Big Trial | Philadelphia Trial Blog

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

George Bochetto, the lawyer who represents the widow of slain Police Officer Danny Faulkner, has no doubt about what D.A. Larry Krasner is up to when it comes to convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

The D.A., who's ostensibly supposed to be the prosecutor in the latest appeal filed over the nearly 40-year-old case, is doing whatever he can to free Mumia, Bochetto charged today in a blunt interview.

If the D.A. is successful, Bochetto said, Mumia "would be the crown jewel in Krasner's trophy case of convicted murderers and rapists that he's walked." But in his attempts to free Mumia, Bochetto said, Krasner has simultaneously trampled over the rights of Faulkner's widow, Maureen.

"There's a whole body of law, both statutory and case law, regarding victim's rights, which Larry Krasner's taken a lawn mower to," Bochetto said.

So on Tuesday, Bochetto filed an application in state Superior Court on behalf of Maureen Faulkner that not only requests that Mumia's latest appeal be quashed, but also seeks to disqualify the D.A.'s office from continuing to serve as prosecutor in the never-ending Mumia case.

This is the second time in the past three years that Bochetto has gone to court seeking to disqualify Krasner as the prosecutor in the Mumia case. But this time around, Bochetto is following a road map laid out by a state Supreme Court justice who has previously stated concerns in writing about the D.A.'s multiple and glaring conflicts of interest in the Mumia case.

What's the D.A. have to say in response? As he has done for the past 19 months, Krasner and Jane Roh, his official spokesperson, did not respond to a Big Trial request for comment.

In an interview, Bochetto ripped Krasner for his latest filing in the Mumia case, a 96-page brief that was finally filed last month after the state Superior Court granted five different extensions on filing that brief.

According to Bochetto, Krasner's latest rambling legal opus reveals a "shocking dereliction of duty and an obvious attempt to tank the conviction so he [Krasner] will be able to walk Mumia."

A little background's in order here. It was Krasner who was directly responsible for the latest appeal in the Mumia case.

Shortly after he took over as D.A., Krasner claimed to have found six boxes of newly discovered evidence in the Mumia case lying around the D.A.'s office. The eager D.A. subsequently gave the boxes to Mumia's lawyers. They filed a fifth post-conviction appeal on those documents, after the state Supreme Court had rejected four previous post-conviction appeals.

When the latest appeal went to court, Krasner promptly laid down as the D.A.'s office announced it would not oppose Mumia's latest bid for a new trial.

But Krasner had gone off half-cocked. The D.A. did nothing to verify whether anything in those boxes of alleged newly discovered evidence was really new, such as calling Joseph McGill, the original prosecutor in the case.

McGill subsequently filed an affidavit on behalf of Faulkner, claiming there was indeed nothing new in those boxes. So did retired Detective Joseph Walsh, the cop who carried those files into the D.A.'s office four decades ago.

In 2019, Bochetto went into state Supreme Court and filed a King's Bench petition seeking to disbar Krasner as prosecutor in the fifth and most recent appeal of Mumia's 1982 conviction for murdering Danny Faulkner.

In the latest appeal, Bochetto says it's clear that Mumia's lawyers erred by missing a court filing deadline, a point made previously by state Supreme Court Justice Kevin Dougherty.

In the D.A.'s latest 96-page brief, on page 21 the D.A. concedes that the latest appeal should be quashed because "it appears that defendant did not timely raise the claim," so the courts were "statutorily barred from granting relief."

But the D.A. buried that point in the 96-page brief and didn't "highlight the issue for this court, so that the panel does not have to even decide the merits of Abu-Jamal's PCRA [Post-Conviction Relief Act] appeal," Bochetto wrote.

"From Ms. Faulkner's perspective, the DAO filing its merit brief without first moving to quash and without even including a separate heading in the brief is extremely troubling," Bochetto wrote.

When the D.A.'s office filed their 96-page brief, nobody in the D.A.'s office bothered to provide a copy to Maureen Faulkner, or her lawyers, Bochetto wrote.

"A copy of the brief was only obtained after Mrs. Faulkner requested it from the DAO’s victims unit," Bochetto wrote.

Nor did the D.A. file a motion to quash Mumia's latest appeal based on the fact that Mumia's lawyers didn't file it on time, Bochetto wrote. On top of that, Bochetto wrote, "The DAO has failed to provide any sort of an explanation why a separate motion to quash was not filed."

In a 23-page concurring statement issued last December, state Supreme Court Justice Dougherty wrote that he wanted to "address some of the troubling claims" raised by Faulkner's lawyers, "claims that may require closer judicial scrutiny should the DAO seek to continue its representation of the Commonwealth in any future proceedings in Abu-Jamal’s case."

"I believe [Faulkner] has actually made a colorable [legitimate] showing that the DAO is afflicted by (at the very least) the appearance of a conflict of interest such as to impede the fair and impartial administration of justice in Abu-Jamal's case," Justice Dougherty wrote.

In his statement, Justice Dougherty viewed as "questionable" the D.A.'s decision to not oppose Mumia's request for a new trial in state Superior Court, based on that newly discovered evidence that wasn't new. Justice Dougherty also faulted Krasner for not following state Supreme Court procedures when it came to dealing with post-conviction appeals in Mumia's case.

In Bochetto's King's Bench petition to bar the D.A.'s office from prosecuting the Mumia case, Bochetto targeted Krasner's radical past as a "movement attorney" and "strategist" on behalf of R2K, a legal collective organized by the National Lawyers Guild. The left-wing outfit has long listed Mumia as an active board member. The guild also proclaimed that it was dedicated to freeing Mumia and other "political prisoners" who are victims of the "prison industrial complex."

In their King's Bench petition, Bochetto also cited several alleged conflicts of interest in the D.A.'s office, starting with Paul George, identified as the D.A.'s current head of the appeals unit. George, Bochetto wrote, "was previously Jamal's lawyer" and "asserted that Jamal is innocent and that his conviction was the result of fabricated evidence, subornation of perjury and a false confession."

Bochetto also cited as another conflict of interest in the D.A.'s office Jody Dodd, Krasner's former paralegal from his private law practice. Dodd became the head of D.A.'s "Reconciliation Unit," despite being an active member of the Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal," Bochetto wrote.

Another conflict cited by Bochetto was civil rights lawyer Michael Coard, whom Bochetto described as a "close political advisor" and a member of Krasner's transition team. Coard, Bochetto wrote, "publicly celebrates the murder of police officers and who advocates in multiple public forums for Jamal's innocence and that his conviction was based on police fabricating evidence."

In his brief filed this week in state Superior Court, Bochetto argued that the D.A.'s office, in its 96-page brief, was required to "take every effort to highlight the issue for the court" about Mumia's lawyers missing the filing deadline.

"The DAO has not done so here, and once again Mrs. Faulkner, aware of the DAO’s multiple conflicts of interest, is left wondering why?" Bochetto wrote.

"Mrs. Faulkner should not have to worry any longer," Bochetto concluded. "This court should grant this Application, allow her to intervene, disqualify the DAO from further proceedings in this matter (including any remand or subsequent PCRA proceedings in the Trial Court), and lastly quash this appeal as untimely."

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

We all knew The Philadelphia Inquirer was in the tank for District Attorney Larry Krasner.

For the last couple of years, the Inquirer has gone out of its way to censor all negative news about our progressive D.A. and his lenient, criminal-friendly policies that have resulted in scores of armed and dangerous criminals being released from jail, so they can reek more mayhem.

Ever wonder why Philadelphia every day is setting new records for shootings and murders? Look no further than the disastrous policies of Larry Krasner.

But don't expect the Inquirer to ever tell you that. Especially since Krasner faces a tough reelection battle in the May 18th Democratic primary against Carlos Vega, who happens to be a real prosecutor.

This morning, however, the Inquirer committed a few new crimes against journalism. First, they printed a story that said the district attorney's office was withdrawing three sexual assault charges against Carl Holmes, a former chief inspector in the police department.

But then the Inquirer deliberately omitted the main reason why Common Pleas Court Judge Karen Simmons tossed those charges -- on Jan. 7th, the judge caught Assistant District Attorney Rachel Black lying about an alleged victim's availability to appear in court.

Next, the Inquirer not only refused to report Assistant District Attorney Black's prosecutorial misconduct, they also printed a new alibi from the D.A.'s office to explain why the alleged victim didn't show up in court, an alibi that Black, as well the alleged victim herself, had never previously made.

It's called slanting the news, and that's what the Inquirer is deliberately doing to ensure that Krasner gets reelected, so that his progressive policies can result in more shootings and more murders.

As Big Trial has previously reported, Judge Simmons caught ADA Black telling a bald-faced lie -- that a former female police officer who had accused Holmes of sexual abuse couldn't appear in a Philadelphia courtroom because she had serious health problems and was supposedly hiding out in Florida, in fear of catching COVID.

The truth was that Elisa Diaz, the former police officer who had accused Holmes, in one Facebook post after another, had dismissed the pandemic as a hoax and a sham.

Diaz had previously driven from Pennsylvania down to Florida in a fully equipped RV, and so she was physically capable of driving back up to Philadelphia to testify in court.

But when Judge Simmons confronted ADA Black in court over Diaz's Facebook posts, Black immediately tried to pull another fast one.

ADA Black told the judge that she wasn't really concerned about Diaz coming down with the virus by traveling to Philly. No, what she was really concerned about was that Diaz, who doesn't believe in face masks, might infect Philadelphians if she showed up in court.

That only served to further anger the judge.

"Miss Black's actions were inappropriate, they were wrong, they were intentional," Judge Simmons lectured two of ADA Black's supervisors on Jan. 13th, according to a court transcript that the Inquirer apparently never saw.

Black, who did not respond for a request for comment, has since resigned in disgrace from the D.A.'s office.

In today's story, however, the Inquirer failed to report that the judge tossed those charges against Holmes because she caught ADA lying.

The Inquirer also failed to report that on Jan. 13th, the day she dismissed the charges against Holmes, the judge once again publicly admonished ADA Black a second time from the bench for lying, this time in front of two of Black's supervisors.

The Inquirer also failed to report that ADA Black had subsequently resigned in disgrace.

The charges against Holmes regarding the allegations made by Diaz had previously been dismissed by Judge Simmons in January, but were refiled by the D.A.'s office in February, because the D.A. has a political vendetta going against cops.

On Friday, however, the D.A.'s office formally withdrew the charges, and needed to explain why. And so whenever the D.A.'s office is in a situation where has to save face, Larry Krasner always turns to his progressive friends at the Inquirer.

And they never let him down.

What did Krasner's official apologists at the Inquirer report?

The newspaper stated that the reason the D.A.'s office withdrew the charges was that Diaz failed to show up at a preliminary hearing to testify against Holmes at the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia.

That was true. But when it came time to explain why, rather than deal with the prosecutorial misconduct in the D.A.'s office, the Inquirer took a page from former ADA Rachel Black's playbook, only they printed Black's lie as thought it were true.

"The District Attorney's Office alluded to ongoing difficulties with getting the former officer who had moved to Florida, to travel to Philadelphia," the Inquirer wrote.

And then, after covering up the D.A.'s blatant prosecutorial misconduct, and passing off Black's lie as truth, the Inquirer gave Krasner's official disinformation officer, Jane Roh, a platform to float a new alibi.

"In pre-pandemic times, sexual assault trials were already challenging for victims and witnesses due to the re-traumatizing impacts of court testimony," Roh told the newspaper in a written statement. "Since the pandemic, these challenges have only intensified."

This is a new alibi for Diaz not showing up in court, one that in the previous year, during several court appearances, ADA Black, who had to resort to making things up, never made that particular argument, that Diaz wasn't showing up in court because she was afraid of being re-traumatized.

In remarks from the bench, Judge Simmons made it clear that she believed ADA Black had deliberately lied to Her Honor.

At a Jan. 13th hearing, Judge Simmons told Black's supervisors that as soon as she learned about Elisa Diaz's Facebook posts, "as quick as I could snap my fingers" ADA Black "started making argument that, well, it's really not about the complaining witness, Miss Diaz, it's about the citizens of Philadelphia."

As the judge recounted the story, she said that Black had argued in court that she didn't want to have Diaz "go through the airport and come through Philadelphia and put us all at risk."

"And at that point," the judge told Black's supervisors, "I realized I had had enough because if I can't trust Miss Black or anyone else from the District Attorney's office who are prosecuting these cases . . . then I don't know what to do with you, actually, I really don't."

"Because as a judge, I cannot, I will not, I do not go out and investigate every comment and statement that's made from the attorneys that appear in front of me," the judge said. "That I have to and I must rely on the authenticity and the honesty of the lawyers that appear in front of us. All of us judges must."

The judge told Black's supervisors that she had concluded "Miss Black's actions were inappropriate, they were wrong, they were intentional."

"They do rise to the level of prosecutorial misconduct," the judge said, but she decided that it didn't reach the level of misconduct required to dismiss the case with prejudice, which would have prevented the D.A.'s office from refiling the charges.

But the judge advised Black's supervisors to "seriously take an honest, clean-slate view of what's been going on [with this case] since October of 2019," when it was first filed, before the D.A.'s office decided what to do next.

One of the supervisors who came to court on Jan. 13th to defend ADA Black was her boss, Assistant District Attorney Patricia Cummings, head of the D.A.'s Conviction Integrity Unit.

And according to a federal judge, ADA Cummings has the same problem that ADA Black does.

On Feb. 11th in U.S. District Court, Judge Mitchell Goldberg issued a formal 23-page "memorandum opinion" that constituted a formal admonishment of ADA Cummings for violating her "duty of candor" to the court.

Judge Goldberg wrote that Cummings should have informed him that she had parallel litigation going in state court in her crusade to get Antonio Martinez out of jail, who was serving a life sentence after he was convicted in a 1985 double homicide.

“While I will not impose sanctions, an admonishment of the District Attorney, as set forth in this Opinion, is appropriate,” Judge Goldberg wrote on Feb. 15th.

The judge said he would henceforth require the Philadelphia DA to submit status reports on future cases, adding, “I typically do not impose requirements of this nature on counsel, but such oversight of the District Attorney is now unfortunately warranted.”

The misconduct of both ADAs, Black and Cummings, has been reported to the Disciplinary Board of the state Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, which is investigating. But the Inquirer hasn't gotten around to reporting either case of prosecutorial misconduct to its readers.

That's because the Inquirer, the official house organ of the corrupt Democratic party, will do whatever it can to protect Krasner, and get him reelected.

Holmes still faces more than a half-dozen sexual assault charges stemming from allegations made by two other former Philadelphia police officers, Christa Hayburn and Michele Vandegrift. The allegations from the two women are at least a dozen years old, and have been previously been investigated and found wanting by both the police department's Internal Affairs Unit, and the D.A.'s office itself under former D.A. Lynne Abraham.

In today's story, the Inquirer declined to mention Diaz by name, sanctimoniously declaring that "the Inquirer doesn't typically identify people alleged to have been sexually assaulted."

But for the past ten years, the Inquirer has had no problem vilifying Carl Holmes. The resulting damage to the former chief inspector has been incalculable, his lawyer said.

"Mr. Holmes has endured, and will continue to endure, significant damages as a result of the presentment and charges," Pagano wrote. "He is married 15 years and has two children 15 and 12. He is an attorney and licensed in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."

"Mr. Holmes lost his job as Chief Inspector and was employed by the Philadelphia Police Department for 29 years," Pagano wrote in a May 27, 2020 motion to compel discovery.

"His reputation and career are irreparably damaged," Pagano wrote. "He is unemployable as a result of the pending charges. Mr. Holmes was required to post bail in the amount of $800,000, 10% as a result of the pending charges."

Reached this morning, Pagano was upset with the Inquirer's latest distortions.

"They've selectively reported the facts of the case, and they failed to report that there was a lack of candor in the case by the lead prosecutor," Pagano said.

"They've also invented a story that the victim did not want to be re-traumatized, that the victim never said," Pagano stated. "Where did that leave us with the Inquirer? How can you trust what you read?"

Both the reporter who wrote the story, David Gambacorta, and Gabriel Escobar, editor of the Inquirer, did not respond to a request for comment.

As far as the prospect of Diaz being re-traumatized by having to testify in a Philadelphia courtroom, Pagano said that was fiction. He described Diaz as a "complainant who never had a problem with complaining."

"Miss Diaz was not afraid to go to the grand jury," he said. "There was extensive litigation by this complainant in federal court and in police administrative hearings and in the Court of Common Pleas with regard to two other officers" that Diaz had also accused of abuse.

And Diaz was the opposite of a credible witness.

"We had proof that she [Diaz] perjured herself and that she lied in front of a police administrative board," Pagano said.

According to Pagano, Diaz waited 15 years before making her allegations of abuse against Holmes. And, Pagano said, the story she told was a real stretch.

As Pagano recounted the facts of the allegations, in 2004, Diaz, on the advice of her mother, went to see Carl Homes in his office at the Police Academy to make a complaint about alleged sexual harassment involving another officer, Sgt. Randy Davis.

According to testimony, Holmes assisted Diaz in defusing the situation. At a subsequent meeting arranged by Holmes, he and a deputy police commissioner met with Davis and basically gave him an admonishment to "cease and desist," Pagano said.

In testimony, Diaz's mother credited Holmes with helping her daughter resolve her problems with Davis.

Then, 15 years later, in 2019, Diaz revealed that during her 2004 meeting with Holmes, where she showed up on the advice of her mother to make a complaint about sexual harassment by another officer, Holmes chose that occasion to allegedly "violently and physically assault her during business hours," Pagano said.

"Stuff gets knocked around, she fights back, and she runs out to her car and calls her mother screaming and crying," Pagano said.

Pagano said his investigation revealed that Diaz had a less than stellar record in the police department. According to Pagano, Diaz disobeyed orders, crashed a car, got into a fight with another female officer, and fraternized with drug dealers.

On top of that, Pagano said, while she was out on disability leave from the police department because she had allegedly been traumatized, Diaz appeared in an episode of Bad Girls, a British TV show, where she was filmed naked in a hot tub kissing another woman.

"She's a train wreck," Pagano said about Diaz. "I'm disappointed that I didn't get a chance to try this case."

Pagano said the lack of candor from the lead prosecutor in the case against his client constitutes a damning indictment of the D.A.'s office under Larry Krasner.

"It shows that the D.A.s office is not out for justice in this case," Pagano said. "They're promoting their own political agenda, and that's wrong."

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Meet Byseem Smith, the poster boy for showcasing how the District Attorney's office under Larry Krasner has failed abysmally when it comes to prosecuting violent crime.

As a teenager over a two and a half year period, Smith has been a one-man crime wave.

According to police and court records, Smith stands formally charged in ten felony cases for alleged offenses that include shooting a man in the groin, shooting a woman in the stomach, shooting at two other people, resisting arrest, and committing aggravated assault against a couple of cops.

In the ten felony cases, Smith has further been accused of stealing a car, carrying drugs and repeatedly possessing illegal guns, including a Glock stolen from a county sheriff's department down in Virginia.

