spokesman for the Philadelphia Police Department, Officer Eric McLaurin, responded, "We have no information pertaining to that." At a press briefing earlier today, managing Director Brian Abernathy stated that he was not concerned about Outlaw leaving "at this time." A top elected official also heard the rumor but said it wasn't true.

A spokesperson for the Oakland Police Department could not be reached. But a spokesperson for the Oakland mayor's office, who described Outlaw as "one of her favorite people of all time," said she hadn't heard that rumor.

John McNesby, FOP president of Lodge No. 5 back in Philadelphia, isn't buying it. "She's not going anywhere," he said. "Bad rumor."

Back on Dec. 30th, after an extensive, nation-wide search, Mayor Jim Kenney announced the appointment of Outlaw, the former chief of police in Portland, Ore.

Outlaw, 43, became the first black woman to lead the city's police force, drawing an annual salary of $285,000.

It was a big jump that Outlaw was making from a department with just 877 members in Portland to the fourth largest police department in the nation in Philadelphia, with 6,750 sworn members. Sources say she felt "overwhelmed" on the job.

Outlaw arrived in the city on Feb. 10 flashing a charismatic smile, and seemingly filled with optimism. But, as fellow cops and reporters soon discovered, she came East with no discernible plan for how to deal with Philadelphia's biggest law enforcement problem, namely a surging crime rate, especially gun crimes.

"It takes a lot to turn a ship, and turn the tide, but it certainly can be done." Outlaw told the Inquirer when she first took office. But when asked by Dann Cuellar of 6ABC about how she was going to handle an epidemic of gun violence in the city, she basically responded that the problem existed well before she got here and would continue long after she was gone.

She got off to a shaky start. On her first day on the job, Feb. 10th, when Outlaw was making the rounds meeting and greeting the troops, several officers mentioned to her that her signature black nail polish was in violation of official police department policy, which stated, "only clear nail polish is acceptable while in uniform."

The next day, Outlaw responded by sending out her official order, which effectively did away with the clear nail polish directive. The police commissioner's message was addressed to "all commanding officers, districts/units." The subject: a new "amendment to directive 6.7, 'uniforms and equipment.'"

The commissioner stated that henceforth, in the uniforms and equipment directive, the section that states "only clear nail polish is acceptable while in uniform" was hereby deleted. Outlaw wrote that her "general message shall supersede Directive 6.7" until such time as "the directive is amended to reflect this change."

"Commanding officers will ensure all personnel are made aware of the contents of this general" message," the police commissioner wrote. She ordered that her general message should be read "at all roll calls for three [3] consecutive days."

Signed: "Danielle M. Outlaw, Police Commissioner."

After Big Trial reported the policy directive, Outlaw was greeted on social media with support from some female cops, but mostly derision from male cops who basically said the whole thing was a joke that reflected poorly on the credibility of the rookie female police commissioner.

Also on her first day on the job, TV cameras filmed Inspector Sekou Kinebrew chauffeuring Outlaw around town. Some cops were offended by TV footage of the tour that showed Kinebrew opening the passenger door for Outlaw, and then closing it behind her.

One veteran cop recalled that moment on camera, by saying, "What the fuck was that? Is she the queen? Are they dating?"

After an initial spate of public appearances, Outlaw retreated to her office at police headquarters, where she issued daily policy directives. And after the coronavirus hit, she began working partly from home. And she stayed out of sight. Unlike previous police commissioners, she shunned the spotlight and avoided the TV cameras.

Another rookie move by the new police commissioner -- although she greeted the troops on her first day on the job, she waited 40 days before meeting with her command staff. By the time she got around to meeting the brass, she knew she screwed up.

She began the meeting by saying she was sorry she met with the officers first, and that she realized it was a big mistake.


In addition, there would be no more arrests for all bench warrants, stolen autos, economic crimes such as passing bad checks and fraud, and prostitution.

According to the message sent out this afternoon to all police chief inspectors, staff inspectors and police captains, cops who "encounter persons who would ordinarily be arrested for these offenses" instead would temporarily detain the suspects, identify them and then release them, subject to the issuance of future arrest warrants.

After she sent out that email, Outlaw got upset when somebody leaked it, first to Big Trial, and then to other media outlets. At a subsequent press conference called to explain the new policy, Outlaw complained that the leaking of her memo was "disrespectful" and posed a "huge distraction" that "created undue fear . . . and alarm in a time of crisis."

To many of her fellow cops, however, once again, Commissioner Outlaw came off as inept and hopelessly naive.

Said one cop at the time, "She leaked her bullshit plan about not locking anyone up during COVID-19 to the entire Department, via email, and then she wondered how it was given to the news media within seconds."

"Hello?" the veteran cop said. "What fucking world are you living in? It was public the minute you hit 'send.'"

The next time the press and public saw Outlaw was at a joint March 31st press conference held with the mayor, when both officials publicly ripped District Attorney Larry Krasner for basically giving a pass to every criminal who was caught illegally carrying a gun in Philadelphia.

"There has to be teeth, there has to be consequences" to illegally carrying a gun in the city, the police commissioner said. "We can't see a revolving door." Especially when there's been "a spike in shootings."

But that was one of her rare public appearances. Some veteran cops began referring to Outlaw behind her back as "MIA." Others referred to her as the "scared little girl running this department." 

Meanwhile, the crime rate is surging, the murder rate is at a record pace, and lots of people in the police department are wondering, where's the commissioner?

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

When Anthony O'Connor got out of jail last year, thanks to a boatload of favors from his Uncle Larry in the D.A.'s office, O'Connor's lawyer was hoping his client could turn his life around.

The police say that O'Connor, 30, of Jamison PA, was a career burglar who belonged in jail. But the D.A.'s office saw O'Connor as another unfortunate victim of mass incarceration who deserved another chance.

So in four separate court appearances over the last two years, prosecutors under District Attorney Larry Krasner agreed to drop 27 new burglary cases against career burglar O'Connor. On top of that, the D.A.'s office under Uncle Larry made a total of 184 charges against O'Connor stemming from those 27 new burglary cases literally disappear from court records. The D.A.'s office pulled that off by marking all 27 of those new burglary cases "limited access," so that the press and public couldn't see them.

"Hopefully, he's keeping out of trouble," Joseph Kevin Kelly, who bills himself as the DUI lawyer, said in January when interviewed about his client the career burglar who, thanks to his D.A. Krasner, was out there enjoying his newfound freedom.

Tragically, trouble found O'Connor last week. At approximately 9:42 p.m. on Wednesday, May 13th, a driver operating under the influence -- and another possible new client for Kelly -- struck a car driven by O'Connor and killed him.

The accident occurred in the 4900 block of Whitaker Avenue. An Acura driven by Charles Smith, 42, of the 4300 block of N. Sixth Street, struck a Nissan driven by O'Connor.  O'Connor's vehicle subsequently struck a utility pole before crashing into some parked cars.

A medic unit that arrived at the scene pronounced O'Connor dead, according to Patrol Officer Miguel Torres of the police department's office of public affairs. A passenger, a 30-year-old pregnant woman said to be O'Connor's girlfriend, was transported to Temple University Hospital where she was reported in critical condition, Torres said.