Smith, at 5-foot-11 and 145 pounds, has curly black hair and a beard, and tattoos on his arms and neck. On his Instagram account he's known as "seems.savage," where he's posted images of himself brandishing a semiautomatic allegedly used to shoot people. And he hasn't even turned 20 yet.

Smith is clearly a danger to the community, but how has the D.A.'s office treated him? By giving him one break after another that's repeatedly allowed Smith to go back on the streets again and commit more crimes.

The D.A.'s has dropped as many as 27 charges against Smith in one day so he could stay out of jail. The D.A.'s office has also watched as a judge granted a defense motion reducing Smith's bail from $300,000 down to the equivalent of literally zero so that the result was that Smith literally got out of jail free.

The D.A.'s office has also repeatedly failed to prosecute Smith when he failed to [A] wear his GPS monitor, [B] failed to appear in court, and [C] failed to live up to his legal obligations to stay out of further trouble while on parole, so he could stay out of jail.

In short, during Smith's one-man crime wave, the D.A.'s office has repeatedly functioned as Smith's official enabler, while repeatedly failing to protect the public.

At 4:30 p.m. today, District Attorney Krasner will be the featured attraction at a Zoom debate sponsored by the Philadelphia Bar Association.

Krasner of late has been skipping previous debates. But if he actually shows up today, let's hope that a moderator, or maybe one of Krasner's political opponents -- Carlos Vega, who's running as a Democrat, and Chuck Peruto Jr., who's running as a Republican -- asks the incumbent D.A. about guys like Byseem Smith.

And why they keep winding up out on the streets, free to commit one crime after another.

But at the debate, Krasner blamed the city's record murder rate solely on the pandemic, not on his policies. When he states nonsense like that, Krasner is counting on the public never hearing stories like Byseem Smith's.

Smith's criminal odyssey began on April 23, 2018, when, at the tender age of 16, he was arrested on three drug charges -- manufacture, delivery or possession with intent to manufacture or deliver, intentional possession of a controlled substance, and possession of marijuana.

What was the disposition of the case?

On May 28, 2019, in front of Judge Richard Gordon, the D.A.'s office withdrew all three charges.

Smith's second arrest happened on Oct. 18, 2018, when he was again busted on drug charges.

What was the disposition of the case?

On Sept. 16, 2020, in front of Judge Richard again, Smith was found to be an adjudicated delinquent, the equivalent of a guilty plea, on a charge of manufacture, delivery or possession with intent to manufacture or deliver. The D.A.'s office withdrew a charge of intentional possession of a controlled substance.

On Christmas Eve, 2018, Smith went on a spree that resulted in five cases being filed against him.

The incident began, according to a police report, when a suspect subsequently identified on surveillance video as Smith entered the Sing Wah Kitchen at 3960 N. Darien Street, and asked two men if they wanted to fight.

The two men walked outside with Smith, who promptly drew a black semiautomatic handgun with a laser sight and aimed it one of the men and allegedly pulled the trigger.

When police showed up at approximately 8:45 p.m. at the restaurant, they found a victim inside suffering from a gun wound to the groin. He was taken to Temple University Hospital for emergency surgery where he lost consciousness, and didn't have a pulse.

When cops showed up at his house in the 3800 block of N. Marshall Street with a search warrant, Smith attempted to flee on foot but was confronted by two SWAT team members. According to a police report, before he was subdued and arrested, Smith "began to struggle and flail," swinging his arms with closed fists" at one officer, who sustained an abrasion on his nose and an injured right knee.

Smith's mother gave the cops permission to interview her son. According to a police report, Smith waived his Miranda rights and provided a statement where he identified himself from still images on surveillance video that showed Smith holding a gun.

Smith, however, denied that he fired the gun. But on his Instagram account, he was wearing the same clothing that he was seen on surveillance video wearing the night of the shooting. And on his Instagram account, Smith was brandishing the same semiautomatic seen on surveillance video taken during the alleged crime.

Inside Smith's house, police also found the key of a car that Smith was accused of stealing.

On Jan. 19, 2019, the D.A.'s office filed five cases and a total of 27 charges against Smith that included:

-- one count of attempted murder;

-- five counts of aggravated assault;

-- two counts of carrying unlicensed firearms;

-- two counts of carrying firearms in public;

-- two counts of possession of firearms by a minor;

-- two counts of possession of an instrument of crime;

-- five counts of simple assault;

-- five counts of reckless endangerment;

-- three counts of resisting arrest.

But when it came time to prosecute the case, since Smith was only 17 and a juvenile when he allegedly committed all these crimes, the typical move would have been for the D.A. to hold a preliminary hearing, where cops, detectives and alleged victims could have testified against Smith, binding him over for trial. Then, the D.A.'s office could have agreed to transfer the case to juvenile court after Smith had agreed to plead guilty there.

But what did the D.A.'s office do? They didn't even bother to hold a preliminary hearing.

And then, on April 11, 2019, in front of Judge Frank Brady, the D.A.'s office withdrew all 27 charges.

The only charges that made it to juvenile court involved receiving stolen property, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, and the aggravated assaults on two cops.

What happened in juvenile court?

On May 28, 2019, in front of Judge Gordon, Smith was found to be an adjudicated defendant on a charge of aggravated assault. The D.A.'s office dropped three other charges -- simple assault, resisting arrest, and reckless endangerment.

On Sept. 16, 2020, in front of Judge Gordon, Smith was found to be an adjudicated delinquent on the charge of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. The D.A.'s office withdrew charges of receiving stolen property and criminal mischief.

That same day, Smith was found to be an adjudicated delinquent, the equivalent of guilty, on charges of simple assault and resisting arrest. The D.A.'s office dropped two other charges -- aggravated assault and reckless endangerment.

On June 13, 2019, Smith was sent to the North Central Secure Treatment Unit in Danville, PA, where he spent eight months as a juvenile prisoner.

On Feb. 24, 2020, Smith was placed on a GPS in Philadelphia. But that didn't stop him from committing more alleged crimes.

On March 22, 2020, police responding to a call of a robbery on the 3800 block of N. Percy Street found Smith dressed in all black, acting extremely nervous.

"I didn't do that robbery," Smith told the cops. But when the cops asked if he had any weapons on him, he attempted to flee.

According to a police report, Smith was carrying a black Glock 23 Gen 4 with a badge insignia on the firearm that said Chesterfield County Sheriff's Office. The gun was loaded with 21 live .40 caliber rounds and one additional .40 caliber round in the chamber.

On top of that, Smith was carrying a total of 21 live .40 caliber rounds in his pants, along with a vial filled with 32 Xanax pills.

He was charged with carrying an unlicensed firearm, possession of a prohibited firearm, carrying firearms in public, and possession of an instrument of crime.

When dealing with a juvenile with a record like Smith had, the D.A.'s office could have gone hard after Smith, especially when they found him in possession of a gun clearly stolen from law enforcement.

At a Sept. 22, 2020 hearing, Smith's bail was set at $300,000 monetary, meaning he had to put up 10%, or $30,000 to get out of jail.

But on Sept. 4, 2020, a judge granted a defense motion, and Smith's bail was reduced to $300,000 unsecured, meaning he didn't have to post a cent to get out of jail.

On Sept. 9, 2020, court records say, Smith was placed back on a GPS. There is no mention in court or police records about what happened to Smith's first GPS monitor.

On Sept. 14, 2020, both sides were reported ready to proceed in court, but Smith, apparently no longer wearing his second GPS monitor, failed to appear in court.

No bench warrant, however, was issued.

At 11:30 p.m. on Sept. 23, 2020, police officers in the 25th District responded to a report of a shooting on the 800 block of W. Butler Street. Officers and paramedics were met by a woman who was suffering from two gunshot wounds in the stomach. She was transported to Temple University Hospital where she was treated and reported in stable condition.

The victim told police she was accosted by a thin black male who pulled out a black firearm, which she described as looking like a police officer's gun. And then he asked her "What do you have to give me?"

He took an order of Chinese food away from the victim, and as she walked away, the assailant fired numerous shots at her and another person who was with her. The victim felt a burning sensation in her stomach.

The victim told police that earlier, she had gotten into an argument in a Chinese store with two females, one of whom told her, "I'm going to get someone to bust ya'all ass."

The two women returned minutes later with the thin black male who attempted to rob her.

Surveillance video showed the assailant arriving in a dark-colored Saturn, and then fleeing in that same car after he shot the victim. Police interviewed witnesses and discovered that the assailant was known on Instagram as "seems.savage."

On his Instagram account, Smith was depicted with a Glock with an extended magazine sticking out of his waistband. Witnesses subsequently identified Smith as the assailant.

He was arrested and charged with nine charges, including two counts each of attempted murder, aggravated assault, simple assault, robbery with intent to inflict serious bodily injury, and reckless endangerment. In addition he was charged with one count each of possession of unlicensed firearms, possession of prohibited firearms, carrying firearms in public, and possession of an instrument of crime.

On Sept. 29, 2020, a judge approved a motion to reinstate previously set bail.

On the charges of possessing a gun supposedly stolen from the sheriff's department, Smith is due in court tomorrow for a preliminary, more than a year after his original arrest.

The preliminary hearing in the case where Smith allegedly shot a woman in the stomach is scheduled for June 3rd.

And what does the district attorney have to say in response to this report?

As he has done for the past 19 months, Krasner and his official spokesperson, Jane Roh, did not respond to a request for comment.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Veteran prosecutors say they have no idea why the district attorney's office under Larry Krasner repeatedly failed to stop a one-man crime wave waged by a Philly teenager known on Instagram as "seems.savage."

Was it just plain incompetence on the part of the D.A's office, or was it institutional indifference?

Prosecutors say they were dumbfounded by how the D.A.'s office handled Byseem Smith, who, at 19, has ten felony cases filed against him.

As Big Trial has previously reported, five of those cases stem from a single spree on Christmas Eve 2018 where the teenager allegedly: shot a man in the groin and almost killed him, took a shot at another person and missed, stole a car, resisted arrest, and capped off his night by committing aggravated assault against a couple of cops.

The D.A.'s office responded by not even holding a preliminary hearing, which is routinely done with gun crimes. Instead, the D.A.'s office in one day dismissed all five cases and 27 counts against Smith, including one count of attempted murder, without getting anything in return, like a guilty plea.

The D.A.'s office subsequently re-filed four lesser charges against Smith in juvenile court, where he was found to be an adjudicated defendant, the equivalent of a guilty verdict. Smith wound up in a juvenile facility for eight months. After he was released, he was twice subsequently placed on GPS monitors that disappeared. But the D.A.'s office did nothing about it, even when Smith failed to show up for court.

Last March, Smith was arrested again and accused of possessing a vial full of Xanax pills and a black Glock 23 stolen from a sheriff's department in Virginia.

Smith's bail was set at $300,000, but a judge subsequently lowered that bail down to zero, and Smith literally got out jail for free. Last September, Smith was arrested again on charges of shooting a woman twice in the stomach, robbing her, and taking a shot at another person. The D.A.'s also filed four additional charges against Smith for carrying illegal guns.

A former assistant district attorney who has since gone into private practice said there are two possible explanations for Smith's remarkable voyage through the criminal justice system -- incompetence on the part of the D.A.'s office, or institutional indifference.

The former ADA said the D.A.'s office should have held a preliminary hearing and bound Smith over for trial as an adult. They also should have filed an appeal after Smith's bail was lowered to zero. And, the former ADA said, the D.A.'s office should have gone after Smith for shedding two GPS monitors, for failing to show up for court, and for not living up to the terms of his probation.

At the D.A.'s office, instead of giving Smith one pass after another, the former ADA said, alarm bells should have gone off after Smith shot a man in the groin, shot a woman twice in the stomach, and was found to be trafficking in a gun stolen from law enforcement.

"It can't be just mistake after mistake after mistake" committed by Krasner's inexperienced rookie prosecutors, the former ADA said. "It tells me that people don't care."

The former assistant D.A. who preferred to remain anonymous likened the criminal justice system to an assembly line, where cases pass from one work station to the next, starting with affidavits of probable cause and arrest warrants, and moving on to preliminary hearings, criminal trials and finally, the appeals process.

"It's a fragile system," he said, where cops, prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges are all interdependent on each other as they work the assembly line.

But at Larry Krasner's D.A.'s office, the former ADA said, "the people who are on the assembly line have no appreciation of the danger that this person [Byseem "seems.savage" Smith] represents to the public. They chose to ignore it. I don't know who they're fucking hiring."

Krasner, of course, as he has for the past 19 months, as well as his official spokesperson, Jane "Mute" Roh, both stonewalled a request from Big Trial to explain the D.A.'s repeated failure to prosecute Byseem Smith.

Another former assistant district attorney who served more recently in the Philly D.A.'s office said that going by what he's heard from Krasner's own employees, it's "a free-for-all" over there.

Krasner's young prosecutors, the former ADA said, typically are "already in a public defender mindset" since Krasner often hires former public defenders to be prosecutors. And then, after the rookies get hired, they "get no training."

Or any help from their bosses.

The supervisors in charge over at the D.A.'s office "have no idea what they are doing," the former ADA said. The next layer of administrators in Krasner's D.A.'s office include several high-paid top supervisors who have amorphous roles.

"On top of this, Krasner wants to be in charge of almost every decision made in the office and does not delegate," the former ADA said.

The final hurdle: "The defense bar in Philly is as good as it gets," the former ADA said. So Krasner's inexperienced and poorly trained former public defenders and social justice warriors are "completely overmatched at every step of the process."

For example, the two assistant district attorneys who lead Krasner's homicide unit have tried a total of 18 homicide cases between them. Besides being inexperienced, they're incompetent, having a history of committing courtroom blunders that resulted in dangerous criminals going free.

What do you wind up with? A completely dysfunctional D.A.'s office that fails to protect the public, as one criminal after another slips through the system, and back on to the streets.

You also wind-up with all-time records for shootings and murders. Last year, the city had 499 murders, the highest total in 30 years. And this year, with 111 murders so far, the city is on a pace for an all-time record of 643 murders.

As the dead bodies pile up, time after time, District Attorney Larry Krasner pretends that none of what's happening around him is his fault. And, thanks to the cooperation of the local progressive media, and the politically-correct Philadelphia Bar Association, nobody's holding Krasner accountable for the bloodshed.

At a virtual candidates' forum Monday night sponsored by the Bar Association, Krasner got away with blaming the coronavirus for the city's record gun violence. During a two-hour forum, Krasner repeatedly refused to take any responsibility at all for the carnage he's caused.

Thanks to a strict straight jacket of a format that called for 60 and 90 second responses to a moderator's P.C. questions, and no back and forth between the candidates, Krasner was shielded from having to answer for the incompetence and corruption in his office.

We're talking about a D.A.'s office where in the past three months, two different ADAs were formally censored for a lack of candor in dealing in judges.

Krasner's gun violence coordinator just dodged a murder indictment after he shot and killed a male prostitute that he arranged a rendezvous with during office hours. [The state Attorney General's office said he acted in self-defense, but they indicted him for soliciting a prostitute, and misleading investigators about the facts of the case.]

Another ADA who is a top Krasner aide was arrested after she left her four-year-old daughter unattended in a locked car. [The AG dropped a child endangerment charge against her after she enrolled in a diversionary program, took a parenting class, and then managed to avoid getting arrested again for six months.]

A senior advisor to Krasner is a former lawyer disbarred for forging a judge's signature on a divorce decree, and when questioned about it by the judge, he lied.

Other Krasner ADAs have disgraced their profession by posting messages on social media such as "FUCK THE COPS,"and just how much they hate white people.

When Krasner did import a "reform" prosecutor who's a TED talk superstar who commands up to $20,000 for a single speaking engagement, to train his impressionable young prosecutors for nine weeks in 2018, Adam Foss was subsequently accused by several women of being a serial predator and rapist who's knowingly spreading STDs.

In Boston, police, a private law firm, and the Suffolk County D.A.'s office have launched a criminal investigation targeting Foss. But back in Philadelphia, Krasner, who pledged to make the criminal justice system hia "more accessible and transparent" to the public than ever before, so he could be held accountable, refused to divulge how much Foss got paid, and whether he victimized any of Krasner's impressionable young prosecutors.

And, in the most notorious murder case of Krasner's reign, the D.A. himself engaged in possible obstruction of justice after he huddled for three hours behind closed doors with accused killer Michael White and his four lawyers, so Krasner could basically conspire to tank the case.

Besides the D.A.'s disastrous policies and the conduct of himself and his staff, Krasner is also blatantly breaking campaign finance law. The city's Board of Ethics is closely monitoring Krasner's reelection campaign because of a cozy relationship Krasner has with his favorite a West Coast political action committee that's become his biggest campaign donor.

The Board of Ethics has previously nailed both Krasner and the Real Justice PAC for a total of $23,000 in fines and disgorgements for breaking campaign finance laws when Krasner was first elected in 2017. But this time around, Krasner and his favorite PAC are being more even blatant about breaking the law.

Last year, campaign finance records reveal, Real Justice poured more than $100,000 into Krasner's reelection campaign in the form of cash, in-kind contributions, and even rent money.

The only problem: the city's limit on annual contributions from a PAC is $12,600.

But instead of talking about any of those issues, Moderator Riley Ross allowed Krasner to thrash straw men such as Frank Rizzo, who's been dead for 30 years, and Donald Trump, who, the last time I checked, is not on the May 18th Democratic primary ballot for Philly D.A.

Anybody from out of town who watched the candidates' forum would have thought that Carlos Vega, Krasner's challenger in the Democratic primary, was the incumbent D.A. and Krasner was the challenger.

On moderator Ross's watch, Krasner was allowed to lob one grenade after another at Vega, attacking him as a "fake Democrat," and the tool of the Rizzo-loving FOP, even though Rizzo's been dead for 30 years. The moderator also watched silently as Krasner, who was increasingly emboldened by the format, was allowed to smear Vega on three different occasions for his last-minute role as a pinch-hitting prosecutor in an old murder case that wound up being the subject of a civil rights case filed against the city.

The candidates forum sponsored by the Bar Association was a complete failure in terms of holding Krasner accountable for the incompetence and corruption in his office, and his permissive policies that are literally killing people. On top of that, by muzzling the participants, the Bar Association gave Krasner a platform to slander his opponents as fascist tools of Rizzo and Trump.

Apparently, Krasner isn't the only public figure in this town who's above being questioned. Lauren McKenna, chancellor of the Bar Association, did not respond to a request for comment; neither did a spokesperson for the Bar Association.

The only thing worse than the Bar Association's lame candidates forum was the press coverage of it. The Inquirer, which, as previously documented, is in the tank for Krasner, and is actively sanitizing his record so he can cruise to reelection, ignored the forum.

Worse, WHYY ran a story that led with Krasner's attacks on Vega, whom WHYY somehow mistook for the incumbent D.A.

In Philadelphia, where the problem of a corrupt D.A. is compounded by all of his enablers, can it get any worse?

Fox Nation Host Lawrence Jones visited Philadelphia's Skid Row this week and filed a devastating report on how bad the opioid crisis is in Kensington. "People can't even walk their dogs in this neighborhood because you will step on a needle," Jones said.

Three years ago, Mayor Kenney convened a high-level conference to discuss how to help a city-wide task force dealing with the opioid crisis. And behind closed doors, District Attorney Larry Krasner told the mayor and top city officials that nobody in his office would lift a finger to help. This story originally ran on March 10, 2020:

By Ralph Cipriano

for BigTrial.net

It was standing room only in the mayor's conference room at City Hall. On Oct. 17, 2018 Mayor Jim Kenney had gathered some 20 top police officials, including the police commissioner, to meet with a half-dozen top officials from the District Attorney's office, led by the D.A. himself, Larry Krasner.

The mayor had convened the meeting to discuss how the D.A.'s office might better cooperate with the cops and a two-year-old city-wide task force that was dealing with the opioid crisis in Kensington. The concerns were that crime was on the rise, including human trafficking, and that addicts were dying in record numbers.

But Krasner wanted no part of any anti-drug task force. In response to pleas from the mayor and top police officials, Krasner gave what was described as a lecture. The federal government, he said, was to blame for bringing drugs into the country. The war on drugs was a colossal failure. And the bottom line was the top law enforcement official in the city wasn't going to lift a finger to help in any opioid crisis. The D.A. subsequently ended the 90-minute meeting by telling the mayor and the assembled police officials, hey we're done here.

"I was stunned," recalled one official at the meeting. "He [Krasner] basically disrespected the mayor and every other person in the room."

On hand in the mayor's conference that day were then Police Commissioner Richard Ross, deputy police commissioners, district captains, chief inspectors and lieutenants, as well as the city's then First Deputy Managing Director, Brian Abernathy, and First Assistant District Attorney Robert Listenbee.

What the mayor was trying to do was to get D.A. Krasner to consider changing some of his policies that in the view of the cops, were only enabling more crime and exacerbating the opioid crisis. Some specific incidents were discussed. Such as a crossing guard who was escorting students and suddenly found herself in the middle of an angry dispute between rival drug dealers vying for the same corner.

The cops were called, they made arrests, but the district attorney's office let the suspects go, and declined to prosecute anybody.

According to the official who attended the meeting, the mayor and everyone else in the room was basically telling the district attorney hey, we've got a serious problem in Kensington. And we're asking for your help. Could you reconsider some of your polices, specifically how your department refuses to prosecute certain so-called "victimless" crimes, such as drug possession, prostitution and retail theft? And how your department also declines every month to prosecute many other crimes, including rape and murder.

But Krasner wasn't hearing any of it. He did not create the drug problem, he said, and he would not use the resources of his office to help solve the problem. Krasner also disputed police statistics about how bad the crisis was in Kensington.

His office had its own statistics, the D.A. said. And Krasner told the mayor and the police officials that he was more inclined to believe his department's stats over any police stats.

When the mayor and the police commissioner pleaded with Krasner to reconsider, the D.A. according to one official in the room, the D.A. stated that he stood by what he had previously said. The drug problem was all the feds' fault. And Krasner wasn't going to use any of the resources of his office to help solve the crisis, and he wasn't going to change any of his progressive policies.

Then Krasner brought the meeting to a close by saying hey we're done here.

"Krasner was completely dismissive of the entire room filled with experienced law enforcement personnel, as well as the mayor himself," said the official who sat in on the meeting. The official was also surprised by the mayor's deferential behavior.

"I didn't know that the mayor was afraid to attack the district attorney," the official said.

The next day, the mayor's office issued a press release where the mayor gave an update on the work of the task force. In the press release, the mayor talked about how 35 city departments, offices and agencies were cooperating to carry out his directives, as outlined in the mayor's Opioid Emergency Response Executive Order. But there was no mention of the D.A.'s decision to sit this one out.

A spokesman for the mayor declined to discuss the meeting in the mayor's conference room.

"We're not going to comment on what may or may not have taken place at this private meeting," said Mike Dunn, a spokesman for Kenney.

And as usual, D.A. Krasner and his alleged spokesperson, Jane Roh, declined comment.

At the meeting in the mayor's conference room, an eight-page memo written by a police official that was critical of the D.A.'s progressive policies was passed out to participants. Portions of the memo were also read aloud during the meeting.

The eight-page memo, a copy of which was obtained by Big Trial, began by taking issue with the D.A.'s decision to mandate that "certain crimes . . . identified as victimless crimes . . . such as drug ingestion or working in the sex trade are not crimes that need be enforced."

"This philosophy is not practical," the memo stated. The "do not enforce policy" was "having a dramatic and detrimental effect on several neighborhoods throughout the city. The devastation this lack of enforcement is having on the lives of the citizens who live in these troubled areas and the lost lives and values of those who commit crimes to feed their addiction, continues to plague and cause deterioration of once viable communities."

The big drug problem in the city, according to the police memo, was heroin, which "continues to be tested and confirmed as having the highest purity in the country."

"This unfortunate distinction has put us as law enforcement professional in a uniquely precarious position," the memo stated. People were coming from "many counties surrounding Philadelphia and beyond to seek out what they have been informed will be the ultimate drug experience."

As a result, the memo says,"there has been an overwhelming increase in drug related overdoses and deaths. Also, to feed their addictions, many if not all addicted to this highly pure narcotic will do things that at one time in their lives would have been unthinkable to simply ease their addictive pain."

At the time, the police memo stated, drug overdose deaths in the city rose from 900 in 2016 to 1,217 in 2017, and another 800 more over the first ten months of 2018.

According to the report, the police department didn't agree with Krasner that prostitution was a victimless crime.

"The inhumanity and stripping away of these victims' dignity demands our sincere and most strenuous attention," the memo states. While the D.A.'s policy of do not arrest for prostititon may be "well-intentioned, what is lost . . . is our ability to place these unfortunate victims in programs to help them deal with and navigate through there issues or addiction, sexual or physical abuse as well as mental health issues. It is not, or would it be considered insensitive or heartless when arresting someone to get them into a system that may ultimately change the course of their life in a positive way."

The police memo also took issue with the D.A.'s policy that "no one is to be charged with mere possession of marijuana regardless of the weight possessed."

While not arresting people for possession of small amounts of marijuana may make sense, "It is naive and dare I say irresponsible to assume that those in possession of large amounts of marijuana packaged for individual sales or bulk pounds of marijuana are possessed by individuals simply for personal use."

"The illegal sale of marijuana is a lucrative trade and generates large sums of cash," the memo states. "Dealers and their workers will arm themselves and use violence in an effort to protect their illegal source of income at all cost."

"Simply put, those who possess large amounts of marijuana should not simply be identified as mere possessors, rather careful evaluation of the totality of circumstance in each case should be undertaken and past criminal records taken into account for charging purposes."

Lastly, the police memo dealt with the declinations issued by the D.A.'s office every month, the decisions not to charge people that the cops have arrested for alleged crimes that include murders and thefts.

The D.A. issues hundreds of such declinations every month, and thousands a year. The police memo took a dim view of that practice:

We have been informed by several prosecutors during meetings in the District Attorney’s Office that their standard of charging is higher than the legal definition of probable cause. We do not agree with many of the District Attorney’s Declinations because we believe in the legal standard of probable cause for charging purposes.

This is a point of contention for us. Our investigators commit to ensuring that their investigations are complete and thorough prior to submission to the District Attorney’s Charging Unit. Furthermore, service to the victims of crime is paramount to our goals.

More importantly, the ongoing matter of contention is the refusal of the District Attorney’s Office to charge individuals with the crime of prostitution, possession of narcotics and retail thefts.

It is my belief that by ignoring the charging of these crimes, The District Attorney’s Office is directly contributing to the City of Philadelphia’s opioid crisis via overdoses and deaths as well as the spike in gun related violent crime in some sections of the city.

Offenders of these crimes historically commit such crimes due to their addiction to narcotics and in most cases, specifically the current opioid crisis in the form of heroin. One could argue that cases of mere possession should not be put in this same category, however, the District Attorney’s Office has declared that mere possession of marijuana (regardless of weight) is not to be charged. We are in fact letting drug dealers off the hook due to this broad charging decision.

Here is the reality of this current situation.  Prostitutes are selling their bodies for money or drugs to feed their addiction.  Communities make complaints as they have been exposed to this illegal activity in front of their homes, businesses etc.  Law enforcement conducts investigations and make arrests.

The officers put their safety at risk as they fulfill their sworn oath.  Officers prepare all arrest paperwork and the District Attorney’s Office declines all charges.  The prostitutes are transported to the Police Detention Unit during the processing of their arrest paperwork.

These prostitutes are fully aware of the no charge position of the District Attorney’s Office and state so while in custody.  When charges are declined, the prostitutes who have committed the sex or drugs for money crime, are now released and immediately return to the same neighborhood to sell themselves to feed their heroin addiction.

This cycle continues again and again without any consequences or our ability to direct these individuals to much needed services.

As this cycle continues without consequences or alternative programs provided, we are and will continue to see a continuing increase in opioid addiction, overdoses and deaths in this city. This is all in direct correlation with the policies of the District Attorney’s Office not to charge for this offense.

Along with this, as more and more individuals come to Philadelphia to purchase and consume this high grade heroin, they become addicted and remain within these troubled communities.  The narcotics trade becomes more and more lucrative for those dealers controlling the corners where the heroin is sold.

As these corners become more and more lucrative, others see an opportunity to overtake the dealer and seize the very profitable corner.  This causes dealers to arm themselves and their workers with illegal firearms purchased with their drug proceeds to protect themselves and their corners from being taken over by others.

This has, does and will continue to contribute to the ever- increasing violence in these areas.  I would argue that this increase in violence is a direct result of the District Attorney’s declination policy.

It must be said that in an effort to discontinue this revolving door of crime and vicious cycle of addiction, we must revive the charging process of these offenses in an effort to direct offenders into alternative individualized solutions and programs for those who are addicted and thereby face greater risks of victimization.

We as law enforcement officers, but more importantly as servants of the public, ask that you allow us to humanly assist those who want and need our assistance. Give us back the opportunity and tools to make a difference in the lives of those who are addicted, victimized, abused, exploited and dehumanized by predators who would prey on this most vulnerable segment of our society. I am asking you to help us help them.

And what was the D.A.'s reaction to this memo, according to the official who attended the meeting?

Pure disdain.

"It all fell on deaf ears," he said.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

In indicting and prosecuting former Police Chief Inspector Carl Holmes, District Attorney Larry Krasner failed to disclose a personal conflict of interest in the case -- namely that Krasner as a defense lawyer in 1996 represented the convicted robber of a 7-11 who pointed his gun at Holmes, and was convicted of assaulting him.

Krasner also represented Christopher Butler, the convicted robber who was sentenced to 6 to 12 years, in a civil suit against the city that was settled in 1997 for $80,000.

As a result, Greg Pagano, Holmes's lawyer, filed a motion in Common Pleas Court to disqualify Krasner as prosecutor. The motion to disqualify Krasner as prosecutor because of Krasner's undisclosed conflicts came on the same day that Judge Kai Scott dismissed the second of three sex abuse cases filed against Holmes by three women who are former cops.

"Philadelphia District Attorney, Lawerence Krasner, failed to notify this Court, Supervising Grand Jury Judge, the investigating grand jurors and defense counsel of his role in the criminal trial, post-trial, criminal appeal and civil cases, directly related to the testimony and credibility of Carl Holmes," Pagano wrote.

"Under the Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct, DA Krasner has a duty to disclose that which is material to a defendant’s innocence. Mr. Krasner’s role as defense counsel to Mr. Butler in criminal and civil proceedings, attacking Mr. Holmes’ credibility and police work constitutes Brady/Giglio material," Pagano wrote.

The case against Holmes has already been marked by prosecutorial misconduct in the D.A.'s office.

In January, Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Karen Simmons admonished Assistant District Attorney Rachel Black for a lack of candor regarding the ability of one of the complainants to show up in court to testify against Holmes.

Judge Simmons caught ADA Black telling a bald-faced lie -- that a complaining witness who had accused Holmes of sexual abuse couldn't appear in a Philadelphia courtroom because she had serious health problems and was supposedly hiding out in Florida, in fear of catching COVID.

The truth was that the witness herself, Elisa Diaz, in one Facebook post after another, had dismissed the pandemic as a hoax and a sham. She had previously driven from Pennsylvania down to Florida in a fully equipped RV, and so she was perfectly capable of driving back up to Philadelphia to testify in court.

"Miss Black's actions were inappropriate, they were wrong, they were intentional," Judge Simmons stated in court to two of ADA Black's supervisors on Jan. 13th. One of those supervisors who came to court to defend ADA Black was her boss, Assistant District Attorney Patricia Cummings, head of the D.A.'s Conviction Integrity Unit.

Black has since resigned. And now Pagano has accused her boss, D.A. Krasner, of more prosecutorial misconduct in the same case.

Can anybody in D.A. Larry Krasner's office play by the rules?

Today in court, Judge Scott dismissed the second sexual abuse case filed against Holmes, on behalf of former Police Officer Christa Hayburn. Only one sex abuse case remains Holmes, filed on behalf of former Police Officer Michele Vandegrift.

In his motion to disqualify Krasner as prosecutor, Pagano wrote,

"DA Krasner’s continued failure (as of the date of filing of this motion) to disclose, further demonstrates a bias against Carl Holmes and creates a significant appearance of impropriety. Under the Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct Rule 3.8, 1.11(d) and 1.11(e) a conflict of interest exists due to DA Krasner involvement in the criminal case and civil case, where Carl Holmes was the victim and defendant."

"DA Krasner’s representation of Mr. Butler appears improper because he asserted his discretion making a conscious decision to convene a grand jury and file charges against him - after a prior administration declined to charge him with respect to a complainant that the Commonwealth described was the 'heart of the case,'" Pagano wrote. "The fact that DA Krasner failed to make a timely disclosure to the Court, the grand jury and defense counsel, and has yet to make any disclosure, is in fact improper."

"DA Krasner’s current prosecution of Carl Holmes and failure to disclose to the Court, the grand jury and defense counsel violates Mr. Holmes' due process rights to have his case reviewed by an administrator of justice with his mind on the public purpose, not by an advocate whose judgment may be blurred by subjective reasons," Pagano wrote.

"Under Rule 1.11(d) and 1.11(e) DA Krasner should not have participated in the prosecution of Carl Holmes due to his prior involvement in both a criminal case and civil case where Carl Holmes was the victim and defendant."

One of the things Krasner has not disclosed is what part of the civil suit award of $80,000 did he collect as a fee.

The robbery that Butler was convicted of took place on Dec. 3, 1994 at the 7-11 at 34th and Lancaster Avenue. Butler stuck his gun to the head of a cashier and said, "Open the register." Then, after he collected the money, he ordered the cashier to lie down on the floor. A witness who briefly entered the store and quickly left, ran down the police.

Next, Sgt. Holmes came bursting through the door of the 7-11 yelling, "Freeze, freeze, freeze." But Butler aimed his gun at Holmes, and so Holmes, fearing he was about to be shot, opened fire. One of Holmes's bullets actually went down the barrel of Butler's gun.

A former prosecutor who saw the surveillance video in the case said that what Sgt. Holmes did was one of the most amazing acts of bravery he'd ever seen.

The sexual assault charges against Holmes, a 6-foot-6 former offensive tackle at Temple University, were originally filed on Oct. 24, 2019, after he was indicted by a grand jury. A preliminary hearing was held on March 12, 2020, as to the allegations from two of the complainants, Christa Hayburn and Michele Vandegrift. The third complainant, Elisa Diaz, was unavailable, and so that preliminary hearing was postponed for nearly a year before Judge Simmons threw out the charges.

Holmes was charged with aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault by forcible compulsion, and indecent assault without consent. The grand jury accused Holmes of sexually assaulting three female police officers, by kissing them, fondling their breasts and digitally penetrating their vaginas.

Pagano, Holmes's lawyer, insisted his client was innocent, and that when the case finally went to court, Holmes would be found not guilty on all the charges. Pagano also argued that the indictment of Holmes amounted to a witch hunt.

In a motion to dismiss the case filed on Sept. 25, 2020, Pagano argued that "the allegations in this case have received extensive local press coverage beginning approximately ten years ago. All of the complainants in this case have exhaustively litigated civil claims against the police department in the court system for approximately 10 years."

"The police department's internal affairs unit and the DAO investigated all of complainants' allegations for approximately 10 years," Pagano wrote. "No criminal charges were filed in any of the cases" and in one of the cases, the D.A.'s office decided not to pursue charges.

In a motion to dismiss the case, Pagano said that ADA Black had failed to turn over grand jury transcripts, even though a motion to compel discovery production was filed five months earlier.

What records that were turned over Pagano said, revealed that "the presentment in this case is the product of prosecutorial misconduct -- including but not limited to gross neglect and the investigation and in the presentation of evidence to the grand jury, including the presentation of perjured testimony, selective presentation of evidence to the grand jury and the omission of relevant facts and evidence to the grand jury."

Hayburn, a former police offficer, alleged that on Jan. 6, 2006, Holmes, who at the time was her boss, dragged her into the passenger seat of his Dodge Durango, kissed her, grabbed her breasts and penetrated her vagina. And then, Hayburn charged, Holmes dropped his pants, grabbed her hand and made her jerk him off.

In the investigations of Hayburn's allegations conducted by Internal Affairs and the DAO, 33 cops and 7 civilians were interviewed, Pagano wrote, and phone records were obtained by subpoena. Holmes's police car was seized and searched for forensic evidence, as were Hayburn's clothes.

Hayburn claimed that she had told another officer about being abused by Holmes. But when Police Officer Rollie Ramos was interviewed, he "did not corroborate what she says," Pagano wrote.

"Due to glaring inconsistencies and lack of corroboration between Ms. Hayburn's story and the evidence, the DAO declined to prosecute the case" in 2008, Pagano wrote.

To make matters worse, in May of 2018, the District Attorney's office appointed Hayburn to the D.A.'s Crime Victim Advisory Committee [CVAC]. Her official CVAC biography released by the D.A's office stated she was a "survivor of sexual violence at the hands of a fellow police officer."

She was appointed secretary and stayed on that committee until March 14, 2019. The D.A.'s office, however, didn't see a conflict.

"Ms. Hayburn's volunteer and peripheral role int he CVAC during the part of the DAO's investigation into sexual assault allegations against Carl Holmes does not create a conflict of interest," wrote Krasner and Black to the judge.

"Nor does that limited advisory poostiion 'corrupt' the case against the defendant in any way," Krasner and Black wrote. "While the DAO should have disclosed Mrs. Hayburn's role on the committee earlier, this oversight underscores the wall between the Special Victims Unit and the rest of the DAO meant to protect the integrity of secret investigations."

In his motion to dismiss the charges against Holmes, Pagano argued that after the district attorney's office and Internal Affairs investigations didn't produce an indictment of Holmes back in 2008, "Hayburn turned to the press, and for 10 years, she was a persistent and public critic of Holmes and the police department."