Torres declined comment Friday on hospital reports that the pregnant woman not only lost her baby, but also had to have both legs amputated. Police confirmed to Action News, however, on Sunday that the baby was dead.

Smith, the driver of the Acura, was transported to Temple University Hospital where he was treated for scrapes and cuts. He was subsequently arrested, according to Torres, and charged with vehicular homicide and related offenses, in addition to DUI.

O'Connor this month became the second criminal recently let out of jail by Krasner's office to meet a tragic end.

On May 6th, Alberto "Hawk" Pagan, a former drug dealer doing 22 to 44 years for trying to murder a cop, was shot to death on the 3100 block of Byberry Road as he was leaving a relative's house. Pagan, who according to court records was previously responsible for ordering the execution of another rival drug dealer, was himself gunned down by an assassin who showed up on the block an hour earlier, just to stalk Pagan as kids rode by on bicycles.

Attention all you who voted for criminal justice "reform" by pulling the lever for Larry Krasner for D.A. This is what you bought for Philadelphia. According to his Facebook page, "Larry Krasner fights for equal justice for the great people of Philadelphia. A fair and effective criminal justice system makes us safer."

But Krasner's version of fair is to ignore crime victims and cater to criminals. And on the 3100 block of Byberry Road, nobody was feeling safer the night former drug dealer Pagan was hunted down and executed.

Pagan, 61,  got out of jail on Dec. 3rd after serving only half of his 44-year prison term. When Pagan was killed, John Ruane, the cop Pagan shot 22 years ago, went on social media to blame Krasner for the early release.

"Thanks D.A. Larry Krasner for NOT letting me know you let out the guy who shot me 22 years ago, out of prison halfway through his 44 year sentence!" Ruane wrote.

O'Connor was another habitual criminal freed by Krasner. At the time of his death, O'Connor had a rap sheet that ran 18 pages and included more than 40 arrests, mostly for burglary, as well as drugs. But despite his lengthy criminal record, four different judges in 2018 and 2019 agreed to dismiss the 27 new burglary cases after the D.A.'s office claimed either a lack of evidence or a lack of prosecution.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

In their motion for a new trial, lawyers for Jerry Sandusky question whether one of the jurors who convicted him gave truthful answers in court when asked about her previous dealings with Louis Freeh's investigators.

Had the defense known the extent of what the juror told Freeh's investigators, Sandusky's lawyers said in their motion for a new trial, she would have been stricken as a potential juror.

During jury selection on June 6, 2012, the juror in question, identified in the motion for a new trial as "Juror 0990," was asked by Joseph Amendola, Sandusky's trial lawyer, what she told Freeh's investigators. In an April 19, 2011 summary of that interview, the juror is identified by Freeh's investigators as Laura Pauley, a professor of mechanical engineering at Penn State, who could not be reached for comment.

"It was focused more on how the board of trustees interacts with the president," Pauley told Amendola, as well as "how faculty are interacting with the president and the board of trustees . . ."

In a summary of Pauley's interview, however, Sandusky's lawyers say, "it is apparent that the interview . . . included something more than how the Penn State faculty interacted with the president and the board of trustees."

In her interview with Freeh's investigators, Pauley stated that she was "an avid reader of the Centre Daily Times" and that she believed that the leadership at Penn State just "kicks the issue down the road."

"The PSU culture can best be described as people who do not want to resolve issues and want to avoid confrontation," she told Freeh's investigators, according to their summary of the interview.

Pauley, a tenured professor who served on the Faculty Advisory Committee for three years, had other opinions about the leadership at PSU that she supposedly shared with Freeh's investigators. She said that Penn State President Graham Spanier was "very controlling," and that "she feels that [former Penn State Athletic Director Tim] Curley and [former Penn State vice president Gary] Schultz are responsible for the scandal."

"She stated that she senses Curley and Schultz treated it [the scandal] the 'Penn State' way and were just moving on and hoping it would fade away."

It's the contention of Sandusky's appeal lawyers that Freeh's investigators were working in tandem with prosecutors and investigators from the state attorney general's office, and that this collaboration, which included the sharing of grand jury secrets and transcripts, tainted both investigations.

While Pauley was being questioned by Amendola, Sandusky's appeal lawyers wrote, "at no time during this colloquy, or any other time, did the prosecution disclose that it was working in collaboration with the Freeh Group which interviewed the witness."

Yep, at the prosecution table, then Deputy Attorney Frank Fina sat silently while Amendola was questioning Pauley about what she told Freeh's investigators, even though he probably knew about the interview, and may have even seen a copy of it.

That's why Sandusky's lawyers are asking the state Superior Court to hold an evidentiary hearing where Fina and Freeh can be deposed about their collaboration.

In their motion for a new trial, Sandusky's lawyers state describe the hardball tactics employed by Freeh's investigators as detailed in a seven-page June 29, 2018 report from seven Penn State trustees who investigated the so-called source materials for the Freeh Report. In their report, seven trustees state that "multiple individuals have approached us privately to tell us they were subjected to coercive tactics when interviewed by Freeh's investigators."

"Investigators shouted, were insulting, and demanded that interviewees give them specific information," the seven trustees wrote, such as, "Tell me that Joe Paterno knew Sandusky was abusing kids!"

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

At today's virtual press briefing, reporter Jeff Cole of Fox 29 got a chance to ask Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw about the big rumor that's been sweeping her department.

"Commissioner Outlaw, Are you considering or will you take the police chief's job in Oakland, California," Cole asked.

"No and no," Outlaw replied definitively from her wood-paneled office with an American flag posted behind her. She was wearing her dress whites, a black tie, but had deep circles under her eyes.

"Have you contacted by that department in asking you to seek the job?" Cole followed up.

"No, not at all," she said. She said that the first time she heard the rumor that she was leaving Philadelphia to return to her native Oakland was at last Friday's press briefing. That's when city managing director Brian Abernathy threw Outlaw under the bus by saying he was not concerned about Outlaw leaving town "at this time."

The pugnacious Cole was just getting started with tough questions about Outlaw's conspicuous lack of visibility on the job, as well as her evaluation of her own job performance so far. While Cole was going hard after Outlaw, the moderator of the briefing cut him off, and Mayor Kenney felt the need to butt in, to defend a damsel in distress. "I think she's doing a good job and I hired her," Kenney stated.

But even with the ridiculous pandemic-induced limitations placed on the beaten down local press corps by Mayor Kenney, Cole managed to get the job done. He also had Outlaw, who was basically protesting, Hey, I've only been here for "90 calendar days," backpedaling all the way.

On a daily show that usually features bombastic bureaucrats spewing sleep-inducing rhetoric and stats, for once, it made for riveting TV. [Cole's inquisition begins at 17:29 minutes into the 45-minute video, and resumes at the 37.43 mark.]

Because the mayor has declared a state of emergency in Philadelphia, he's suspended the right-to-know law that allows reporters to seek documents. [My how convenient. Kenney, no doubt, is wondering how to make the ban permanent.]

Live press conferences are a thing of the past. In their place, the city holds daily virtual press briefings where every media outlet is reduced to one representative, and every reporter has a limit of three questions.

The city handpicks the reporters who are allowed to participate in these virtual press conferences -- Big Trial is banned -- and the moderator "un-mutes" them one reporter at a time.

But all that B.S. didn't stop Jeff Cole from doing his job.

"Commissioner, do you believe that the 1.6  million citizen of Philadelphia deserve to see their police commissioner discussing the commissioner's policy toward crime on a fairly regular basis?" he asked. "And if you do, why haven't you done more of that?"

Outlaw, who usually doesn't participate in these briefings, was apologetic from the start.

"Absolutely, I think that's a fair question," she said. "Absolutely the citizens deserve to hear from me and they will hear from me soon as it relates to additional plans."

"I'm looking forward to not only allowing people to see me more but figuring out the best way to do this using the technology that we have," she said.

Cole was one question past the 3-question limit, but he just kept going.

"Commissioner, all you need to do is call a press conference and step in front of cameras and reporters and they will see you," Cole lectured Outlaw. "Why haven't you done more of that?"

"Again, Jeff, these are fair questions and I appreciate you asking them," she said. "You would see me on a daily basis if we were talking about terrorist threats or terrorist events or an active shooter incident."

"Again, I hear you," she said. And she conceded, "We can do more to be proactive."

Cole keeping firing: "Are you comfortable in this position? Do you think you are doing a good job?"

That was enough for the moderator who cut off Cole's microphone. Then the camera cut to a characteristically grumpy looking Kenney who gave his positive job performance review of Outlaw.

Amazingly after Cole was cut off, all of the other timid wimps in the press corps didn't ask Outlaw one follow up questions. But Cole had plenty more when he came back for round two.

"On the issue of violence in the city," Cole reminded the police commissioner that the last time reporters saw Outlaw on Zoom, she said she had hoped "to get a handle on the rising homicide rate."

"I think we stand now at 140 homicides, up 15 percent from 2019," Cole said, "Do you believe you've gotten a handle on the homicide rate in the city of Philadelphia. Where are you on that."

"Yes, it's a lot bigger." she replied.

But then she left the murder rate behind, and said that she wanted to "circle back" to Cole's previous question, when he asked if she thought she was doing a good job as police commissioner.

"The answer is Yes," she said. "Considering that I've been here for little over 90 days in the middle of a pandemic and all the other things that come along with it."

Outlaw then lapsed into bureaucratic speak, talking about "strong emphasis on partnership and collaboration," and the need to "revamp my organizational structure" and "fill vacancies in leadership positions."

She talked about "the tactical piece, Operation Pinpoint," the crime-fighting strategy that involves mapping crime hotspots, and sending more cops there.

She talked about the need to "increase our pinpoint areas back to the numbers that we saw back  in 2008 when we knew the plan was impactful."
"We kind of let our foot off the gas  in December 2019," she said. She talked about "getting us out of our silos," whatever that meant, and insuring that there's more partnerships in coordinating overlaps with other law enforcement agencies at places such as the universities, PHA and SEPTA.

Since Thursday, there have been 40 shootings in the city. The latest victim was an 80-year-old.

But on the question of whether Commissioner Outlaw was doing a good job, she said, "So the answer is Yes."

"I think we have an idea of what we need to do and we've already begun that," she said. "I'm looking forward," she said to introducing "accountability to ensure what we're putting in place is going to work."

Cole continued the inquisition.

"You think you are doing a good job here. What do you think you've done well?" he asked.

Well she said, in the "three months that I've been there," she's been "making site visits, and really having the opportunity to hear from folks."

"I need to know what we have, what's working, what doesn't, what we have to tweak," she said. She's "had to do deep dives and all of that takes time."

"I've been making the rounds," she said, and that also takes time, "especially in a new place." And especially with a pandemic going on.

"Right now, we just have to adapt to this new way of being," she said. "We don't know when there's going to be an end."

About what she had done well, Outlaw stated that she was "really strengthening the frame work that was already in place and identifying what needs to go."

"If nothing else, I've been able to bring to the table people that otherwise would not have been prior to my arrival," she said.

Cole's next question was about the "beat cops on the street facing the pandemic," and specifically, "Have they seen enough of you?"

"There's ways for them to see more," she said. "And obviously, were' going to have use technology to do that. I am making my rounds," she said. "When I'm not in the office I'm out in the field. I'm pulling up on people's calls. I'm hitting the district offices just to get an idea of how things are going for them."

"But given that there's thousand of people who work here there's always going to be somebody who says I haven't seen her, I haven't heard from her. Regardless of how many emails I've pushed out, how many videos I've made."

"So again, there's always room for improvements," she said. "But it's going to take some time."

"I've been here for 90 calendar days and I'm new," she said. "I''ve not had the opportunity to come through the ranks here."

"So It's going to take some time," she said one last time. "As does change of culture and change of systems."

And then it was over.

"We look forward to seeing you again soon," Cole said.

"Good," she replied.

On the latest "Search Warrant" podcast, Ralph Cipriano of bigtrial.net explains Jerry Sandusky's motion for a new trial to the three cops hosting the show.

The motion is based more than 100 pages of newly discovered evidence, formerly confidential documents that show rampant collusion and grand jury leaking going on between the state attorney general's office and the supposedly independent investigation conducted by former FBI Director Louis Freeh.

Sandusky's lawyers are in state Superior Court seeking an evidentiary hearing so they can depose Freeh and former deputy attorney general Frank Fina, among many others, to learn the depth of the collusion, corruption and illegal grand jury leaks.

The podcast can be heard here.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

On May 7, 2018, Jayvonne Campfield, 19, of North Philadelphia, pleaded guilty to a drug dealing charge.

He could have been shipped off to the county jail or been put on probation but the D.A.'s office under Progressive Larry Krasner decided to give Campfield a break. They hooked him up with a Jewish faith-based organization known as TCY of Philadelphia, as in "The Choice Is Yours." TCY's self-proclaimed mission is to "Make Hope Happen" with an "innovative diversion program for first-time nonviolent felony drug offenders facing one or two year prison sentences." Instead of going to jail, Campfield had to perform 220 hours of community service.

On May 23, 2019, after he had completed his community service and graduated from TCY, Campfield got another break -- the drug dealing charge that he pleaded guilty to was marked as withdrawn by the D.A.'s office. On July 1, 2019, Common Pleas Court approved an "Order for Limited Access," meaning Campfield's drug case was now designated as "LA" for "Limited Access," so that the press and public can't see it. That's another benefit for TCY graduates, "removing the stigma of a criminal record," as in expunging past charges, so that Campfield could start a new life.

Exactly one week later, on July 8, 2019, Campfeld was one of a trio of masked and armed bandits who attempted to rob a Sprint store in Chestnut Hill. The trio wound up being trapped inside the store with frightened customers and employees while a SWAT team camped outside, brandishing armor and assault rifles. During a standoff that led to the evacuation of an entire shopping plaza, three employees held briefly as hostages managed to escape the bandits. "We were scared to death," one employee told CBS3. The standoff ended when the trio of would-be robbers surrendered to police.
When he got busted for drugs on Feb. 11, 2018, Campfield was charged with manufacture, delivery or possession with intent to manufacture or deliver, a felony, as well as intentional possession of a controlled substance, a misdemeanor.