"The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News responded with alacrity and biased press coverage for more than seven years," Pagano wrote. "Hayburn was interviewed, photographed and quoted in several front page articles by the Philadelphia Daily News and Philadelphia Inquirer."

The second sexual abuse claimant, former police officer Vandegrift, also claimed she was assaulted by Holmes, but she didn't disclose the alleged incident to anyone for seven years, Pagano wrote.

The third alleged victim, Elisa Diaz, "did not disclose for almost 15 years," Pagano wrote. And the story she told was a real stretch.

In testimony, Diaz's mother credited Holmes with helping her daughter resolve her problems with Davis.

Diaz allegedly "runs out to her car and calls her mother screaming and crying," Pagano said.

Pagano said his investigation revealed that Diaz had a less than stellar record in the police department. According to Pagano, Diaz is a "train wreck" who disobeyed orders, crashed a car, got into a fight with another female officer, and fraternized with drug dealers.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

On the afternoon of Jan. 3, 2019, Bernard Giddings was driving a car load of would-be assassins toward Audenried High School.

As Giddings drove past the corner of 31st and Tasker Street, a block away from the school where students had just been let out, three armed passengers leaned out the windows of a white Chevy Malibu and opened fire from close range on a crowd of nine juveniles.

A 16 year-old male who heard five gunshots saw three bullet holes rip through the jacket he was carrying, but miraculously, that was the extent of the reported injuries. Cops found four 9 mm casings at the crime scene. Due to some good police work, the cops were able to track down and arrest both Giddings and Andre Presley, a passenger in the Chevy who admitted to being one of the shooters.

When it comes to gun crimes, Giddings and Presley, both 25, were multiple offenders. Giddings had one prior gun arrest, while Presley had two prior gun arrests. After he was involved in that drive-byshooting, however, Giddings served only 20 months in jail before he was back out on the street again.

What did he do with his newfound freedom? Last week, police arrested Giddings for the third time on a gun charge, after they searched his house and found a loaded Smith & Wesson .40 caliber semiautomatic pistol under his bed.

In an interview that he gave The Philadelphia Inquirer on Tuesday, District Attorney Larry Krasner would have you believe that when it comes to committing gun crimes, repeat offenders like Giddings and Presley are an anomaly. But according to a veteran prosecutor who sought anonymity, "The way Giddings and Presley's cases were handled proves that Krasner's lying to the public."

"The people being arrested with guns are the people running around and shooting them," the veteran prosecutor said. "They are not the exception, they are the rule."

Indeed, statistics previously compiled by Big Trial for one month's worth of gun crimes, July of 2019, showed that out of the 231 men who got arrested for gun crimes that month, 51, or 22%, did actually go out and commit more alleged crimes of violence such as gunpoint robberies, armed carjackings, and rape, as well as a half-dozen murders.

By following Giddings and Presley through the criminal justice system, court and police records show, on multiple occasions, Giddings and Presley received one break after another from the D.A.'s office under Larry Krasner, in the form of low bail, looking the other way on probation violations, and lenient sentences.

That's why both men repeatedly landed back on the streets, so they could commit more crimes. But before we get to Giddings and Presley, it's time once again to take the paper or record to task for their continuing softball coverage of Krasner.

CRIMES AGAINST JOURNALISM

The Inquirer got off to a good start in their most recent gun crimes story by posting statistics showing that since 2017, the year before Krasner took office, the number of arrests by cops for gun crimes has nearly tripled. This year, the city is on a pace to hit more than 3,000 arrests for illegal gun possession, the newspaper reported.

Meanwhile, the conviction rate for gun crimes has plunged from 63% in 2017 to 49% in 2019.

Left unsaid was that the man most responsible for all of this is the city's highest-ranking law enforcement officer, District Attorney Larry Krasner.

Next, the Inquirer interviewed Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, who talked about a "revolving door" for repeat gun offenders, and complained that in Philadelphia, there are "no consequences" for carrying illegal guns.

But, the Inquirer reported, Outlaw refused to criticize "her top partner in Philadelphia law enforcement," Larry Krasner. And nobody from the Inquirer bothered to ask her why.

Next up, Krasner was interviewed by his progressive pals at the Inquirer, and he was allowed to make one excuse after another about why the city was experiencing a record number of shootings and murders.

Keep in mind that Philadelphia had 499 murders last year, the highest total in 30 years. And this year, with 120 murders as of yesterday, we're on a pace for 624 murders, which would be an all-time record.

In the nation, only Chicago, with more than a million additional residents than Philadelphia, has more murders this year; as of Wednesday, Chicago had 134 murders.

In the Inky story, Krasner blamed the local epidemic of gun violence on the cops, for submitting cases with weaker evidence; on judges for tossing more cases; and on witnesses to gun violence, because they're not showing up in court.

Krasner didn't mention that his prosecutors, mostly former public defenders and social justice warriors, are inexperienced and incompetent at prosecuting crime. This may factor in to why Krasner's office is not winning more cases in court, or why judges are tossing more of the D.A.'s cases.

Now let's talk about witnesses to crime, and their increasing failure to show up in court. Ask yourself why would anybody want to risk their neck testifying against an armed and dangerous alleged criminal who will probably be back out on the street today or tomorrow?

Next, the Inky allowed Krasner to go off on a diversionary tactic that featured a philosophical speech about the "long-standing structural problems that drive people toward picking up a gun."

In his soliloquy, Professor Krasner pontificated about underfunded schools, poor neighborhoods long neglected by government, and finally, systemic racism in the criminal justice system.

“Yes, enforcement is a small part of the story," Krasner lectured his favorite news outlet. "The big part of the story is not that. The big part of the story is this city’s chronic failure to invest in prevention that the community is crying out for. That is where we have to go.”

It was a textbook example of passing the buck. And not once during six consecutive paragraphs of excuses that the Inquirer printed from Krasner did the D.A. ever look in the mirror and blame himself, or his progressive policies at the D.A.'s office.

And not once did Krasner's official enablers at the Inquirer call him on it.

While we're listing sins against journalism, the Inquirer apparently forgot that there's a reelection campaign on for D.A. And that on May 18th, Krasner, whom the local Democratic party has declined to endorse, is facing a challenger for the Democratic nomination for D.A., Carlos Vega, a career homicide prosecutor.

Did the Inquirer talk to Vega and get his views on the record amount of gun crimes? Nope. That's because the Inquirer is actively engaged in slanting the news, and protecting Krasner, so he can cruise to reelection.

But Vega does have an opinion about the subject of record gun violence that he doesn't mind sharing.

Vega said the case of Bernard Giddings and Andre Presley was a "classic example of why we have the record shooting rate and the record murder rate that we do, and why we're looking at an even higher death rate this year."

Krasner is "refusing to admit that there's a problem and refusing to competently prosecute these cases," Vega said.

"The city needs a prosecutor not a social worker."

THE RAP SHEET FOR BERNARD GIDDINGS

On April 11, 2018, Bernard Giddings was arrested for the first time on a gun charge. He was charged with six offenses, including possession of a firearm with altered manufacturer's number, carrying unlicensed firearms, possession of a prohibited firearm, possession of a controlled substance, carrying firearms in public, and possession of an instrument of crime.

The same day he was arrested, Giddings's bail was set at $150,000 monetary, meaning he'd have to put down a 10% deposit of $15,000 to get out of jail.

But on April 26, 2018, his bail was lowered to $15,000 monetary, meaning he'd only have to post a 10% deposit of $1,500 to get out of jail.

Our veteran prosecutor took a dim view of that.

"Clearly the D.A.'s office did not fight to keep the bail when the case was now moving forward," he said. "Bail should only be lowered when you can't get the case on and you are asking for multiple continuances. They may have asked for high bail initially, but then did nothing to fight to keep it."

What does the D.A. have to say? As they have for the past 20 months now, District Attorney Krasner and Jane Roh, his official spokesperson, did not respond to a request for comment about the cases of Giddings and Presley.

In a non-negotiated deal, Giddings pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm with altered manufacturer's number, and the D.A.'s office agreed to drop the other five charges.

What was the grand result? Giddings got a light sentence of no jail time and just four years probation.

What did Giddings do with his new-found freedom?

On Jan. 3, 2019, Giddings, wearing a lime green shirt, was driving seen on surveillance video piloting his white 2008 Chevy Malibu near Audenried High School, when three armed passengers opened fire on nine juveniles.

The shooters fired at the juveniles from a distance of between five and 10 feet, a police report says.

A day later, cops on a city-wide patrol alert pulled Giddings over in his Chevy for running a stop sign. Riding with Giddings as a passenger was Andre Presley.

In a washing machine in the basement of Giddings's home, the cops found a lime green shirt. Giddings admitted he was in the area at the time of the shooting.

On Jan. 5, 2019, the cops charged Giddings with nine offenses. That same day his bail was set at $750,000. He subsequently pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, possession of a prohibited firearm, conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, and carrying unlicensed firearms.

The possession of a prohibited firearm charge involved Giddings being prohibited from carrying a gun because as an adult he was a convicted felon in a case that happened outside of Philadelphia, and does not appear on his local court record.

On Oct. 18, 2019 Judge Robert Coleman sentenced Giddings to three to six years in prison and four years probation. As part of the deal, the D.A. dropped five other charges, including three gun charges, simple assault, and reckless endangerment.

With credit for time served, Giddings did a total of 20 months in jail, before he was paroled on Sept. 9, 2020. But when he got out jail, Giddings didn't change his ways.

On March 24th of this year, state police executed a search warrant at Giddings's home at 6:40 a.m. on 2510 S. Carroll Street. Under Giddings's bed, the cops found a black Smith & Wesson .40 caliber semiautomatic pistol with a fully loaded magazine of 15 rounds.

The cops also found a black Smith & Wesson extended magazine with 28 9 mm caliber rounds, and a blank Canik magazine with 10 9 mm rounds, plus a small amount of marijuana.

The gun was stolen. Giddings told police he found it a week ago.

Giddings was arrested again and charged with possession of a prohibited firearm and receiving stolen property.

THE RAP SHEET FOR ANDRE PRESLEY

Presley was first arrested on March 11, 2013, when he was 18. The D.A's office filed five charges against him, including carrying an unlicensed firearm.

On June 25, 2015, when he was 20, Presley was found to be an adjudicated delinquent, on charges of possession of a firearm as a minor, a misdemeanor.

As part of the deal, the D.A.'s office withdrew four other charges, including carrying an unlicensed firearm, a felony, and three other misdemeanor charges, including carrying a firearm in public, possession of a weapon on school property, and terroristic threats.

On May 8, 2016, Presley was arrested a second time on gun charges. On May 8, 2016, his bail was set at $500,000 monetary, meaning it would have taken a 10% deposit of $50,000 to spring him out of jail.

But on May 23, 2016, his bail was lowered to $75,000 monetary, meaning it would only take a 10% deposit of $7,500 to get out of jail.

On June 1, 2016, Presley's bail was again changed, this time to $250,000 monetary, meaning it would cost him a 10% deposit of $25,000 to get out of jail. In addition, the judge ordered that Presley be placed on an electronic monitor.

On Dec. 6, 2016, Presley entered a negotiated guilty plea on charges of carrying an unlicensed firearm, possession of a prohibited firearm, and carrying firearms in public. His sentence was two to five years in jail and five years of probation. But he wound up at the Quehanna Boot Camp.

When he got out of jail, Presley was still on probation for his previous 2016 gun arrest when he was arrested a third time on May 19, 2018. He was charged with possession of a prohibited firearm, possession of a firearm with an altered manufacturer's number, carrying a unlicensed firearm, and carrying a firearm in public.

The D.A. could have revoked Presley's parole on the spot, because of his new arrest, and put him in jail. But on June 22, 2018, Presley got another break when the D.A. dismissed all four charges against Presley and he walked.

On Jan. 4, 2019, the cops arrested Presley for the shooting episode outside Audrenried High School

According to a police report, Presley waived his Miranda rights and confessed to cops that he was one of the passengers in the car who was seen on surveillance video hanging out of the car with a gun. Police also recovered a sweatshirt from Presley that matched the clothing worn by one of the shooters on video.

After his Jan. 5, 2019, arrest, the D.A. filed nine charges against Presley. On Oct. 28, 2019, he pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, possession of a prohibited firearm, and carrying an unlicensed firearm.

As part of the deal, the D.A. dropped five other charges, including three gun charges, simple assault, and reckless endangerment.

He was sentenced to 3 to 6 years in jail and five years probation for the shooting outside Audenried High, the same sentence that Giddings got.

Both sentences were below state sentencing guidelines that called for 4 to 8 years or 5 to 10 years in prison on the aggravated assault charge alone. In both cases, the sentencing guidelines could have been adjusted upwards because of the conspiracy and gun charges.

But the D.A.'s office under Larry Krasner gave both Giddings and Presley a break on a drive-by shooting that could have resulted in the multiple murders of high school students.

Why? Because that's just the way Uncle Larry rolls. And as the bodies continue to pile up, just don't expect the Inquirer to commit real journalism by ever holding the D.A. accountable.

By Ralph Cipriano

for BigTrial.net

You could call it the revenge of the Big Bambino; and Chris Columbus too.

In U.S. District Court this morning, City Councilman Mark Squilla joined a coalition of 47 national, state and local Italian-American groups in filing a civil rights lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia and Mayor Jim Kenney.

The lawsuit charges that by unilaterally dumping Columbus Day as a city holiday, and replacing it with Indigenous Peoples' Day, Mayor Kenney is guilty of discriminating against Italian-Americans, and violating the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit further argues that the mayor's executive order to cancel Columbus Day as a city holiday was only the latest in a "long line of divisive, anti-Italian American discriminatory actions" previously undertaken by Kenney.

In addition to canceling Columbus Day, the lawsuit states, Kenney has stereotyped Italian-Americans in public rhetoric as "Cousin Guido" and "vigilantes."

He's put the South Philly zip code where most Italian-Americans live last on the list when it comes to distributing city-wide COVID vaccines, the lawsuit charges. And for the final insult, Kenney targeted the Rizzo statue and the Columbus statue for destruction.

"Mayor Kenney previously took unilateral actions against two iconic Italian American statues prominently displayed for decades within the City of Philadelphia," the lawsuit states.

"First, the removal of the Frank L. Rizzo statue (in the middle of the night) from the plaza at the Municipal Services Building. And, second, the attempted removal of the 140 year-old Christopher Columbus statue from its longtime home at Marconi Plaza."

"No other statues in the city (amongst the many hundreds)," the lawsuit notes, "have been targeted by the Mayor."

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Councilman Squilla and 47 organizations that comprise the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations, Inc.

They include the Sons of Italy, the National Italian American Foundation, the Italian Welfare League, the Italian American Legal Defense Fund Inc., the American Italian Renaissance Foundation, the Columbus Heritage Coalition, the Italian American Alliance, the Italian American War Veterans of the U.S., the Justinian Society of Lawyers, and the National Italian American Bar Association.

Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the 1492 Society, which sponsors the annual Columbus Day Parade that was also canceled by Kenney; and Jody Della Barba, the late Mayor Rizzo's former secretary who is the parade organizer and secretary of the 1492 Society.

In a press release accompanying the 37-page lawsuit, Councilman Squilla explained the extraordinary action of a city councilman filing a civil rights suit against the incumbent mayor from his own political party by saying, “Upon learning that the Columbus Day Holiday was changed, I immediately reached out to Mayor Kenney for an understanding of his decision process, but never received a response."

"As a City of immigrants, we need to celebrate all ethnicities and their contributions to Philadelphia and our country. I am disappointed that Mayor Kenney removed a holiday that celebrated Italian American heritage, without a process," Squilla said.

"Indigenous people are deserving of a day to celebrate their culture and contributions to the City and nation," Squilla said. "However, this change has created tension between two immigrant populations, rather than promoting inclusivity and citywide reforms that serve all of our diverse communities that will encourage unity, not division.”

A spokesperson for Kenney declined comment.

In the same press release, Basil Russo, president of the Conference of Presidents, said, “We as Italian Americans in this Country believe that each and every ethnic group deserves the opportunity to celebrate its heritage and historical achievements, but we also believe it is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution to allow one ethnic group to do so (Indigenous People) while denying another group the right to celebrate its heritage (Italian Americans), as Mayor Kenney chose to do."

"This lawsuit, supported unanimously by every major Italian American Organization in this Country, is intended to guarantee ALL ethnic groups the opportunity to celebrate their individual and distinct heritages and historic accomplishments,” Russo said.

“We believe this lawsuit will have nationwide significance in putting to an end the reckless “Cancel Culture” advocated by extremist in many of our major American cities.”

The lawsuit asks the court to declare Kenney's Executive Order 2-21 that canceled Columbus Day as a city holiday void and unconstitutional. The lawsuit further seeks to enjoin Kenney and the city from taking any further action to cancel Columbus Day, and asks the court to declare Italian Americans a protected class entitled to equal protection under the Constitution.

Finally, the lawsuit asks the court to award the plaintiffs' legal fees, court costs, as well as any further relief that the court "deems just and equitable."

On Jan. 27th, Mayor Kenney issued Executive Order 2-21 that canceled Columbus Day, which, according to the lawsuit, is a "historic holiday under Pennsylvania and Federal law." In the same executive order, Kenney replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day.

"While both groups’ ethnicity deserve recognition, Mayor Kenney may not take action that discriminates against Italian Americans to exalt another ethnic group in its place," the lawsuit states.

By replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day, the lawsuit states, "Mayor Kenney and the City are thus explicitly choosing which ethnicities should be credited, supported, and approved by the City government, and which ethnicities should be shamed, disdained and canceled."

"The United States Constitution forbids such governmental behavior."

Kenney's executive order dumping Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples' Day also violated the City Charter, in addition to other city laws that were part of standard democratic process, the lawsuit states.

And in pursuing his vendetta against Columbus Day, the lawsuit argues that Mayor Kenney behaved like a dictator.

"Mayor Kenney unilaterally issued Executive Order No. 2-21 without regard for the multiple restrictions of the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter applicable to the designation of holidays," the lawsuit states.

Kenney's executive order to ban Columbus Day as a city holiday was also done "without regard to the separation of powers that it and state law provide, without regard to Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Act," the lawsuit states, "and without regard to the Home Rule Act prohibiting the City from taking any action 'contrary to' state law."

"Mayor Kenney made no proposal to City Council about canceling Columbus Day, nor ever sought its approval" from the Civil Service Commission, the lawsuit states.

In canceling Columbus Day as a city holiday, the lawsuit states, Kenney "never provided the public with the requisite notice and opportunity to be heard, never considered (or explicitly ignored) Pennsylvania state law (which expressly designates Columbus Day as a holiday across the Commonwealth), and never engaged in activity integral to a functioning democracy."

The lawsuit said that Kenney's discriminatory actions against Italian-Americans includes the recent distribution of the COVID vaccine.

According to the lawsuit, "Mayor Kenney blatantly discriminated against Philadelphia’s First Councilmanic District (largely populated by Italian Americans) by purposely depriving them of COVID relief vaccinations when making city-wide allocations."