He pleaded nolo contendere to a charge of manufacture, delivery or possession and the other charge was withdrawn, according to court records. On Feb. 11, 2018, he got out of jail by posting bail of $6,700.

The plea meant that the defendant did not accept or deny responsibility for the charge, but agreed to the punishment. To get into the TCY program, Campfield needed a referral from the D.A.'s office. According to its website, TCY operates in partnership with the District Attorney's Office and the Defender Association of Philadelphia.

While he was in the TCY program, Campfield got into trouble again. According to court records, he was arrested on June 7, 2018, for receiving stolen property. On May 23, 2019, the charge was withdrawn and the case marked "Limited Access."

The arrest for receiving stolen property apparently did not affect Campfield's enrollment in TCY.

When he got busted for the armed holdup of the Sprint store, Campfield was hit with 31 charges that included robbery, conspiracy, false imprisonment, unlawful restraint with intent to commit serious bodily injury, simple assault, reckless endangerment, as well as firearms not be carried without a license. According to court records, on Nov. 11, 2019, Campfield entered a non--negotiated guilty plea to all 31 charges and was listed in court records as awaiting sentencing.

Even though he was now a violent criminal, he got low bail. On July 8, 2019, his bail was set at $75,000. On Aug. 23, 1919, bail was lowered to $55,000.
For an armed robbery of four persons, Campfield was looking at a minimum jail sentence of 10 to 20 years and a maximum sentence of 40 to 80 years.

But the D.A.'s office under Progressive Larry Krasner has a policy of sentencing criminals below state guidelines. So on Feb. 4, 2020, Campfield got a sentence from Judge Scott DiClaudio of 11 1/2 to 23 months plus 10 years probation.

On Feb. 7, 2020, Campfireld surrendered to authorities and began serving his sentence at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility.

On April 24th, Judge Diana Anhalt denied Campfield's first request for early release. Campfield, now 21, is free to reapply.

In addition to his 2018 arrests for drug dealing and receiving stolen property, which are now marked "LA case" for limited access, amazingly, Campfield's 2019 arrest for the armed robbery of the Sprint store is also designated as a "LA Offense," meaning that some or many of the charges will eventually not be able to be seen by the press and public.

Why is the D.A.'s office continuing to do favors for Campfield? As usual, District Attorney Krasner and Jane Roh, his alleged $118,000 a-year spokesperson, did not respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson from TCY of Philadelphia would not answer any questions about Campfield's participation in the program. She referred comment to the D.A.'s office and R. Patrick Link, Campfield's lawyer, who could not be reached.

Campfield is one of the 236 gun cases from July of 2019 prosecuted by the D.A.'s office that Big Trial has been tracking to document Krasner's revolving door style of justice when it comes to gun crimes. Out of the 236 gun cases, as of March 16th, the last day the courts in Philadelphia were open, 66 cases, or nearly 28 percent, had either been dropped, dismissed or lost by the D.A.'s office.

As of March 16th, only 37 defendants, or 15.6%, were found guilty. And all 37 of cases were the result of plea bargains that for the criminals, turned out to be deals just too good to pass up. Because defendants who pleaded guilty to gun crimes typically were either put on probation and walked immediately. Or they pleaded guilty in order to get sentences well below state sentencing guidelines.

Big Trial has previously documented that of a total of the 236 gun cases from July 2019 that were prosecuted by the D.A.'s office under Krasner, not a single defendant to date has been convicted by a judge or a jury of being guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

According to the D.A.'s Facebook page, "Larry Krasner fights for equal justice for the great people of Philadelphia. A fair and effective criminal justice system makes us safer."

But tell that to the frightened customers and employees who were trapped inside the Sprint store the day Campfield and friends showed up with masks and guns to rob them.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

An 18-year-old murder case that involved what a judge described as "unimaginable mistakes" by a veteran prosecutor, a veteran cop, and a forensic scientist has prompted the state Supreme Court to issue a landmark ruling that sets a new standard for prosecutorial misconduct.

In order to get a criminal case tossed for double jeopardy, the old standard in Pennsylvania was intentional prosecutorial misconduct egregious enough to knowingly deprive a defendant of a fair trial. But in a 32-page majority opinion issued Tuesday, the state Supreme Court set a new standard for overturning cases based on prosecutorial misconduct -- "Reckless Behavior."

The opinion was issued in the case of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Kareem Johnson, who spent nine years on death row for a murder the state Supreme Court says he shouldn't be retried for. The unimaginable mistakes that resulted in what a judge described as a "farce" of a trial begin with a mixup of evidence that convicted Johnson involving a couple of baseball caps.

The victim in the case, Walter Smith, was shot to death 12 times outside a Philadelphia bar by a gang of men, one of whom wore red clothing.  Police recovered a red baseball cap in the middle of the street approximately nine feet from Smith's body.

After the murder, Debbie Williams, a friend of Smith's who was with him the night he was killed, gave police a black baseball cap that Smith was wearing that had a bullet hole in it. When police sent the black cap to the crime lab for testing, Smith's blood was found under the brim.

The case remained unsolved until 2005 when Bryant Younger, a jailhouse informant under indictment on a federal narcotics offense, told police he heard Kareem Johnson make statements that implicated him in the murder. Police obtained a sample of Johnson's DNA and submitted it together with the red cap for testing. The testing revealed the presence of Johnson's DNA in the sweatband of the red cap.

Prosecutors proceeded under the assumption that there was one baseball cap found at the crime scene -- the red one -- and that it contained both Smith's blood and Johnson's DNA. The truth was that only the black cap had Smith's blood on it, and neither cap had DNA from both Smith and Johnson.

As a result of the DNA testing, Johnson was charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy and possessing an instrument of crime. The key piece of evidence at a 2007 trial was the red baseball cap. Unaware that there was no evidence suggesting the murder victim's blood was on the red cap, Assistant District Attorney Michael Barry repeatedly stated in his opening statement that Johnson "got in really close" to shoot Smith at point blank range, which supposedly accounted for Smith's blood being on the underside of the red cap's brim.

"I would submit, as certain evidence," Barry said, "that that that was left at the scene in the middle of the street has Kareem Johnson's sweat on it and his Walter Smith's blood on it. Based on that evidence, we come to trial."

Officer William Trenwith testified that when he recovered the red baseball cap from the crime scene, he saw drops of fresh blood underneath the cap's brim. The officer testified that he had never seen a case where blood had splattered the distance from Smith's body to where the red cap was found at the scene.

Lori Wisniewski, the forensic scientist who performed the DNA testing, stated that both the murder victim's blood and the defendant's DNA were found on the red hat.

In his closing statement, prosecutor Barry stated: "Do you know who says the killer wore the hat? Walter Smith says the killer wore the hat. He says it with his blood. There is no other way Walter Smith's blood could have gotten on the underside of this hat . . . unless the person who killed Walter Smith was standing close to him while he shot and killed him . . . So once you know that, we know this: The killer wore that hat."

Johnson was convicted on all counts and the judge imposed the death penalty. The mixup with the hats was discovered by Johnsson's appeal lawyers in 2011. The Commonwealth subsequently agreed that Johnson was entitled to a new trial, and the court entered an order to that effect in 2015. The Commonwealth also withdrew its notice of intent to seek the death penalty.

At a 2016 appeal hearing, Officer Trenwith admitted his testimony about finding blood on the red cap was based was based on a faulty assumption.

"When I testified, I was going on the assumption, which I shouldn't have done, that there was, in fact, blood on it, that's why I said it. But as far as my report is concerned, it does not state that there was actual drops of blood."

Prosecutor Barry admitted about the two hats, "That's absolutely 100 percent my fault, and I should have caught that."

In light of the screwup with the two baseball caps, Johnson's lawyers moved to bar a retrial. The Commonwealth admitted that it had made substantial errors, but said it was not the result of bad faith. Common Pleas Court Judge Benjamin Lerner characterized the prosecution's handling of the evidence as "extremely negligent, perhaps even reckless," and said it had resulted in a "farce" of a trial.

But the judge said the evidence at the appeal hearing showed that the mistakes that were made did not amount to intentional misconduct, which in Pennsylvania was the only finding that could result in a case being thrown out on the basis of double jeopardy. Johnson's lawyers then filed an appeal with the state Supreme Court.

So, in a 5-2 vote, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Thomas Saylor, the court set a new standard for throwing out cases based on double jeopardy -- reckless behavior.

Johnson's appeal lawyers were Gregory Pagano and Marc Bookman, director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation. Bookman could not be reached.

But for Kareem Johnson, who spent nine years on death row, there won't be any joyful homecomings. Johnson is presently serving life without parole for fatally shooting 10-year-old Faheem Thomas Childs back in 2004. The boy was walking to school when he got caught in a gunfight between rival gang members.

A gun, ammo & marijuana recovered by police from Vernon Harris

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

If you're looking for an example of an armed drug dealer who keeps going through District Attorney Larry Krasner's revolving door of justice, meet Vernon Harris.

On April 30th, police, using Operation Pinpoint, a computer grid system that isolates hot spots for crime, stopped Harris, 19, of Southwest Philadelphia, and discovered that he was carrying marijuana and a gun. The police charged Harris with carrying unlicensed firearms, intentional possession of a controlled substance, possession of marijuana, and illegally carrying firearms in public.

On Twitter that same day, Capt. Scott Drissel Jr., the commanding officer of the 12th Police District, wrote: "Outstanding work! This particular male, who is only 19 years old, has now been arrested for illegally possessing a firearm 3 times in 14 months, all by 12th District officers."
Yes, the cops keep arresting Vernon Harris, the armed drug dealer. And thanks to the Progressive polices of Uncle Larry over in the D.A.'s office, drug dealers like Harris wind up right back on the street again.

A gun, ammo and marijuana recovered from Vernon Harris

The first time the 12th District cops pulled Harris over, on March 6, 2019, he was charged with carrying firearms without a license, and carrying firearms in public. Both charges were held over for for court.

His bail was set at $50,000, but it was unsecured meaning Harris didn't have to put any money down before he was released that same day.

The second time Harris was arrested was on July 23, 2019, when he was charged with carrying firearms without a license. His bail was initially set at $25,000, meaning he would only have to post 10 percent, or $2,500. But after his preliminary hearing a judge on Aug. 8 modified the bail order to $25,000 in cash. Harris posted bail that same day.

On Sept. 17, 2019, Harris entered a non-negotiated guilty plea to the charge in his second arrest, but, according to court records, he hasn't been sentenced yet.

After he was arrested for the third time, on April 30th, his bail was set at $350,000. On May 1, according to court records, Harris is now being held at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, awaiting a preliminary hearing.

Harris is one of the 236 gun cases from July of 2019 prosecuted by the D.A.'s office that Big Trial has been tracking to document Krasner's revolving door justice when it comes to gun crimes. Out of the 236 gun cases, as of March 16th, the last day the courts in Philadelphia were open, 66 cases, or nearly 28 percent, had either been dropped, dismissed or lost by the D.A.'s office.

As of March 16th, only 37 defendants, or 15.6%, were found guilty. And all 37 of cases were the result of plea bargains that for the criminals, turned out to be deals just too good to pass up. Because defendants who pleaded guilty to gun crimes under D.A. Krasner typically were either put on probation and walked immediately, or they got deals well below state sentencing guidelines.

In every case, every criminal accused of a gun crime got a break from D.A. Larry Krasner.

Big Trial has previously documented that out of a total of the 236 gun cases from July 2019 that were prosecuted by the D.A.'s office under Krasner, not a single defendant to date has been convicted by a judge or a jury of being guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Another one of those gun cases from July of 2019 involved Xavier Veney, 21, of West Philadelphia. He was arrested on July 31, 2019, for carrying firearms without a license and carrying firearms in public.

A month earlier, on June 21, 2019, Veney was arrested for -- you guessed it -- carrying firearms without a license, and carrying firearms in public. The same day he was arrested, bail was set at $25,000 unsecured, meaning he had to sign a bond that said he would owe $25,000 if he fails to appear in court. But Veney didn't have to post any money to gain his freedom.

On July 31, 2019, after his second arrest for gun crimes, and on Aug. 1, bail was set at $25,000. But on Sept. 10, Veney's lawyer made a motion to reduce bail to $5,000, and Veney posted $500, or 10 percent, and got out of jail.

On Sept. 17, 2019, Veney entered into a negotiated guilty plea with the D.A.'s office that called for a concurrent sentence for both sets of gun charges that ran a total of 11 1/2 to 23 months in jail, plus 5 years probation.

It was quite a deal for Veney considering the state guidelines for just one of his crimes, carrying firearms without a license, a third-degree felony, calls for seven years in jail.
On Nov. 19, 2019, after he entered a guilty in both cases, a judge granted a motion to revoke Veney's release and forfeit his $5,000 bail. Veney served up to eight months in jail, including credit for time previously served, before he was paroled.

And what did Veney do? He went right back to his life of crime.

On May 13, 2020, the cops arrested Veney a third time. This time the cops chased Veney with carrying firearms without a license, intentional possession of a controlled substance, possession of marijuana, and carrying a firearm during an emergency.

His bail was set of $200,000. As of May 13th, Veney was reported in custody at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility.

A seasoned former prosecutor was left shaking his head after he reviewed court records for Harris and Veney.

"The cops are out to save lives and get guns off the streets in certain communities and Larry Krasner doesn't care because he just keeps putting them right back out there," the seasoned former prosecutor said. "There are no consequences to what the drug dealers are doing."

Meanwhile, gun violence, much of it drug related, continues on a daily basis out on the streets.