On February 19, 2021, the City, at Mayor Kenney’s direction, released the first 20 Philadelphia zip codes eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine," the lawsuit states. "The zip code 19148 – that is home to the largest concentration of Italian Americans in Philadelphia – was conspicuously omitted from the list

In the distribution of COVID vaccines, the lawsuit states, "Mayor Kenney kicked Italian Americans to the bottom of the COVID-19 vaccination barrel."

The lawsuit also attacks Kenney for his decision to demote a popular police captain.

"Mayor Kenney also recently demoted Captain Louis Campione from his longtime assignment in Philadelphia’s First Police District, baselessly accusing him of sanctioning 'vigilantism' when South Philadelphia Italian American residents sought to protect the Columbus Statue located at Marconi Plaza from vandalism by protestors," the lawsuit states.

"Further still, Mayor Kenney has a long history of making public anti-Italian American comments," the lawsuit states. "For instance, in a 2016 rant by Mayor Kenney about immigration and his desire for Philadelphia to remain a 'Sanctuary City,' he stated: 'If this were Cousin Emilio or Cousin Guido, we wouldn’t have this problem because they’re white.'”

Much of the lawsuit is devoted to Kenney's campaign against the marble Christopher Columbus statue located in Marconi Square. When Kenney tried to have the statue removed, residents went to court and obtained an injunction to protect the statue.

The actual plot to topple the Columbus statue in the dead of night was outlined in a June 14th conference call in an emergency hearing before Common Pleas Court Judge Marlene Lachman.

Fran Kane, the business agent for Iron Workers Local 405, told the judge that he got a tip from an anonymous city employee that the 20-foot tall marble Columbus statue that weighs several tons was "going to be taken down by a non-union rigging outfit" some time between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. the next morning.

"If they show on site, I plan to put a picket line up," Kane told the judge.

In court, Kane told the judge that two years earlier, his union had offered to take down the Rizzo statue for free, but "all our advances were ignored by the city."

Then, city workers took down the Rizzo statue in the middle of the night, and they botched the job by throwing a halter over the statue, and not doing anything to protect the nine-foot-high 2,000-pound bronze statue from being damaged when they dropped it.

For two centuries, the lawsuit states, "Italian immigrants and Italian Americans have embraced Christopher Columbus as a symbol of the courageous voyage their families endeavored when immigrating from Italy to the United States of America."

In 1934, Congress issued a joint resolution making Columbus Day a national holiday, the lawsuit reminds Kenney. In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a proclamation recognizing Columbus Day as a national holiday, even though it was actively opposed by the Klu Klux Klan.

"Today,", the lawsuit states, "Christopher Columbus and Italian Americans are facing persecution throughout the country at levels not seen since the 1920s when the KKK charged Christopher Columbus
with the same heinous – and unsupported– wrongdoings Mayor Kenney and the City of Philadelphia are making in support for their effort to cancel the Columbus Day holiday."

The lawsuit details how in 2018, Councilman Squilla enlisted Robert F. Petrone, a Philadelphia lawyer, assistant district attorney and an expert on Columbus, to research the true historical record of Columbus, and report back to the City Council.

In doing his research, Petrone began with the History of the Indies published during the 1500s by Bartolome de las Cases, as well as a comprehensive history of the first 68 years of Spanish settlements in the Indies.

Petrone, who is fluent in Spanish, also had access to copies of the original texts, written in 15th and 16th century Spanish, and he personally "verified the accuracy of the sources' translation to English," the lawsuit states.

"Mr. Petrone’s reports not only unequivocally demonstrate there is no support in the primary source materials to corroborate the heinous wrongdoings Mayor Kenney and the City of Philadelphia now falsely charge Christopher Columbus with, but also demonstrate that the primary historical sources unanimously bear out that Christopher Columbus was the first recorded civil-rights activist of the Americas," the lawsuit states

According to Petrone's research, Columbus:

-- "prohibited the mistreatment and the enslavement of the tribal peoples by the hidalgos (low, landed nobles of Spain) during his tenure as governor of the West Indies."

-- "established the first 'underground railroad' of the Americas by traveling around the West Indies on his Second Voyage rescuing [another Indian tribe known as the] Tainos from enslavement by the man-eating Carib and Canib tribes."

-- "successfully petitioned the King of Spain to promulgate the first civil rights legislation of the Americas decreeing that 'all the Indians of Hispaniola were to be left free, not subject to servitude, unmolested and unharmed and allowed to live like free vassals under law just like any other vassal in the Kingdom of Castile.'”

"Mr. Petrone’s research found that nowhere in any of the three volumes of History of the Indies is there evidence that Columbus mistreated the Indigenous People," the lawsuit states.

"Nor does any evidence appear in any of the primary sources," the lawsuit states. "Quite to the contrary, de las Casas’s Historyof the Indies and all primary sources explicitly indicate that Christopher Columbus repeatedly protected the tribal peoples, even the cannibalistic Caribs who often attacked him and his sailors unprovoked."

"Despite Philadelphia City Council having been provided with Mr. Petrone’s detailed reports that conclude there is no support for the charges the City and Mayor now level against Christopher Columbus," the lawsuit states, "Mayor Kenney – unilaterally – issued Executive Order 2-21 that claimed: 'Columbus enslaved indigenous people, and punished individuals who failed to meet his expected service through violence and, in some cases, murder.'"

"The historic record also demonstrates that slavery and other wrongdoings were practiced in North America long before and irrespective of Christopher Columbus’s arrival," the lawsuit states.

"At no fault of the “Indigenous People” living today, some of their ancestry contains irrefutable evidence of wrongdoing of massive proportions regarding the practice of slavery," the lawsuit states.

For example, the lawsuit states, one tribe known as the Caribs was "going from island to island in the West Indies," capturing another tribe known as the Tainos.

According to Petrone's research, the Caribs were guilty of "murdering and eating the Taino men, castrating and enslaving the Taino boys – and then, when they matured into men, killing and eating them."

According to Petrone's research, the Caribs were also guilty of "eating the rest of the Taino children; kidnapping and raping 'all the [Taino] women they can take,' and then, when the rape victims gave birth, eating the babies as well."

According to the lawsuit, a local doctor said of the Caribs, “They say that man’s flesh is so good, that there is nothing like it in the world."

"As for the Tainos, the source materials indicate Christopher Columbus’s relationship with the Tainos was entirely peaceful," the lawsuit states.

After South Philly residents went to court to obtain an injunction to prevent the city from moving the Columbus statue, Kenney subsequently ordered the statue to be encased in plywood, so that no one could see it, while he attempted to have the statue permanently removed from Marconi Square.

After he ordered the toppling of the Rizzo statue, Kenney had Big Frank moved to an undisclosed location.

Bochetto went to court in protest after a passerby snapped a photo of the still-bound statue that had been abandoned and "left in the back of an open flatbed truck," Bochetto wrote.

"On June 3, 2020, the statue was removed under cover of night, with no [due] process or input from the public or approval from the Philadelphia Art Commission," as required by the city's charter, Bochetto wrote.

"It's absolute lawlessness by the city and complete intransigence to the rights of the citizenry, and we're not going to let them get away with it," Bochetto said at the time.

"The statue is a unique piece of art with immense sentimental value that cannot be properly compensated by money damages," Bochetto argued in court. "The statute may be damaged or destroyed if the city is not enjoined," Bochetto wrote, and the statue may suffer "significant and irreversible harm due to the city's neglect."

In response, Mike Dunn, a Kenney spokesman, gave an incendiary statement to The Philadelphia Inquirer that should make a useful exhibit in court when it comes time for Bochetto to prove the anti-Italian animus of the Kenney administration.

About the plaintiffs who filed the complaint, Dunn said, "They are bitter and disgruntled because we took it [the statue] down and the statue will never stand on city property again."

"This 'emergency' lawsuit is a frivolous cry for public attention," Dunn added. "The city has more pressing things to worry about -- like dismantling the structural racism that the statue stood for."

In court, when residents sought to have the statue repaired and moved to a private location in South Philly, such as the grounds of St. Monica's Church, Kenney asked a federal judge to have the statue permanently banned from being displayed anywhere in the city, whether it was on public or private property,. but the judge refused.

As far as Rizzo goes, Kenney's campaign against the statute constitutes a complete reversal. That's because after Rizzo died in 1991, Kenney, then a city councilman at large, was one of the original advocates for building a monument to Rizzo.

A proposed City Council bill from May 9, 1996 also states that Kenney was one of nine original cosponsors of a bill that would have renamed the Municipal Service Building as the "Frank L. Rizzo Municipal Services Building."

The proposed bill was subsequently withdrawn because the Rizzo family decided that the statue, which had just been commissioned, was enough of a public tribute to the late mayor.

The Rizzo statue may be gone, but a popular T-Shirt lives on in South Philly that depicts Big Frank telling the mayor, "YO KENNEY, YOU'RE A REAL CRUMB BUM."

By Ralph Cipriano

for BigTrial.net

District Attorney Larry Krasner is playing a shell game with his favorite PAC. It's called laundering cash donations that are way above the legal limits.

Last year, the Real Justice PAC of San Francisco lavished more than $100,000 on the D.A.'s reelection committee in the form of cash, in-kind contributions and rent money. The only problem was that the city of Philadelphia's legal limit for annual donations from any PAC was only $12,600.

That created a legal problem for the city's top law enforcement officer and his favorite PAC, namely what to do with all that extra cash? On the latest filings from the Krasner for District Attorney committee, Krasner reported that he paid The Social Practice LLC of San Francisco $70,000 for "marketing services."

It's a real cozy relationship that Krasner's got going here. Both the Real Justice PAC and The Social Practice LLC have the same address: 3041 Mission St., San Francisco. And five leaders of The Social Practice, which bills itself on its official website as an "ideologically driven political consultancy," also happen to be listed on the Real Justice PAC website as team leaders of the Real Justice PAC.

Rebecca "Becky" Bond and Zack Malitz, both of whom are co-founders of Real Justice, are also listed as co-founders of The Social Practice. Jin Ding, a member of "The Team" that runs Real Justice, is also listed as a partner at The Social Practice. Dan Rowe, another member of the team that runs Real Justice, is communications manager of The Social Practice. And Alexandria Sousa, another member of the team that runs Social Justice, is a senior strategist at The Social Practice.

Everybody's playing on the same team.

Meanwhile, the Real Justice PAC is advertising online to "Help Re-Elect Larry Krasner And Stand with Us For Transformational Justice." The ads seeking donations all the way up to $1,000 and more say that "Your contribution will be split evenly between Real Justice PAC - Unlimited and Larry Krasner."

So it's clear from their actions that Real Justice PAC and Larry Krasner are working hand in hand to get Krasner reelected. And they don't give a damn about any federal, state or local laws that would place any legal restraints on their generosity.

That's why the city's Board of Ethics has been monitoring the "Lawrence Krasner For District Attorney" campaign committee, and the contributions they've been raking in from the Real Justice PAC. Because both the D.A.'s campaign committee and his favorite PAC are known offenders.

Two years ago, the Board of Ethics finalized an agreement that called for both the Real Justice PAC and Krasner's campaign committee to fork over a total of $23,000 in fines and "disgorgements" [or forfeits] for breaking city election laws back in 2017, when Krasner first got elected D.A., with donations that were over and above the city's legal limits.

J. Shane Creamer Jr., executive director of the city's Board of Ethics, could not be reached for comment on the latest doings of the Krasner campaign and Real Justice.

As they have done for the past 20 months, D.A. Krasner and Jane Roh, his official spokesperson, did not respond to a request for comment.

Also not talking are the officers and leaders of the Real Justice PAC, and the Social Practice LLC; nobody at either enterprise responded to requests for comment.

With Krasner running for reelection in the May 18th Democratic primary, both the Real Justice PAC and the D.A.'s campaign committee have renewed their synergistic efforts.

According to Real Justice's filings last year with the Federal Election Commission, the PAC listed as campaign contributions to Krasner a $25,000 donation made on April 15, 2020, and a $50,000 donation made on July 30, 2020.

But in financial reports that Real Justice PAC filed with the city, and in a financial report filed by the Krasner committee with the state, to date, both entities have only disclosed the $25,000 contribution. So the question was on which forms was Real Justice telling the truth? Was it with the city or was it with the feds?

On Feb. 19th, the same day Big Trial reported the discrepancies with Real Justice's contributions to the Krasner campaign, the Krasner campaign filed an amended report with the state, listing the additional $50,000 contribution from the Real Justice PAC.

And on Feb. 24th, the Real Justice PAC filed a report with the state, listing the $50,000 donation made on July 30, 2020 to the Krasner campaign, only they report it as a "contribution to non-campaign account."

That's a loophole in city campaign finance law that would enable Krasner to get around that $12,600 a-year limit on contributions from a PAC. Since Krasner didn't formally announce he was running for reelection until this February, Real Justice's contributions to the Krasner campaign last year fall under the classification of pre-candidacy donations.

That means any contribution Krasner receives over and above the $12,600 limit for a single year is supposed to be set aside in a special account, to be used for non-campaign expenses. That's opposed to any contribution over the legal limit that Krasner received while he was an official candidate. In that case, Krasner would have been required to return the excess contributions.

In its most recent report to the state, the Real Justice PAC stated that on March 24th, they received $14,750 from the Lawrence Krasner for District Attorney for "staff time and software."

Under expenditures, Real Justice reported paying Brandon Evans, who is Krasner's campaign manager, as well as the former manager of Mayor Kenney's reelection campaign, a total of $12,380.60

The Lawrence Krasner for D.A. campaign also listed $421,486 in donations taken in from Jan. 1 to March 29th, bringing the total campaign treasury to $609,462.

Krasner's biggest contributors on this campaign cycle were listed as the District 1199C Political Action Fund of Philadelphia, which donated $3,000, and the Laborers District Council of Philadelphia, which donated $12,600.

Out of Krasner's most recent donations, more than 70% came from out of state. Krasner's donors included Rebecca Bond and Zack Malitz, both of whom are co-founders of Real Justice and The Social Practice, who donated a total of $6,100 between them to Krasner's reelection committee.

Krasner's opponent in the May 18th Democratic primary for D.A., Carlos Vega, reported taking in $335,374 in contributions, the vast majority of which were local donors, bringing his total war chest to $465,326.

Vega's biggest contributors included the Bricklayers & Allied Craftworkers local PAC Fund of Philadelphia, with $12,600, the FOP, with $12,600; the IUPAT DC 21 PAC of Philadelphia, with $12,600; The Sprinkler Fitters Local Union No. 692 POAC Fund, with $12,600; and the Pennsylvania FOP PAC, with $12,000.

By Robert Petrone

for BigTrial.net

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche proclaimed, "God is dead [a]nd we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?"

Today, I proclaim that those same murderers have now killed journalism, from the inside. The polemicists of The Philadelphia Inquirer have murdered truth and facts and rely solely on ad hominem attacks and hit pieces to make a point.

But character assassination -- of me, of our historical icons, of defenders of civil liberties like Councilman Mark Squilla or the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations -- will not "break our bones." In fact, their words will never hurt us, because we have the facts and primary historical sources to summarily disprove their unsubstantiated, citation-less lies.

Compare recent, misinformation-laden, citationless, tabloid polemics such as The Inquirer's "The Columbus Day holiday is based on a lie. Yet, some people don’t want to let it go" and the one subtitled "Some historians believe Columbus was kind to Native populations he encountered. But some historians would be wrong, and every actual civil rights activist is rolling in their graves" with my citation-filled 1492 Project series of articles at Broad + Liberty about the true history of Christopher Columbus, titled: "Christopher Columbus Is the Greatest Hero of the Fifteenth & Sixteenth Centuries."

"Part I: Introduction"
"Part II: The Man"
"Part III: The Scientific Hypothesis"
"Part IV: The Discovery"

"Part V: The Second Voyage"
"Part VI: The Arch-Nemesis Bobadilla"
"Part VII: The First Civil Rights Legislation of the Americas"
"Part VIII: The Final Voyage to Freedom"

You'll notice a stark difference between my scholarly articles and the polemic pieces published by The Inquirer: mine state facts supported by citations to the primary historical sources; theirs cite nothing to support their lies.

This, indeed, is why outlets like Bigtrial.net and Broad + Liberty exist. The Inquirer's historic fall from grace from a news outlet to a pathetic, supermarket tabloid has left that once noble publication with a dwindling readership, the remainder of which no longer trusts it anyway, but rather simply reads it for the amusing invective and to see what nonsense the cultural majoritarians are spewing today.

How does the desperate editorial staff keep this dying institution alive? By pushing hate, of course, because nothing gets mouse-clicks like anger-inducing headlines. Another tack might be to vie for foreign monies, which can be obtained by pushing the currently fashionable anti-Western narratives of global interests that see the United States and Western culture as the last obstacle to their megalomaniacal economic domination.

The Inquirer's many lies about Christopher Columbus, the civil rights lawsuit of the city's Italian American residents and those who support it call to mind the yellow journalism of the 20th Century, which had a terribly corrupt motive: to unduly influence people in power, such as the judge that will be presiding over the federal civil rights lawsuit brought collectively by the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations, the 1492 Society, and Councilman Squilla.

Little do such yellow-bellied journalists know how fair and above such petty attacks Judge Darnell Jones is, the way the members of the legal community know it. Nor do they appreciate how he saw first hand the city's handling of the last hearing regarding the now-razed statue of Philadelphia's first and only Italian-American mayor; the court was quite displeased with how the city failed to fulfill its promises and already has a deep sense of what is occurring.

The parties bringing this civil rights lawsuit battle against tyrants clothing themselves in the sheep's wool of virtue (and journalism), who proclaim to know it all (though lack any knowledge of the primary historical sources) and want total control of how their readership thinks.

But Americans are not ignorant of the atrocities of the Twentieth Century, and after having seen such atrocities propagating outward from this precise starting point in Europe, Russia, China, Viet Nam, and Cambodia, Americans know all too well where infiltration of the fictional media, then the news media, and now social media, will lead if those of us who are familiar with the primary historical sources fail to speak truth to power.

Ken Borelli, former President for the Italian-American Heritage Foundation, Inc., who dealt with the replacement of the Christopher Columbus statue in San Jose, California, with a statue of a serpent god to whom human sacrifices were made, aptly stated:

"I have undergone several of these battles, and believe me[,] facts have little to do with them. These are really [won with] organizing techniques by [advocate] groups [with] a large turn out and votes. It's good to have an educated response, but the reality is [politicians] respond to community org[anizations]."

Mindful of Mr. Borelli's sage counsel, I present the educated response to the very uneducated opinions published by the polemicists of The Inquirer, addressing just a few of the lies in each op-ed hit-piece:

The Armstrong Op Ed Hit-Piece:

Lie #1: "The Columbus Day holiday is based on a lie." -- Notice how the polemicist (I won't call her a "journalist" for purposes of discussing this article, since the very first word of the article concedes that it is merely her "opinion") doesn't mention what the "lie" is.

This is Edgar Allen Poe's famous literary trick from his short story "The Pit and the Pendulum," a fiction piece just like this op ed article. Poe never tells the reader what horror lies in the pit, but leaves that to the reader's fevered imagination. The Armstrong article does the same, leaving the gaping pit that is the alleged "lie" to be filled in with the worst lie the reader can imagine, simultaneously permitting the polemicist plausible deniability from claims that she got her facts wrong -- which she did.

Lie #2: "[T]he lawsuit filed on behalf of Italian Americans over [the] decision to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day ... lumps in complaints about the removal of the statue of [the first and only Italian American mayor of Philadelphia] and [the] zip code [of the largest Italian American community] not being included in the COVID-19 priority list" to demonstrate "prejudice against Italian Americans" (emphasis added).

Perhaps this lie about "lumping in" random irrelevancies can be chalked up to the polemicist not being an attorney, and therefore failing to understand the notion of establishing a "course of conduct." But since such a concept lends itself to the patently obvious, even for the most obtuse layperson, any thinking person would be lying to suggest such a thing.

Lie #3:"[W]e blindly celebrated the so-called discovery of a continent that already had inhabitants living there for more than 20,000 years." To the extent this is what the polemicist meant by "lie," perhaps her error can be chalked up to not being an historian, but it seems more like purposeful semantic gamesmanship.

We celebrated "discovery" in the sense that Christopher Columbus brought to light to the rest of the world the existence of the Americas (unlike the Vikings and Romans who left behind evidence of their arrivals).

If The Inquirer's polemicist had discovered in her back yard the previous property owner's buried time capsule, her discovery would be no less of a discovery merely because the previous property owner had already put it there. But her semantic legerdemain is not the lie; the lie is that Columbus Day only celebrates that discovery.

In fact, it celebrates the arrival to the New World of the great tripartite legacy of the West: (1) Judeo-Christian ethics and morals, (2) Greco-Roman democracy and law, and (3) the notion that all people are equal in the eyes of their creator.

This is precisely why Columbus detractors hate the holiday -- because it stands for all the things they despise. And finally, Columbus Day celebrates the end of the medieval era and the beginning of more than five hundred years of cultural, economic, and political relations between the Old World and the New, commencing a perpetual exchange of science, technology, law, commerce, art, music, literature, and people, benefiting and enriching the globe from pole to pole.

Besides all these lies, the Armstrong article is also chock full of hate, such as where the polemicist states, "Columbus Day is no longer an official city holiday. The sooner people accept that, the better."

In other words, "Shut up about about the bigotry and damnatio memoriae against your heritage, you [insert any number of Italophobic epithets here] and sit down and eat your pizza." She also notes that "Philadelphians are a diverse bunch and people have to coexist."

Yet, The Inquirer seemingly cares only about diversity of skin color or ethnicity -- though hypocritically it has never had an Italian American editor -- and will do anything it can to suppress diversity of ideas.

So, the polemicist decries the holiday for "aiding and abetting a lie," but methinks the lady doth protest too much -- and doth project too much.

The Ubiñas Op Ed Hit-Piece:

Lie #1: "Some historians believe Columbus was kind to Native populations he encountered. But some historians would be wrong" -- Tellingly, the polemicist cites no primary historical sources to support her layperson's claim that historians are "wrong." Nor can she. Anyone who has studied the primary historical sources -- or at least read them -- can see that the polemicist herself is the one who is wrong.

As the familiar, false narrative has arisen in recent years of Christopher Columbus as a purported "villain," so have risen countless experts on Christopher Columbus to unanimously debunk this slander as the myth it is.

To name a few, Professor Emerita Carol Delaney of Stanford University, dedicated decades of her life traveling the globe to study documents and artifacts regarding Columbus first-hand, and is the premier Columbus expert on the planet; she has flatly debunked the slander against Christopher Columbus in her book and in person.

Author Rafael Ortiz, who identifies as a "Puerto Rican of Taino descent," has written not merely one book (in both Spanish and English), nor merely two, nor merely three, but is currently writing his fourth book on Christopher Columbus and has collaborated with the National Columbus Education Foundation.

And I was enlisted by City Council to research the primary historical sources, and in the process have investigated and debunked the slanderous claims recently levied against Columbus in Philadelphia (see my eight articles above).

All three of us recently appeared among a panel of other Christopher Columbus experts hosted by Drexel University. The entire panel of experts unanimously agreed that the portrayal of Columbus as a racist, rapist, maimer, murderer, slave-owner, slave-trader, and genocidaire is nothing more than a collection of bald-faced lies.

There. In my first response to the first lie of this polemicist's hit-piece, I have provided six more citations to her zero citations. And we're just getting started.

Lie #2: "[T]here are Big Lies to reinforce about Columbus being a civil rights activist!" rather than a "genocidal colonizer" -- It seems the polemicist cannot even decide what her position is: is the great deal of documented evidence of Columbus's civil rights activism simply "wrong" or a "big lie"?

In fact, Columbus's civil rights activism on behalf of the Tainos and the Caribs is neither "wrong" nor a "big lie," but historical fact, patently established by the primary historical sources -- in the plural. That is to say that his civil rights activism is corroborated by multiple, primary, historical sources, including Books I and II of Historia de las Indias by Bartolomé de las Casas, The Life of the Admiral by Hernando Colón, and Dr. Diego Chanca's epistolary account of Columbus's Second Voyage -- in which Columbus established the Americas' first "underground railroad" rescuing Taino captives from their Carib marauders.

I list these primary historical sources just to name a few, which is a few more sources than contained in the polemicist's op-ed piece. She makes a vague reference to "documented atrocities of looting, murder and slavery," but tellingly fails to identify those documents and, more tellingly, does not explicitly attribute them to Christopher Columbus.

Indeed she cannot. The primary historical sources such as Historia de las Indias Books I & II and The Life of the Admiral make clear that the atrocities of looting, murder and slavery were committed by Francisco de Bobadilla, who was Columbus's arch-nemesis and whom Columbus tirelessly and successfully fought to unseat for Bobadilla's atrocities.

But you already knew that from reading Part VI of my "1492 Project" series: The Arch-Nemesis Bobadilla, which, unlike the polemicist's op-ed piece, cites to the primary historical sources. Also, Columbus' goal in his initial voyage was to gain enough wealth through trade for Spain to prevent the colonization of Europe, again, by the Arab Caliphate based in the Middle East that had occupied and enslaved Europe for 700 years; Spain had only recently regained control of itself from the Jihadist colonizers.

Lie #3:"[D]iscriminat[ion] against Italian Americans by not including South Philadelphia’s 19148 zip code in its list of prioritized neighborhoods for coronavirus vaccine distribution [is merely] white rage" -- Again, the polemicist's lack of historical education must be reiterated.

Italians are people of color more so than any identifiable ethnic group; through the veins of Italians and Italian Americans runs the blood of North Africans, Middle Easterners, Lombards, Iberians, Central Europeans and all the indigenous tribes of the Italic peninsula and its islands, and all the foreign marauders who attacked them.

If she knew that, rather than scoff at the idea of hate crimes against Italian Americans, she might attribute to their being persons of color the many instances of violence and destruction perpetrated against Italian Americans recently.

Though the polemicist's periodical did not publish them, the victims did, thanks to social media. To up the citation ratio (the polemicist still scores a zero in that arena), I refer the reader to the following picture, worth a thousand words of citations. Names have been redacted to protect the victims, but all the final vowels of the surnames have been left in:

Those shown here are but a small fraction of the total, too sizable to reproduce in this article.

The rest of this polemicist's op-ed piece then embarks on a James-Joyce-esque stream of consciousness tortuously trying to tie in all manner of national politics such as "Capitol insurrectionists" and "Trump's ... stolen election" that has nothing to do with the federal civil rights law suit brought by the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations, the 1492 Society and Councilman Squilla. Such makeweight rantings only highlight the paucity of facts in either of The Inquirer's op-ed hit-pieces.

The polemicist of the latter op-ed hit-piece got one thing right, however: "every actual civil rights activist is rolling in their graves." The grammatical illiteracy of that statement aside, the point holds up; the muck The Inquirer is slinging against Christopher Columbus does disrespect his well-documented and above-cited legacy of civil rights activism, and that of all civil rights activists who have followed suit, including Harriet Tubman; Martin Luther King, Jr.; George Bochetto, Esquire; and Councilman Mark Squilla.

But that's quite the point of a polemicist: to advocate hate, show disrespect and sow dissent.

Bravissimo, Inquirer, mission accomplished.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

With the city of Philadelphia facing a $450 million budget shortfall this year, officials have said that all options are on the table for cutting city expenses.

So I've got a helpful suggestion. Why not go through every department at City Hall and eliminate every PR spokesperson/flack that the city employs.

We can start in the mayor's office, where Deana Gamble as of 2018, according to the latest figures available online, was earning $118,450 as director of communications. No doubt she's been given a raise since then for outstanding propagandizing on behalf of the mayor.

Next, we can go to the District Attorney's office, where Jane Roh as of 2017 was earning $105,000 as director of communications, and whack that position as well.

Why? Because their services are redundant. Philadelphia already has The Philadelphia Inquirer, which publishes 356 days of the year. And rather than report the news, the "paper of record" takes on as its official daily function, the duty of not only defending Mayor Kenney and D.A. Krasner, but every other Democratic official out there, from the president on down.

The Inquirer's intrepid editors and reporters can also be counted on to ceaselessly trumpet every progressive Democratic talking point. But woe to any heretic who dares to advocate a contrary view.

Take, for example, last week's filing of a civil rights lawsuit in U.S. District Court against the city and Mayor Kenney on behalf of City Councilman Mark Squilla and 47 national, state and local Italian-American organizations.

The lawsuit, written by Philadelphia lawyer George Bochetto, had the audacity to charge discrimination over Mayor Kenney's executive order that canceled Columbus Day as a city holiday, and replaced it with the more woke Indigenous Peoples' Day.

Whenever a progressive belief is challenged, the Inquirer can be counted on to marshal all its forces to maintain order in a city that's been controlled by Democrats for the past 69 consecutive years.

Think of The Simpsons, and what used to happen at Springfield Elementary School whenever a teacher set off the "Independent Thought Alarm."

First, the paper of record responded with an alleged news story about the filing of the lawsuit that ran under this dispassionate subhead: "Dozens of cities across the country have changed the holiday’s official name to Indigenous Peoples’ Day, citing Columbus’ racist views and the genocide against Native Americans."

Next, the Inquirer's columnists of color went to work.

First up was Inquirer columnist Jenice Armstrong, who gave Columbus Day a thrashing under this headline: "The Columbus Day holiday is based on a lie. Yet, some people don’t want to let it go."

The subhead: "Columbus Day is no longer an official city holiday. The sooner people accept that, the better."

Well, ok then, I guess the rest of us have no choice but to salute Fuhrer Kenney and mindlessly follow the dictates of the Inky thought police.

In her column, Armstrong declared that she was "pleased" with the mayor's decision to dump Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples' Day.

"When you know better you do better," Armstrong wrote about the mayor. Ah, the collective wisdom of the enlightened.

Armstrong further opined that she was happy that Kenney had decreed that Juneteenth was another new official city holiday, which Armstrong said was a "small but symbolic step toward righting past historical wrongs."

Ok great, Jenice, I'm glad African-Americans are happy that they got Juneteenth as another holiday and hooray for indigenous peoples for getting a holiday of their own. But the Italians just got their only holiday whacked by edict, and I'm sorry it didn't bother you in the least.

As far as the constitutional issues raised by the lawsuit, well, Armstrong dismissed all that in three words by saying let the lawyers "duke it out."

Next up was Inquirer columnist Helen Ubinas, who wrote off the Columbus Day lawsuit as a joke and political theater. Ubinas, yet another official Inquirer oracle on what constitutes real racism, dismissed Columbus as a "poor genocidal colonizer." Then she described the toppled statue of former Mayor Frank Rizzo as the "city's perennial racist lighting rod."

The point everybody at the Inquirer seems to be missing is about due process.

In issuing Executive Order 2-21 on Jan. 27th that canceled Columbus Day as a city holiday, and replaced it with Indigenous Peoples' Day, Mayor Kenney apparently forgot that he was a democratically elected mayor of a city of 1.6 million people of all ethnicities and races, governed by a city charter. And that he's not the dictator of a banana republic.

Kenney also seemingly forgot that Columbus Day was a federal and state holiday, in addition to being a city holiday.

By unilaterally acting to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day, the lawsuit states, "Mayor Kenney and the City are thus explicitly choosing which ethnicities should be credited, supported, and approved by the City government, and which ethnicities should be shamed, disdained and canceled."

"The United States Constitution [under the Equal Protection clause] forbids such governmental behavior."

That's the principle that the lawsuit is based on. The lawsuit also notes that by toppling the Rizzo statue in the middle of the night, and attempting to do the same with the Columbus statue, Kenney dispensed with the city charter, and an entire due process that involves deciding the fate of a historical monument, such as public hearings, and deliberations. Instead, once again, he acted like a dictator and.

And the Inquirer's columnists are perfectly OK with Kenney toppling Italian-American statues and canceling Columbus Day, because they share his woke beliefs and values.

Thus the newspaper proved in triplicate a David Horowitz maxim: "Inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out."

But as George Bochetto explained, Kenney, who publicly refers to Italians as "Cousin Guido" and "vigilantes," has "completely lost his way and is bent on humiliating and disgracing the Italian-American culture in Philadelphia, and we're not going to put up with it."

And, as Bochetto told reporters, what if the next mayor decides by fiat that he wants to cancel the St. Patrick's Day Parade, or the Martin Luther King holiday? Will that be all right with everybody?

As far as the city's PR flacks go, if we got rid of all of them, they wouldn't be missed. At least not by me.

For the past 20 months, Jane Roh has stonewalled every inquiry I've sent her so she's worthless.

And Deana Gamble, Kenney's flack, refused to respond to my questions about the Columbus Day lawsuit because she was offended that I had encouraged other media outlets to cover that story.

Hey Deana, let me explain something about your boss that offends me -- he's a hypocrite.

Thirty years ago when Rizzo died, Kenney, then a city councilman at large, was one of the original proponents for building a monument to Rizzo. And Kenney was also a co-sponsor of a bill to rename the Municipal Services Building in Rizzo's honor.

But the Inquirer, of course, and every other progressive media outlet in town, including Philly mag, gave Kenney a pass on that.

Hey Deana, as far as I'm concerned, I'd encourage every reporter in North America to write about your boss and expose him for being a hypocrite.

So in praise of independent thought, I've published on the blog today an essay by Robert Petrone, a lawyer, assistant district attorney and Columbus scholar who was commissioned by the City Council to research original Spanish manuscripts from the 15th and 16th centuries and report back on the true history of Columbus.

Apparently, Mayor Kenney never bothered to read that report. Instead, he pandered to the mob that came for the Columbus statue. After they came for the Rizzo statue.

Today, Petrone is writing to refute the Inquirer's attacks on Columbus, Columbus Day, and the Columbus Day lawsuit. In his piece, Petrone also provided links to all eight chapters of his report on Columbus.

So I'd encourage everybody to give it a read.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

The Philadelphia Police Department, which was woefully undermanned for last year's George Floyd protests, was out in force yesterday as the nation awaited the verdict in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, who's accused of murdering Floyd.

The Philadelphia Police Department canceled all days off yesterday for all personnel as the city had more than 1,000 officers out on the street working 12-hour shifts.

In West Philadelphia, more than 200 bicycle cops were on patrol while the city shut down about a mile of 52nd Street, which was the subject of widespread looting last year, with barricades from Parkside Avenue to Larchwood Avenue.

In Center City, some 70 bicycle cops were stationed downtown to handle any potential protests/riots.

The only problem was that yesterday less than 100 protesters showed up. As one cop who was out there put it, it was serious overkill.

But the city is still stuck with the bill. And the total cost of the extra police deployment for just one day yesterday was an estimated $2 million.

Of course the cost for accommodating the constitutional right to protest in the streets was not something The Philadelphia Inquirer was concerned about when it dispatched three reporters to chronicle yesterday's doings in the never ending battle for social justice.

"Philly protesters demand justice in police killings of Black people," was the headline in the paper of record.

The paper faithfully and uncritically covered the antics of a "few dozen protesters" who were out in front of the Philadelphia Art Museum hoisting banners that read "KOPS AND KLAN GO HAND IN HAND."

According to the Inquirer, the protesters were watched by "several dozen officers and a half dozen police vehicles" stationed nearby in Eakins Oval.

“I’m so tired of police viewing Black and brown people as threats they can brutalize,” the newspaper quoted protester Kendall Stephens as proclaiming through a megaphone. “We’re not getting protected. We’re getting hunted like animals. … You get pulled over, you get killed.”

Yeah, right. Never mind that last year according to the Washington Post's database of fatal police shootings nationwide in 2019, a total 14 unarmed black victims and 25 unarmed white victims were killed by police, according to Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute.

Of course in Philadelphia, we do have a problem with black men being hunted down and killed. Philadelphia last year recorded 499 murders, the highest rate in 30 years, with more than 90% of the victims being black men.

As were most of their killers.

And this year, with 146 murders so far, a 28% increase over last year, we're on a record pace for at least 638 murders. But nobody was out on the streets yesterday protesting the out-of-control murder rate.

In anticipation of the verdict in the Chauvin trial, more than 1,000 National Guard troops have been deployed in Philadelphia, at the request of the city. And meanwhile, Mayor Kenney, who has been clueless about how to stop the murder rampage in Philadelphia, called for “active peace” on the streets.

“So when the verdict comes, no matter the outcome, let us resolve to demonstrate peacefully, to voice the pain and anguish loud and clear but without destruction, and let us stay united working to ensure that Black lives matter today — and every day,” the woke mayor wrote Friday in an open letter to all Philadelphians.

No doubt Mayor Kenney is down with the struggle. But the peaceful protesters may not share his sentiments.

As the one protester with the megaphone who was quoted by the Inquirer put it yesterday, "We better get the right verdict."

By Ralph Cipriano

for BigTrial.net

In an ongoing whistleblower's lawsuit in U.S. District Court, a former Philadelphia police detective charges that the D.A.'s office tampered with an investigation into the police shooting of Walter Wallace Jr., by trying to force another detective to falsify an affidavit of probable cause.

According to an amended complaint filed April 8th by Detective Derrick "Jake" Jacobs, Assistant District Attorney Vincent Corrigan wanted Detective Daphne Smith to rewrite the affidavit to eliminate Wallace's aggressive actions toward police on the day they shot him 14 times.

On Oct. 26, 2020, a next-door neighbor and Wallace's sister called 911, frantically seeking help because the knife-wielding Wallace was attacking his mother and father.

When the cops got there, Wallace came at two officers with the knife. Within the next minute, despite being told ten times by the cops, who were in retreat, to drop the knife, Wallace kept pursuing the cops out in the street and kept brandishing the knife. So the cops opened fire and killed him.