For example, on Thursday May 14th:

-- at 1 p.m. 6300 Park Avenue, a unknown black male was found dead wrapped in a blanket.
-- at 2:14 p.m., at 7049 Frankford Avenue, a 23-year-old black man was shot to death.
-- at 6:50 p.m. at 1500 N. 56th St. a 25-year-old black man was stabbed.
-- at 11:10 p.m. at 1231 S. 52nd St., a 22 year-old black man was shot.
-- at 2:07 p.m. at 1334 W. Hunting Park, a 51 year-old black man was shot.
-- at 2:44 p.m. at 1631 S. 18th S, a 40 year-old black man was shot.
-- at 8:39 p.m. at 5926 Alma St., a 38 year-old black man was shot.

On Friday May 15th:

-- at 1:23 p.m. at 5100 Arch, a 25-year-old black male was shot.
-- at 9 p.m. at 4310 Germantown Avenue, four people were shot including a 28 year-old black female, an 18 year-old black female, a 20 year-old black male, and a 39 year-old black male.
-- at 9:55 p.m. at 5135 Ranstead St., a 22 year-old black female was shot.
-- at 10:45 p.m. at 51 Pennway St., a 21 year-old black man was shot.
-- at 11:56 p.m. at 1900 W. Croskey a 26 year-old black man was stabbed.

On Saturday, May 16th:

-- at 11:14 p.m. at 1050 E. Hunting Park Avenue, a 29 year-old hispanic man and a 25 year-old Hispanic man were shot.
-- at 12:56 p.m. at 19000 and Venango, a 19 year-old black man was shot.
-- at 3:34 p.m. at 3710 N. 16th St., a 34 year-old black man was shot.
-- at 5:26 p.m. at 713 N. Marvine, a 26 year-old black female was shot.
-- at 8:56 p.m. at 558 Adams Avenue, a 35-yeaer-old black man was shot.

On Sunday, May 17th:

-- at 3:19 a.m. at 4947 Rubicam St., a 30 year-old black man was shot.
-- at 8:16 p.m. at 1900 N. 22nd St. a 40 year-old black man was shot.

On Monday, May 18th:

- at 11:38 p.m. at 4100 Stiles a 22 year-old black male and a 23 year-old white female were shot.
-- at 12:30 p.m. at 3100 E. Street, a 36 year-old white male was shot.
-- at 1:09 p.m. at 310 N. Franklin Street a 28 year-old black male and a 43 year-old black male were shot.
-- at 9:49 p.m. at 1138 E. Stafford, a 29 year-old black man was shot.

In just five days in Philadelphia, the city of Brotherly Love, 31 people were shot, two were stabbed, and two shooting victims wound up dead.

Meanwhile, the cops are still busy re-arresting drug dealers that Larry Krasner lets out of jail.

On Wednesday, May 20th, at 12:15 p.m., police on patrol noticed William Williams, a known drug dealer, and another man standing on the 1600 block of Orthodox Street, smoking marijuana. The cops gave chased and the suspect was seen dumping a black revolver. Police recovered a .38 revolver with five live rounds, as well as a small bag containing marijuana.

They also arrested Williams, 20, of East Germantown, and charged him with carrying an unlicensed firearm, possession of marijuana, carrying firearms in public, and carrying firearms during an emergency.

Williams had a record. His last arrest was on Oct. 13, 2018 when he was charged with manufacture, delivery or possession with intent to manufacture or deliver a controlled substance. That same day, his bail was set at $5,000. Two days later, he posted $500 and was out of jail.

Thanks, Uncle Larry!

But after his second arrest, Williams's bail was set at $150,000. He's still in custody at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility.

What does D.A. Krasner and Jane Roh, his alleged spokesperson, have to say in response to this story? Well the D.A.'s office has been stonewalling this reporter for the past nine months, so I don't expect anything to change.
According to the D.A.'s Facebook page, "Larry Krasner fights for equal justice for the great people of Philadelphia. A fair and effective criminal justice system makes us safer."

Lawrence Krasner, master of Orwellian doublespeak. As any cop will tell you, just the opposite is true.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

The mainstream media doesn't think it's a story yet but the Penn State sex abuse scandal is about to blow wide open.

So far, during the entire sordid 10-year-history of this case, the corrupt Pennsylvania judiciary has been remarkably single-minded as well as highly successful in its desire to have Jerry Sandusky rot in prison for the rest of his days. And that corrupt judiciary has been even more remarkable -- and similarly successful -- in circling the wagons over the years to deny any and all appeals. That's despite overwhelming evidence of rampant official misconduct and wholesale trampling of constitutional rights that pervades the entire case.

But on Feb. 5, 2019, state Superior Court Judge Carolyn Nichols wrote a 70-page opinion denying Sandusky a new trial, an opinion she foolishly staked to the credibility of former Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina.

In her opinion, the Hon. Judge Nichols bought former Deputy Attorney General Jonelle Eshbach's argument that she and Fina had set an "internal trap" for the person in their office who was leaking grand jury secrets to reporter Sara Ganim. The gullible Judge Nichols also bought the argument that Fina couldn't have been the leaker because he had previously asked the grand jury judge to investigate those same leaks.

"It is a fact of human nature that one engaged in or aware of misconduct he does not wish to have exposed does not ask an outside source to investigate it," Judge Nichols opined. She didn't mention this in her 70-page opinion, but she's probably also convinced that O.J. Simpson is still out looking for the real killers. That's how laughable Judge Nichols's opinion is right now after Frank Fina has been completely outed as an overzealous and unprincipled prosecutor with a demonstrated track record for leaking grand jury secrets.

Since Judge Nichols wrote her august opinion based on the credibility of Frank Fina, the state Supreme Court on Feb. 19th voted unanimously to suspend Fina's law license for a year and a day. The state's high court made that decision after Fina was found guilty by the court's disciplinary board for "reprehensible" and "inexcusable" misconduct in his grand jury questioning of former Penn State counsel Cynthia Baldwin.

Baldwin was the lawyer for three high-level Penn State administrators under investigation by Fina, in his overzealous Penn State probe. The disciplinary board found that Fina was so out of control in his pursuit of the Penn State administrators that he actually browbeat Baldwin into becoming a grand jury witness who flipped and testified against her three clients -- former Penn State President Graham Spanier, former Penn State Vice President Gary Schultz, and former Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley -- without telling her clients she had thrown them to the wolves.

The disciplinary board also found that in order to get Baldwin, a former state Supreme Court justice, to breach the attorney-client privilege, Fina had to lie and hoodwink the grand jury judge about what his real intentions were when he was questioning Baldwin behind closed doors. That's the same gullible grand jury judge -- the Hon. Barry Feudale -- whom Fina asked to investigate the grand jury leaks.

On top of that mess, Sandusky's appeal lawyers are now in possession of a 79-page diary kept by former decorated FBI Agent Kathleen McChesney that records multiple instances of former deputy Attorney General Frank Fina leaking multiple grand jury secrets -- as well as transcripts and other grand jury records -- to McChesney and the other investigators working for former FBI Director Louis Freeh, in his supposedly "independent" investigation of Penn State.

In their motion for a new trial which has gone completely uncovered by the rest of the media, Sandusky's lawyers filed the diary with the court under seal, and asked for permission to convene an evidentiary hearing. Sandusky's lawyers are seeking to drop subpoenas on Freeh, Fina, McChesney, Eshbach and others and question them under oath about the rampant collusion between the two investigations, as outlined in McChesney's diary, that tainted both probes.

How does the Honorable Judge Nichols get around that diary?

In addition to the diary, other newly discovered evidence shows that one of the jurors who convicted Sandusky, a Penn State professor, wasn't being completely candid when Sandusky's trial lawyer asked her what she told Freeh's investigators during a prior interview.

Had Sandusky's lawyer seen the Freeh Group's report of their interview of the juror, they would have discovered that she was a disgruntled employee who was already convinced, based on what she'd read in the newspapers, that Penn State had orchestrated a cover up of Sandusky's alleged crimes with children.

Had Sandusky's lawyer read that report, he would have never allowed the disgruntled and highly opinionated Penn State professor to sit on the jury that convicted Sandusky. And when Joseph Amendola, Sandusky's overwhelmed trial lawyer, was questioning the juror, Frank Fina, sitting over at the prosecutor's table, sat silent. He never divulged that he was collaborating with Freeh's investigators on a regular basis, and may have even had his own copy of the juror's interview with Freeh's investigators.

How does the Hon. Judge Nichols get around an ethical cloud over that juror?

And in the McChesney diary, written by a former FBI agent who rose up the ranks to become the first woman to ever hold the No. 2 job in the bureau, McChesney casually drops the fact that she knows Judge John Cleland isn't going to let anything delay Sandusky's rushed trial date.

How did she know that? In their motion for a new trial, Sandusky's appeal lawyers quote an affidavit from Amendola saying it wasn't him who told McChesney. So in their motion for a new trial, Sandusky's appeal lawyers propose subpoenaing Judge Cleland to appear at the evidentiary hearing, so he can explain that situation.

So now we already have an ethical cloud over not only one of the jurors who convicted Sandusky, and we also have a mushroom cloud over Fina, who sat silently while the juror was being questioned. And now we also have an ethical cloud over the trial judge, who was hellbent on convicting Sandusky before the start of the 2012 Penn State football season began, so the NCAA and Penn State could strike a deal on voluntary sanctions that would save the Nittany Lions from the death penalty.

And how does the Hon. Judge Nichols get around that?

Meanwhile, Sandusky's appeal lawyers are seeking to comb through thousands of pages of confidential documents known as the "source materials" for the Freeh Report. These are thousands of pages still under seal as the corrupt majority on the Penn State board of trustees seeks to keep an ongoing cover up in operation.

But every day, more of these documents are being leaked, on the scale of a Frank Fina type operation. And these documents that the Penn State board of trustees would like to keep secret are filled with further proof of the scandal behind the scandal at Penn State.

Much of this information may be exculpatory, as the kind of evidence of prosecutorial misconduct that Judge Nichols said didn't exist when she wrote her boneheaded opinion that denied Sandusky a new trial based on the non-existent, since-shredded credibility of Frank Fina.

Such as on March 12, 2012, when Louie Freeh's investigators got a phone call from Ronald Schreffler, a retired detective with the Penn State University Police Department. Schreffler was the detective who investigated the so-called first shower incident involving Jerry Sandusky and a young boy, back in 1998. It was an investigation of possible sex abuse that multiple authorities subsequently concluded was unfounded.

In the phone call, documented in a report by Richard Sethman, one of Freeh's investigators, Schreffler stated that "it has been clear to him from the beginning that there has been a leak of information in the attorney general's grand jury investigation of Sandusky."

How did Schreffler know that?

"In March of 2011," the report says, "Sara Ganim, a reporter for the Patriot News in Harrisburg came to his residence and asked pointed questions about the 1998 Sandusky investigation," Sethman wrote after his conversation with the retired detective.

"Ganim advised Schreffler that she had a copy of the Pennsylvania State University Police report. She made specific reference to what Schreffler had written in the report. Schreffler asked Ganim how she got a copy of the report but Ganim would not reveal her source."

[But Frank Fina is still out looking for him, a search that could end the next time Fina looks in the bathroom mirror].

Schreffler subsequently told a neighbor who was a retired state police captain "about his encounter with Ganim and of his concern for a leak in the investigation."

On April 4, 2012, Sethman and another Freeh investigator, Tom Cloud, interviewed Schreffler. During the interview, the men at the table discussed the leak to Ganim of the 1998 police report.

"Schreffler stated that he wasn't sure of how information from the 1998 investigation has been leaked to the media but felt that it must be someone involved in the investigation."

Schreffler addd that the media somehow knew that there had been a conflict between the attorney general's office and the state police over whether to include the alleged victim of the 1998 shower incident, identified as Victim No. 6, in the official ranks of Sandusky's alleged victims, which according to Schrefler, "is information that only an insider would know."

In Pennsylvania, however, it can be dangerous  to underestimate the level of official corruption. So if the Pennsylvania judiciary succeeds in circling the wagons again, and denying Sandusky's latest bid for a new trial, his only remedy will be, like Graham Spanier, to head to the federal courts, in search of a judge familiar with the U.S. Constitution.

It worked for Spanier, who, as soon as he escaped the corrupt Pennsylvania judiciary, found a federal magistrate who understood the Constitution. He immediately threw out the entire bankrupt case against the former Penn State president that had been ratified by every level of that corrupt Pennsylvania judiciary.

Either way, the truth is leaking out, even amid a news blackout. Because no matter what the courts do, what's in those confidential documents will be shouted all over Big Trial.

More secrets that Frank Fina and Jonelle Eshbach and Louis Freeh and Mark Dambly don't want you to know.

Tracking the truth of the scandal behind the scandal at Penn State has been a lonely vigil. Besides Big Trial, the only media outlet tracking the new developments in the Sandusky case has been Search Warrant, a podcast hosted by three cops.

Big Trial was interviewed on one of those podcasts; Search Warrant has devoted a second podcast to a character witness for Sandusky who had intimate knowledge of a couple of the so-called victims in the case. The character witness also had an interesting story to tell about how one of the prosecutors in the case allegedly attempted to intimidate her after she testified.

In a brief preview of what's coming on future Search Warrant podcasts, John Snedden, a former NCIS special agent, condemned the mainstream media's "failure to follow through on their obligation to be our watchdog."

"We at Search Warrant are currently unraveling the largest case of prosecutorial misconduct you will ever see," Snedden said. He talked about the McChesney diary written by the former FBI agent who "mistakenly thought it would never see the light of day."

"The diary details blatant collusion, corruption, and criminal acts on the part of the prosecution," Snedden said, before issuing what amounted to a declaration of war.

"Nobody hates a dirty cop or a a dirty prosecutor more than we do at Search Warrant," Snedden said.

"Follow along with us as we unravel this shocking, true story of how prosecutors denied men their constitutional and civil rights to fulfill a political vendetta. Join us as the tables are turned on dirty cops and dirty prosecutors who thought they could get away with it. It's a battle of good versus evil . . . It's about justice."