When Detective Smith refused to rewrite the affidavit, Jacobs wrote, ADA Corrigan went to Detective Smith's superior, Lt. Jason Hendershot, and the result was that Hendershot "altered and falsified" the affidavit to remove any of Wallace's aggressive actions, thereby removing any legal justification for the cops to open fire.

In his federal lawsuit seeking $50 million in damages, Jacobs, acting as his own attorney, has charged District Attorney Larry Krasner and Assistant D.A. Tracy Tripp with conspiring to maliciously prosecute him because he similarly refused to change his testimony about his investigation into another racially-charged officer-involved shooting.

Last October, U.S. Judge Harvey Bartle III granted the city's request to dismiss Jacobs' lawsuit for allegedly not properly following the federal rules for civil procedure. But Jacobs filed an appeal that prevailed last Dec. 1st with the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and his lawsuit was reinstated.

What does the D.A.'s office have to say in response to these allegations? As they have for the past 20 months, Larry "Stonewall" Krasner and Jane 'The Mute" Roh did not respond to a request for comment.

Jacobs, a decorated veteran detective of more than 20 years formerly assigned to the homicide unit, was one of the detectives who investigated the 2017 fatal police shooting of dirt biker David Jones.

The victim was black; Ryan Pownall, the cop who pulled the trigger, was white. Jacobs, who was the only black member of the police department's Officer Involved Shooting Investigation Unit, says that race played no part in his investigation that exonerated the officer; neither did any supposed loyalty to his fellow cops.

In Jacobs' view, Pownall did nothing wrong.

"Jones was armed," Jacobs previously told Big Trial. And during the fight between the two men, "Pownall believed he was shooting Jones to protect himself," as well as a witness that Pownall was transporting, along with the witness's two kids.

But Jacobs' findings put him on a collision course with the D.A.'s office, where Krasner was intent on indicting Officer Pownall for murder. When Jacobs got in the way, the detective claimed in his lawsuit, the D.A.'s office, in the person of Assistant District Attorney Tracy Tripp, who is white, threatened to arrest Jacobs, initiated a grand jury investigation against him, and then tried to intimidate the detective into remaining silent until Pownall's trial was over.

In his latest legal brief, Jacobs claims that the D.A.'s office employed the same corrupt methods they used against him to try and persuade another detective to falsify the facts in the officer-involved shooting death of Walter Wallace Jr., which set off two days of riots and looting in the city.

At the time the 27-year-old Wallace was killed, he'd been arrested 17 times and had three outstanding protection orders filed against him by the mother of his children, as well as his own mother.

His rap sheet included a 2019 arrest for stabbing the mother of his children in the leg, but she declined to press charges. In 2016, during a robbery, Wallace allegedly grabbed a woman by the neck, and according to the victim, held a gun to her head. In 2013, he violated a protection order filed by his mother by throwing water in her face, punching her in the face, and threatening to shoot her, according to court records aired by NBC10.

Wallace was also an amateur rapper. On video, he was seen cavorting with guns that as a convicted felon, he was barred from possessing, while rapping about "niggers" and "bitches." But thanks to The Philadelphia Inquirer, which mythologized Wallace, the single dad with nine kids, as a "family man," the mentally-ill, knife wielding career criminal was transformed into a civil rights martyr.

After Wallace was killed, Krasner, never one to miss out on an opportunity to demonize cops, announced he would not rely on the police department's investigation of the case, but instead would have the D.A.'s office conduct its own investigation.

Detective Smith was the only Latino member of the Officer Involved Shooting Investigation Unit. After she wrote an affidavit of probable cause for a search warrant, ADA Corrigan, who is white, informed her he would not "approve her affidavit unless she falsifies the facts known to her," Jacobs wrote.

What ADA Corrigan wanted was to have "Walter Wallace’s aggressive actions removed from the affidavit," Jacobs wrote, because "This would bring into question the justification of the use of deadly force by the officers."

When Detective Smith refused, Jacobs wrote, Lt. Hendershot "had Detective Smith’s factual affidavit voided." Then Hendershot "authored a separate affidavit without Detective Smith’s knowledge."

"The affidavit was altered and falsified to remove Walter Wallace’s aggressive actions," Jacobs wrote. "Defendant Hendershot created an affidavit to Assistant District Attorney Vincent Corrigan’s specifications and satisfaction."

In his legal brief, Jacobs noted that the lawyer for the Wallace family is Shaka Johnson.

"This would not be the first time District Attorney Krasner has colluded with Shaka Johnson in an Officer Involved Shooting," Jacobs wrote.

On Aug. 14, 2019, during a nationally-televised standoff with police that lasted more than seven hours, Maurice Hill, armed with an AR-15, shot six cops. More than 200 shots were fired during the standoff that forced the evacuation of a nearby daycare, and a lockdown on part of the Temple University campus.

During the standoff, a SWAT team had to rescue two cops trapped inside the building while Hill was still firing away at officers that had him surrounded.

Meanwhile, Larry Krasner, a rank amateur at hostage negotiations, was on the phone with Hill and his lawyer playing let's make a deal.

"Early on, I said 25 [years], then he said 20 and I said OK," Krasner told The Philadelphia Inquirer. When Hill asked for the deal in writing, Krasner told the newspaper he started a draft, but didn't finish it.

According to the American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Responsibility, Rule 8.4, however, "It is professional misconduct for a lawyer to . . . engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation."

At the time Krasner offered his phony baloney deal to Hill and his lawyer, former Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham told Big Trial, "When a prosecutor offers a defendant a plea deal the prosecutor is stuck with it."

"He [Krasner] started to write a deal out on a piece of paper," Abraham said. "It's just outrageous. Everything about that is wrong."

And for the past two years since the standoff, Krasner has refused to be interviewed by police regarding his roll as a fact witness in the case of Maurice Hill. Meanwhile, it's Jacobs' contention that since he came forward as a whistleblower, the police department's reaction has been to conspire to falsely charge him with misconduct, and threaten to fire him, forcing the veteran detective to retire.

Regarding Derrick Jacobs's most recent 82-page legal opus, the funniest part has to be when the former detective turned press critic and ripped a few reporters at the Inquirer.

"Chris Palmer and Mensah Dean the so called 'reporters' for the Philadelphia Inquirer also could have provided the citizens of Philadelphia with quality information" about Jacobs' lawsuit, and his serious allegations of corruption in the D.A.'s office, Jacobs wrote.

"Palmer contacted Jacobs immediately after Jacobs’ filed his civil complaint," Jacobs wrote. But Jacobs responded by doing his own investigation of Palmer, and it "revealed he was Krasner’s publicist and not an actual reporter," the former detective wrote.

In his legal brief, Jacobs also ripped Dean.

"Mensah Dean sat in the courtroom when Pownall’s attorney told the courtroom of the DAO’s nefarious actions," the former detective wrote. "Jacobs was inches (pre covid) away standing directly over Dean’s left shoulder as he took notes."

"This 'reporter' refused to 'report' on what happened in the courtroom that day," the former detective wrote. "Jacobs has watched Dean sit in on numerous homicide court cases, where the victims are almost always African American."

"Dean chooses to tow Krasner’s 'white savior' of black people anthem," the former detective wrote. "Jacobs will not tow that line, nor will he 'kneel' like some have done before him," the former detective wrote, referring to the Inquirer reporters.

"I guess selling the Inquirer is worth selling out."

More on Derrick Jacobs's lonely crusade against corruption in Larry Krasner's D.A.'s office: A. Benjamin Mannes writing the cover story this week for Philadelphia Weekly.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

The star of the 2017 video "What Larry Stands For" is Anmol Singh Kamra of the Philadelphia Sikh Society. That's him on camera in the red turban praising a silent but grinning Larry Krasner, then a candidate running for D.A.

"Looking at us, don't we look like we're from two completely different parts of the world, two completely different backgrounds," Kamra says. "But henceforth, Larry is one of our family and here's why."

"There's one common thing that's common in humanity, doing the right [thing] by every human," Kamra says. "That's what Larry stands for. Vote for him, guys. He's the right guy for you. Larry for D.A. Vote him now."

The reason why the official 45-second Krasner For D.A. campaign video is no longer available on the Internet -- two years after it was made, Kamra was convicted in U.S. District Court of conspiring to distribute more than 82,000 Oxycodone pills to addicts.

The campaign video may be gone but Krasner has yet to return a total of $8,000 in contributions that he received in 2017 from Kamra, as well as Kamra's boss, who ran the pharmacy.

The big question is: when Krasner made the video, did the future D.A. know that Kamra was under investigation by the FBI? Krasner's not talking but it's hard to believe he didn't know because Kamra was represented by a couple of lawyers from the defense law firm that Krasner turned his criminal law practice over to, a firm that Krasner then became of counsel to.

According to prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's office, Kamra was the "master drug dealer" in the conspiracy to distribute Oxycodone that operated from December 2012 to March 2016 out of the Campus Pharmacy in West Philadelphia.

George Fisher was the doctor who wrote hundreds of fraudulent prescriptions for some 46 "sham" patients. Kamra, a pharmacy technician, filled the prescriptions that went to Frank Brown. Brown, an employee of Dr. Fisher's, then sold the pills on the street to addicts

Brown paid Kamra $500 for every phony prescription, the feds said. The pills from each prescription cost between $130 to $360. According to the federal indictment issued in June 2018 on a single count of conspiracy to distribute, Kamra pocketed the difference, at least $229,050.

On Nov. 27, 2019, after a ten-day trial, Kamra was convicted of a single count of conspiracy to distribute.

According to the U.S. Attorney's office, Kamra would sell drugs without prescriptions and then request that Dr. Fisher backdate those fake prescriptions in an attempt to cover his tracks. At trial, Kamra testified that this backdating of prescriptions was a mere “courtesy” that he extended to the doctor so that patients could receive their prescriptions in a timely manner. But undercover video evidence presented at trial by the government showed that it was Kamra who was running the operation, and telling the doctor what to do.

The result was that the relatively small Campus Pharmacy in West Philadelphia sold so many opioids that some drugs were hidden under the sink, the feds said, for fear that the pharmacy's distributor would notice the over-abundance of pills, and cut the pharmacy off for exceeding the allowable limit.

“Kamra was operating nothing more than a corrupt pill mill,” U.S. Attorney William McSwain said0 after Kamra was convicted at a trial where Dr. Fisher and Frank Brown testified on behalf of the government, and against Kamra, after pleading guilty to their roles in the conspiracy.

“The misuse of opioids is killing our citizens, and this defendant significantly contributed to our
region’s crippling opioid epidemic," McSwain said. "We have to do everything possible to stop the illegal distribution of these deadly drugs, especially by professionals entrusted to prescribe and monitor their use.”

“Kamra diverted thousands of oxycodone pills to the street, taking advantage of those struggling with addiction amid our area’s devastating opioid crisis,” said Michael T. Harpster, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia Division.

Harpster described Kamra as “yet another medical professional, looking to profit from someone else’s misery."

Kamra, the master drug dealer and convicted pill mill operator, was also a contributor to Larry Krasner's first campaign for D.A.

In February and March of 2017, according to campaign finance records, Kamra, of Upper Darby, contributed a total of $4,000 to Krasner's campaign.

Those campaign contributions were matched in February and March of 2017 by Ewnetu Zerihun of Upper Darby, who similarly contributed a total of $4,000 to the Krasner campaign.

According to the feds, Zerihun, a licensed pharmacist who couldn't be reached for comment, was Kamra's boss. And the feds say that Kamra filled the phony prescriptions based on the instructions of his boss, as well as Dr. Fisher. During a grand jury investigation that preceded the indictment of Kamra, and the guilty pleas of Dr. Fisher and Brown, Zerihun pleaded the Fifth Amendment.

The investigation began in 2015 when the FBI showed up at Dr. Fisher's office with a search warrant. A year later, the FBI served a search warrant on the Campus Pharmacy. The feds subsequently interviewed Kamra.

And what does District Attorney Larry Krasner have to say about taking campaign contributions from the convicted operator of a pill mill, as well as his boss, who pleaded the Fifth before a federal grand jury?

As he has for the past 20 months, Krasner and Jane Roh, his spokesperson, did not respond to a request for comment. But according to his public comments, Krasner claims to strongly oppose the abuse of opioids.

In 2018, Krasner sued ten pharmaceutical companies for their role in creating the city's opioid epidemic. In a press release, he explained why.

“The City of Philadelphia has been hurt, more than any other city in the nation, by the scourge of opioids," Krasner said. "The time to act is now, which is why I’ve taken this unprecedented action, in parallel with the City of Philadelphia’s suit, to stop these companies from systematically distracting the public from knowing the true dangers of opioid use as they reap billions of dollars in profits.”

Kamra was represented by James Funt and Ronald Greenblatt of Greenblatt, Pierce, Funt & Flores LLC, a firm with direct ties to Krasner.

In July of 2017, Krasner announced that he was merging his former criminal law practice with the Greenblatt firm. For part of 2017, before he was elected D.A., Krasner was listed as of counsel to the Greenblatt Firm.

Other lawyers who were political allies of Krasner's also worked on the Kamra case.

According to a March 4, 2021 sentencing memorandum, Kamra was represented at his 2019 trial by Susan M. Lin of Kairys, Rodovsky, Messing, Feinberg & Lin. Krasner's wife, Lisa Rau, was a partner in that firm before she became a Common Pleas Court judge.

All three lawyers in the Kamra case were also campaign contributors to Krasner in 2017. According to campaign finance records, Greenblatt donated $2,000; Funt, $500; and Lin, $100.

On Krasner's official Statement of Financial Interests filed with the city on May 1, 2018, he listed the Greenblatt firm as tenants at the Tiger Building at 239-41 South Camac Street, where Krasner has a 40% ownership interest. Krasner reported that he received income from both lawyers, but was not required to disclose how much.

According to the sentencing memorandum, Kamra, a Sikh Indian, came to Philadelphia at age 17 to attend college at Duquesne University. He subsequently enrolled in Drexel University where he studied business and marketing, graduating in September 2019 with a 3.95 grade point average.

According to Linked in, Anmol Singh Kamra is an "entrepreneur, marketer, investor, financier, advisor, philanthropist and public speaker with diverse professional experiences and a number of projects under his belt. His professional experience includes a track-record of working with diverse companies and projects in the fields of entrepreneurship and marketing."

In her sentencing memorandum, Lin described her client, 27, a first time offender facing 20 years in jail, as a "law-abiding person who is the complete opposite of the greedy, master-mind drug dealer that the government portrays him to be."

"Rather Mr. Kamra is a motivated student, a caring neighbor, a giving friend, and a loving family-member," she wrote.

To the people who know him best, Lin wrote, Kamra, who spent the past three years wearing an ankle monitor under house arrest, is "an honest person who has integrity."

In the sentencing memorandum, Lin described the strain her client's been under for the past five years:

"For Mr. Kamra and his family, this prosecution started in April 2016 when law enforcement executed its search warrant," Lin wrote. That was the year before Kamra made his campaign video with Krasner.

"Since that time, nearly five years ago, they [Kamra and his family] have been unable to sleep properly and have poured resources into Mr. Kamra’s defense," Lin wrote. "He has been unable to get his new business off the ground and he has paused any plans to get a doctorate."

In a March 9, 2021 ruling denying a motion for a new trial, U.S. District Court Judge R. Barclay Surrick didn't put much stock in Kamra's protestations of innocence.

"Defendant portrayed that he was unaware that the oxycodone scripts were fraudulent; that he believed Fisher had treated the patients named in the scripts; that he is a hard-working, law-abiding, pharmacy employee who was simply doing his job," the judge wrote.

"And that part of his job was to defer to medically trained professionals such as Fisher regarding decisions about medications and filling of prescriptions," the judge wrote.

But after Dr. Fisher decided to plead guilty and cooperate with the government, he secretly recorded on video two meetings that took place in March 2016 between himself, Kamra and Brown.

"The purpose of the meetings was for Fisher to write prescriptions for pills that defendant had already sold to Brown," the judge wrote. During the first meeting, Kamra and Brown were seen on video telling Dr. Fisher "what names and dates to put on Oxycodone scripts," the judge wrote.

"Fisher asks whether the scripts are for pills already dispensed and Defendant responds, “yeah," the judge wrote. At a second meeting, Kamra, Brown, and Dr. Fisher "again discuss backdating prescriptions to create a paper file for Oxycodone pills that defendant already sold to Brown," the judge wrote.

On the second video, Kamra "is heard telling Fisher what names and dates to write on scripts," the judge wrote. "According to Brown, when Defendant sold him oxycodone pills, he placed all the pills in one unlabeled bottle. That way, if Brown was ever caught, the pills could not be traced back to Campus Pharmacy."

At trial, a financial analyst testified on behalf of the government that Kamra deposited approximately $275,000 of cash into his various bank accounts from January 1, 2013 through April 6, 2017," the judge wrote. "This was in addition to the salary he received from Campus Pharmacy by way of direct deposit."

On the witness stand, Kamra, testifying in his own defense, claimed that the cash he deposited derived not from the pill mill, but from his family, who brought him cash whenever they came to visit.

But according to the judge, Kamra's explanation of where the cash came from "simply doesn't add up."

According to the evidence produced at trial, Kamra got visits in Philadelphia from family members in 2013, 2014, and 2015, who gave him a total of $27,000.

Kamra also visited India in 2011, 2013, and 2015, and brought back a total of between $21,000 and $24,000.

"Adding all these cash payments together does not account for even half of the amount of cash deposits that were made by defendant into his bank accounts during the course of the conspiracy," the judge wrote.

On March 12th of this year, Kamra was sentenced to 18 months in jail followed by three years of supervised release.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

District Attorney Larry Krasner, the top law enforcement official in the city, hasn't paid his taxes.

According to Krasner's statement of financial interest filed with the city in 2018, the D.A. has a 40% ownership stake in Tiger Building LP, which owns the former Princeton Club located at 1221-23 Locust Street.

The historic landmark building has an assessed value of $3.8 million. It also has a current tax bill of $53,168.60 that was due March 31st, but hasn't been paid.

According to city property records posted online, as of April 23rd, the Tiger Building LLP owes $53,966 in property taxes plus interest. Neither Krasner nor Jane Roh, his official spokesperson, however, responded to a request for comment.

Another mystery: The Philadelphia Inquirer knows that Larry Krasner is a tax deadbeat, but with the progressive D.A. facing a heated primary election on May 18th, the newspaper has so far declined to print the news about the deadbeat D.A.'s overdue tax bill.

Why? Nobody from the newspaper is talking, but as Big Trial has previously reported, it appears to be just the latest example of Inky being in the tank for Larry Krasner.

Back in 2016, the year before Krasner ran for D.A., the owners of 1221 Locust had an unpaid tax bill of $130,809 in use and occupancy taxes owed the Philadelphia School District. That bill included $71,992 in taxes, a $24,900 fine, and $33,916 for a combined interest and penalty.

In 2016, the building's owners negotiated that debt down to $89,0000 and entered into a payment plan with the city to pay off that debt.

On April 22nd, a tipster wrote to Chris Brennan, the Inquirer political columnist who writes the paper's "Clout" column, about the D.A.'s unpaid taxes.