Meanwhile, the man at the center of this controversy called in today from the State Correctional Institute at Somerset.

In a phone interview, Sandusky said even he was optimistic about where the Sandusky case is headed next.

"I've been through so much that I don't want to get excited and very optimistic, but I am encouraged," he said.

Despite being locked up for 30 to 60 years, "I've been hopeful forever," Sandusky said.

"I keep hoping the people are going to realize the travesty and all of the dishonesty and deception and everything that has transpired during this whole thing," he said. "That's my hope as much as anything. That they'll open their eyes and see."

"A lot of my coaching experiences weren't easy," recalled Sandusky, who was Joe Paterno's defense coach.

"But we were fighters who battled. I was surrounded by people like that and that's how I feel about this. This is wrong and I"m going to fight as long as I can fight."

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

A member of the Pagans motorcycle gang, said by his wife to be heavily armed and suicidal, shot an off-duty police officer shortly after 6:30 this morning at a CVS in South Philly.

The assailant, identified by police as Richard Anthony Kralle, was reported missing by his wife Thursday night, after telling her "He has nothing to live for and is going to end his life."

According to a police report, Kralle had been on meth for the past four months and was said to be armed with two revolvers and a AR-15 style rifle. The police had been looking of him all night. This morning, after his overnight shift ended, Lt. Robert Friel walked into the CVS at 10th and Reed to do some shopping when he spotted Kralle.

Friel called other cops to the scene and a struggle ensued with Kralle, who was taken into custody. During the struggle, Lt. Friel was shot in the upper left leg. He was reported in stable condition before he had surgery at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. On Fox 29, D.A. Larry Krasner was seen lurking outside the CVS. The FOP, however, had already staked out the hospital, and officers were planning to block Krasner again should he attempt to visit another wounded officer.

This morning's shooting came at the end of another violent day in Philadelphia, where 20 shootings were reported on Thursday.

At a press conference this morning, Mayor Jim Kenney said "the shootings were all over the city," not only in pinpoint locations known by police to be high-crime areas, but in many other locations as well.

While he was on camera, the mayor gave an anti-gun rap that went like this: "There's too many guns in our society. I don't understand it."

Kenney went on to discuss banning guns and eliminating poverty before he returned back to earth, and the 20 shootings that happened yesterday, in a county where citizens still have the constitutional right to bear arms.

About the most recent outbreak of gun violence, Kenney said, "I don't have an answer," and, "We're gonna keep working at it."

Police Commissioner Outlaw was more informative, saying at the press conference that Friel, 48, was a 28-year veteran of the police force who was married, with three kids. He comes from a police family, the police commissioner said. His brother, Joseph Friel, another Philadelphia cop, only 25, was killed while on duty in 1994 by a drunken driver.

At the press conference, deputy police Commissioner Christine Coulter said she got a chance to talk to Lt. Friel before he went into surgery.

"He's in very high spirits," she said. "He was concerned about his family . . . Obviously we're all praying for him."

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

She's an assistant district attorney who works for D.A. Larry Krasner.

Yesterday, at 8:56 p.m., while Philadelphia was under siege, the ADA put out an Instagram post of a Philly cop in Center City standing next to a graffiti scrawl that said, "FUCK THE COPS." The message was sent out under the hashtags "#justiceforgeorgefloyd, #nojusticenopeace" and "#blacklivesmatter."

The ADA's name is Sonam Vachhani, and she's been working for the D.A.'s office since  May of 2017. She's currently assigned to the D.A.'s charging unit. That's the group of ADAs who decide whether to charge suspects with crimes, like the alleged protesters who were arrested yesterday for looting and pillaging  in Center City.

Vachhani did not respond to a request for comment. Her boss, D.A. Krasner and Jane Roh, his alleged spokesperson, also did not respond to requests for comment.

On Twitter, Stinky Feat, a frequent Krasner critic, was calling for Vachhani's head.

"Does anyone see anything abhorrent about an ACTIVE ADA posting this on Instagram?" Stinky Feat fumed on Twitter. "If this doesn't cause outrage, I don't know what would! TERMINATE HER NOW"

But going on social media to rip perceived political opponents and agitate for radical causes is a tradition in Krasner's D.A.'s office, as Jane Roh can testify.

Last October, Roh went on Twitter to mock protesters because of their race. The protesters were carrying "Dump Krasner" signs at a rally in support of Maureen Faulkner, the wife of slain Police Officer Danny Faulkner.


Roh's tweet, the D.A.'s office subsequently declared in a legal brief, was "not authorized by the District Attorney or any of the prosecutors involved in this case."

"The D.A. spoke with the communications director about the matter and the communications director was provided written notice that her tweet violated the office's media policy." That's according to the D.A.'s brief that was filed in court in the most recent ongoing appeal in the 40-year-old Faulkner murder case.

But neither Roh Nor Krasner responded today to a question about whether Vachhani's post violated the D.A.'s media policy.

According to sources, Vachhani was told to take a couple of days off.

While we're talking about Krasner's charging unit, of which Sonam "FUCK THE COPS" Vachhani is a current member, everybody in Philadelphia should be concerned about how Larry Krasner is going to handle the people the cops arrested yesterday for the riots.

In a supplemental petition filed Nov. 22nd in state Supreme Court, Faulkner's lawyers, who were fighting to disqualify Krasner as a prosecutor, detail Krasner's work as a "movement attorney" and "strategist" representing "advocates for Mummia's exoneration and freedom."

The legal collective that Krasner was working for 20 years ago was set up by the National Lawyers Guild that since 1998, has listed Mumia as member of their governing board, referring to him as a  "jailhouse lawyer and VP Emeritus."

In their legal battle to disqualify Krasner as the prosecutor in the Mumia case, Faulkner's lawyers highlight Krasner's work on behalf of  protesters at the 2000 Republican National Convention held in Philadelphia. The protests included "A day of resistance to the Death Penalty and the Execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal."

During the protests, some 400 people were arrested for allegedly assaulting police, obstructing roadways and committing numerous acts of vandalism.

According to an R2K press release at the time, the protesters at the convention were out advocating on behalf of "FREEDOM OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS" as well as to "ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY, ABOLISH THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, STOP POLICE TERROR" and "END THE CORPORATE WAR ON THE POOR."

Kris Hermes, a former NLG vice president, wrote a book in 2015 about the protests at the Convention entitled "Crashing the Party," thanked Krasner for representing Caleb Arnold and Danielle Redden, as they protested the "prison industrial complex."

Krasner subsequently hired Arnold as an assistant district attorney who heads the D.A.'s Immigration Rights Unit.

And now it falls to Krasner to decide the fate of the "protesters" who were arrested for allegedly rioting and looting and assaulting police officers.

While the city was under siege yesterday,  the mayor and the police commissioner, the city council president, and many other state and local elected officials were seen on TV at a press conference.

But Larry Krasner was invisible. He was no doubt celebrating privately somewhere as police cars went up in flames, cops were under siege, and Krasner's radical comrades were out looting the city with impunity.

It's everything that for the past 20 years Krasner's radical heart has been pining for.