"I assume your Clout column is tomorrow," the tipster wrote. "If you don't write about this, I am not sure you can claim you are covering the DA's race."

"Krasner still owes tens of thousands from his original tax lien," the tipster wrote. "And now he has not paid his taxes that were due on 3/31/21."

"We reported in 2018 that he is in a payment plan for these back taxes," Brennan wrote back the next day. "Looks like he [Krasner] has paid off $35,000 of an $89,000 bill since then."

That prompted the tipster to give the reporter a lecture about math.

"Respectfully, I don't think that is what that means," the tipster wrote back the same day, April 22nd. "The property tax rate is 1.3998% and the assessed value of the property is $3,798,300."

"When you do the math, that is a tax bill for 2021 totaling $53,168.60," the tipster wrote. "That is the exact number reported on the website.

"The total on the screenshot is his 2021 tax bill of $53,966.13 which is $53,168.60 + $797.53 in accrued interest," the tipster wrote. "He has accrued interest because he is delinquent. The current records (and the screenshots) don't appear to have anything to do with his prior settlement agreement with the City."

The screenshot about the unpaid taxes "either refers to his prior payment plan from the lawsuit filed by the city, but more likely means that he [Krasner] has entered into a payment plan for his new delinquent taxes," the tipster wrote "If so, this is a major story."

"Obviously, one phone call to the City will confirm this, or prove otherwise."

The reporter recognized that this might be news.

"I agree it's worth looking into," Brennan wrote back.

But then things went downhill between the political columnist and his source.

"I assume you have gotten a response by this point from one of your vast contacts in city government to confirm the tax delinquency," the tipster wrote back on April 26th, before launching into another lecture, this time about journalism ethics.

"Is the Inquirer going to let voters know that the chief law enforcement officer in the City is committing tax evasion and theft?" the tipster wrote. "The intentional failure to pay taxes is a one type of theft. Many people have gone to jail for not paying taxes."

The tipster was not through lecturing the reporter.

"At a minimum, the major newspaper in Philadelphia should be all over this and putting it on the front page," the tipster wrote. "Are the voters not at least owed this much from the press? Especially in light of Krasner running on a platform of directing tax dollars away from criminal justice and giving it to the schools. Tax deadbeats who fail to pay real estate and U+O taxes are a huge part of the School District's funding problems."

"I am waiting on a response from the city," the reporter wrote back on Monday, the 26th, but he had clearly tired of being lectured.

"Your snotty tone, sent from behind a veil of anonymity, will not speed that response," the reporter wrote. "But have at it if it makes you feel better."

Big Trial has also reached out to the city seeking clarification of the D.A.'s tax situation.

A spokesman for the city's Revenue Department, clearly recognizing a political hot potato, referred comment to the mayor's press office.

"The Real Estate Tax account for 1221 Locust Street is currently in a payment agreement, and is considered in compliance," a spokesperson from the mayor's press office wrote back. "The balance shown online on the City’s Real Estate Tax Balance website is accurate through the date indicated."

Big Trial attempted to follow up by asking if the payment agreement between the owners of 1221 Locust Street was related to the unpaid tax balance due on March 31st.

Big Trial also asked whether the owners of the Tiger Building had paid off their prior balance for delinquent taxes, but the mayor's press office did not respond to either question.

According to the city website, however, an "active payment agreement plan" is "in effect" for 2021. Now the question becomes who in the Kenney administration gave the incumbent D.A. a deal so he wouldn't have to pay this year's taxes?

A spokesperson for the mayor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sadly, this isn't the only negative story about Krasner that political columnist Brennan has not been interested in.

Earlier this month, the same tipster sent Brennan a rare copy of the 2017 official Krasner For D.A. campaign video, "What Larry Stands For," that starred Krasner and Anmol Singh Kamra of the Philadelphia Sikh Society.

The reason why the official 45-second campaign video is no longer available on the Internet -- two years after it was made, Kamra was convicted in U.S. District Court of conspiring to distribute more than 82,000 Oxycodone pills to addicts.

The campaign video may be gone but Krasner has yet to return a total of $8,000 in contributions that he received in 2017 from Kamra, as well as Kamra's boss, who ran the pharmacy that the feds said was a pill mill.

Why didn't the Inquirer cover this story? Brennan, who did not respond to a Big Trial request for comment, seemed interested at first.

"Feel free to send me any information you would like me to review," Brennan wrote the tipster on April 2nd.

A week later, on April 9th, the tipster wrote back, noting that Brennan had shown no interest in the pill mill story, but was all over a story about a police PAC apologizing for "tactless" campaign adds.

"Another Protect the Police PAC story? You certainly are a one trick pony," the tipster wrote. "Are you using the information on Kamra?"

"Protect Our Police PAC made themselves a political player in this race," Brennan wrote back later that same day. "Both candidates in the primary are talking about them. That equals news, even if you don’t care for it."

By Ralph Cipriano

for BigTrial.net

It was like watching a game of pin the tail on the donkey.

For 12 minutes yesterday morning, Fox 29 Good Day hosts Mike Jerrick and Alex Holley tried in vain to pin down District Attorney Larry Krasner on his culpability for the city's raging gun violence.

It's the big issue, actually it's the only issue on May 18th, when the city's registered Democrats go to the polls to elect a candidate in the Democratic primary for District Attorney. And in Philadelphia, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 7 to 1, the May 18th primary is the only election that matters.

But during the Fox 29 interview, D.A. Larry Krasner did some tap-dancing right out of vaudeville in his attempt to evade all responsibility for the blood in the streets.

Krasner did it by playing with his cat on camera, citing bogus statistics, and launching into diversionary political attacks on Donald Trump, the FOP, the Proud Boys, and Carlos Vega, his opponent in the Democrat primary. Basically, Krasner pulled every stunt he could think of to try and avoid accountability for the failures of his office over the past four years.

But it didn't work. When it comes to the city's record gun violence, the D.A.'s own crime statistics posted on his official office website show that Larry Krasner owns a record of futility and incompetence that should incite the voters to throw him out of office.

Affable host Jerrick kicked off yesterday's interview by running down the previous day's body count.

"Another violent night in Philadelphia," Jerrick said. "I'm sure you heard all about it. We had, let's see, eight different locations, nine people hit by bullets, two of them killed, this over a six hour period."

"I would think on May the 18th, that's gonna be the number one issue, why we would pull a lever for either you or Carlos Vega," Jerrick said, before launching a softball, by asking whether it was "unfair to blame a district attorney for an uptick in gun violence."

Right on cue, Krasner started tap-dancing.

"I think it's important that we all do all we can," Krasner began, before lamenting that "It's absolutely heartbreaking the number of kids we see shot."

"It's a very painful situation for everyone," Krasner stated. Next, Krasner claimed that he was always showing up at crime scenes around the city, with his three bodyguards in tow, in addition to holding hospital vigils at the bedsides of gunshot victims.

Every day, Krasner implied, he's wringing his blood-stained hands and crying crocodile tears over the gun violence that he's responsible for.

Next, it was time to trot out some bogus statistics. Krasner claimed that before the Covid pandemic hit, his office had an "85 percent conviction rate for shootings." Then he tried to blame Philadelphia's gun violence on larger societal forces.

"What's happening here is happening all over the country," Krasner said. In big cities, Krasner claimed, the murder rate "went up on average 40% and that is exactly the increase we have in Philadelphia."

But his numbers were way off, and the TV hosts called him on it.

"We're on a pace for 600 murders," Jerrick reminded Krasner.

"It's pretty terrible" what's happening in Philadelphia, Krasner admitted, before saying, "What we have to do is try to do better."

Yeah right.

Krasner then trotted out another bogus statistic, claiming that over "the last six weeks," his office, thanks to a new collaboration with Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, has had a "90% rate of gun violence cases being held over for trial."

Congratulations, Larry. If only your incompetent prosecutors could win some of those trials.

Jerrick brought Krasner back to earth by saying that when the voters go to the polls on May 18th, instead of thinking about those positive developments from Krasner's new collaboration with the police commissioner over the last "five or six weeks," they'll be thinking about Krasner's dismal record of crimefighting over the past four years.

Holley trotted out a Philadelphia Inquirer study that showed that during Krasner's time in office, gun arrests by the cops have nearly tripled while on Krasner's watch, the conviction rate for gun crimes has dropped from 63% to 49%.

Then Fox 29 rolled video of Vega on Good Day the previous week, when he ripped Krasner for "why he is dropping the charges on so many gun cases."

That gave Krasner the opportunity to dodge the question, and instead launch into a rambling attack on Vega, and the FOP, which is supporting Vega.

"Carlos Vega has claimed that I don't hire people of color," Krasner said, before aiming another broadside at Vega for his role as a last-minute substitute prosecutor in a 28-year-old murder case that matters only to Krasner and his band of social justice groupies.

"Carlos Vega and the truth are not friends," Krasner declared. Vega "will say anything to win," Krasner continued. "He did it in the courtroom, he'll do it in an election."

I'm no psychiatrist, but I think what happens when Krasner sees Vega and starts talking about a lying, unscrupulous politician who'll say anything to get elected, I think that's called projecting.

Then, rather than address his record on prosecuting gun violence, Krasner proceeded to attack the head of the FOP for supporting Donald Trump, for calling Black Lives Matter "a pack of rabid animals," for allegedly having beers with the Proud Boys, and for registering Republicans as Democrats, so they can vote for Vega.

It was quite a performance, but Vega doesn't have to make up any statistics when he goes after Krasner.

First, there's the city's record murder rate.

Since 2017, the year Krasner got elected, the annual murder rate in Philadelphia has jumped from 315 to 499 last year, a 58% increase. Those 499 murders last year amounted to the the highest total in 30 years, since the height of the crack cocaine epidemic.

This year, with 163 murders as of April 28th, the murder rate is up another 31% over last year, putting the city on pace for an all-time record rate of 653 murders.

When Vega said Krasner has to take responsibility for dropping the charges in so many gun cases, he was citing crime statistics published on the district attorney's own official office website.

Those numbers show that this year under Krasner, the D.A.'s office, staffed by inexperienced and incompetent prosecutors, has compiled another pathetic record of futility.

According to the D.A'.s own crime statistics, as of March 31st, out of 48 shooting cases that went to court, a total of 22 cases, or 46%, were either withdrawn, dismissed or tried to a verdict of not guilty. Meanwhile, only 3 of those 48 shooting cases, or 6.2%, resulted in a guilty verdict.

Of 85 gunpoint robbery cases that went to court this year, 63, or 74%, were either dismissed, withdrawn or tried to a verdict of not guilty. And only two cases, or 2.3% resulted in a guilty verdict.

Of 131 cases of aggravated assault with a gun that went to court this year, 113 cases, or 86%, were either dismissed, withdrawn or tried to a verdict of not guilty. Meanwhile, only one case resulted in a guilty verdict.

And finally, out of 233 gun possession cases, 152 cases, or 65%, were either dismissed, withdrawn or tried to a verdict of not guilty. Only five cases, or 2.1%, resulted in a guilty verdict.

The total numbers: As of March 31st, out of 497 gun crime cases that went to court this year, 350 cases, or 70%, were either dismissed, withdrawn or tried to a verdict of not guilty. And only 11 cases, or 2.2% resulted in a guilty verdict.

Of course, the 70% of the defendants who were arrested by the cops for gun crimes, but emancipated by the ineptitude of the D.A.'s office, were then free to go out and commit more gun crimes.

These are the numbers from the D.A.'s own website. And this is the record of incompetence that Larry Krasner is stuck with.

And no amount of tap-dancing that he does on TV, or playing with his cat, is going to change that.

Memo to the voters: On May 18th, go the polls and hold Larry Krasner responsible for the incompetence of the D.A.'s office that he has led for the past four years.

On May 18th, fire Larry Krasner.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

On June 16, 2020, Talia Santania, a self-proclaimed "stripper, model & e-slut," went on her Twitter account and publicly accused her ex-boyfriend, Assistant District Attorney Joseph Torda, of assault, breaking and entering, and burglary.

"Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Jospeh Torda just assaulted me in my own apartment building and stole my external hard drive," she tweeted at 1:07 p.m. on June 16, 2020.

In her tweet, Santania tagged Torda's boss, District Attorney Larry Krasner. But she never heard back from the progressive D.A.

A day after the alleged burglary happened, June 17, 2020, Satania tweeted, "I'm still pretty fucked up over what happened to me yesterday and I'm worried about would come next. I've never been attacked like that before, and for it to happen in my own home by someone I know is painful."

"If bystanders on the street hadn't seen him acting suspiciously outside my door in all black, force entry into my building once I opened the door and heard my screaming, I don't know what would have happened."

What was ADA Torda accused of stealing? Santania sells porn videos online. The external hard drive that she claimed was stolen, according to sources, contained porn films that Torda allegedly shot with Satania.

On July 22, 2020, Satania publicly aired a new grievance against her former boyfriend.

"Um so my ex, the Philly ADA who attempted to rob me, is now doxxing me on Twitter," she wrote.

The stripper and the prosecutor had an off-again on-again romantic relationship that ran from October 2019 until January of 2020, when they split up.

During that relationship, sources say, the couple did marijuana and cocaine together, in addition to making porn films.

They got back together again but Santania broke up with Torda, and then the alleged burglary happened.

Santania, 26, however, declined to be interviewed. Instead, Freddy Godoy, her lawyer released a statement that said: "She has had time to reflect, and recover from her emotional and physical injuries. She wants to put this all behind her, and wishes Mr. Torda success."

Both Torda and his lawyer, Walter McHugh, did not respond to phone calls or requests for comment. Neither did District Attorney Larry Krasner, nor his official spokesperson, Jane Roh.

Last year, the district attorney's office referred the alleged burglary involving ADA Torda to the state attorney general's office for investigation, because of a conflict of interest.

The D.A.'s office also referred a second case to the AG's office, where ADA Torda was charging Santania with alleged harassment.

Ultimately, the AG's office decided not to charge either Torda or Santania.

Today, a spokesman for the AG's office confirmed that back on Nov. 4, 2020, the AG declined to file criminal charges in the case of the alleged burglary; the AG's spokesperson confirmed that the AG's office also declined to prosecute Santania.

Torda's still employed at the D.A.'s office where he's worked since 2018, and presently earns a salary of $71,456.

On May 17, 2019, Torda, then a member of the D.A.'s juries unit, was commended online by the district attorney's office on medium.com's "Justice Wire" for obtaining a guilty verdict in a case involving a trio of home burglaries in the Grays Ferry section of the city where credit cards and three TV sets were stolen.

"All three complainants were very appreciative with the work ADA Torda put into the cases and all were pleased with the results," the D.A.'s press release stated. "One of the complainants, who is disabled, noted that she was so frightened after the burglary that she needed to move into a different house, and intends to deliver an impact statement at the sentencing hearing before the Hon. Glynnis Hill."

Torda, who is presently assigned to the D.A.'s insurance fraud unit, sources say, was never disciplined for the incident involving Satania.

Sadly, the investigation by the state attorney general's office into allegations that ADA Torda broke the law is not an isolated incident in Larry Krasner's D.A.'s office.

Indeed, over a four-month period from November 2020 to February of this year, the state attorney general's office acted as a clearing house for Krasner, by deciding not to bring criminal charges against a trio of Krasner's employees.

A month after the state attorney general's office cleared ADA Torda, on Dec. 28, 2020, the state attorney general's office cleared Dana Lynn Bazelon, 40, of Center City, of child endangerment. On her Facebook page Bazelon stated that she was a "proud Philadelphian" and "criminal justice reformer" who serves as a "policy advisor" to D.A. Larry Krasner.

On May 11, 2020, police arrested Bazelon after she allegedly left 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 a man who told them a child had been left alone in the back seat of a gray Ford Fusion.

The police made eye contact with the child, unlocked the car door through an open window and took the child into custody. The victim's mother, identified as ADA Bazelon, returned 34 minutes later with her six-year-old son.

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.

Police charged Bazelon with child endangerment. She was placed in custody and police transported Bazelon and her two children to the Special Victims Unit, where the four-year-old was reported in good condition.

But after the AG investigated the case, Bazelon got a pass.

"Following her arrest, Dana Bazelon successfully completed ARD conditions requested by the Commonwealth, including participating in parenting counseling and remaining arrest-free for six months," a spokesman for the attorney general's office said. "As a result, the Commonwealth withdrew the charges against her today."

The state attorney general's next investigation of a staffer in the Philadelphia district attorney's office involved an allegation of murder.

On Feb. 25, 2021, the state attorney general's office decided that DeVonte' Douglass, the D.A.'s gun violence coordinator, acted in self defense on Oct. 20, 2020 when he shot and killed Vernon Harris, a male prostitute.

Douglass met Harris on Instagram, and the two agreed to meet the morning of Oct. 20,2020 near the Mount Peace cemetery to have "a sexual encounter in exchange for money," police said, namely $500.

After Douglass's encounter with Harris, which took place in the back seat of a car, Douglass told police, Harris stood outside the vehicle and pointed a gun at Douglass, and demanded all his money.

Harris then placed his gun inside his waistband. But when Harris started reaching around the vehicle, Douglass told police that he feared that Harris was going to take out his gun and shoot him. So Douglass drew his gun and shot Harris twice in the chest, killing him. Then he ran across Lehigh Avenue, pleading for someone to call police.

Police recovered a 9 mm gun registered to Douglass. As a member of the District Attorney's Immediate Response Team, DeVonte' Douglass routinely visited crime scenes, hospitals, and the medical examiner's office when there was a homicide, to offer help to victims' families.

Douglass, wearing his DA's ID badge around his neck, was transported to the homicide unit. Police confiscated a Smith & Wesson .357 magnum that was still in Harris's waistband.

The case was turned over to the attorney general's office for investigation because the D.A.'s office had an obvious conflict of interest. And, after an investigation was conducted, for the third time in four months, the state attorney general's office gave an employee of Larry Krasner's D.A.'s office a pass on that murder rap.

“After a thorough investigation into the fatal shooting of Vernon Harris on October 20, 2020, the Office of Attorney General has determined Devonte’ Douglass acted in self defense when he fired his weapon and will not be charged with homicide," a spokesperson for the AG's office said.

However, the spokesperson said, "Mr. Douglass was arrested and charged for other crimes surrounding Mr. Harris’ death, including soliciting for prostitution and misleading investigators about the facts surrounding the fatal shooting.” Douglass was also charged with possession of an instrument of crime.

When he first took office in January of 2018 and he fired 31 veteran prosecutors, new D.A. Larry Krasner famously proclaimed, "The coach gets to pick the team." Then Krasner went out and subsequently recruited his own team, which, as it turned out, included a few bad apples.

Carlos Vega, a career prosecutor running for the Democratic nomination for D.A. against Krasner in the May 18th primary, said the actions of Krasner's employees such as ADA Torda demonstrates that there is a "complete lack of accountability" in the D.A.'s office.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

In the campaign for D.A., the gloves are off.

And the increasingly hostile and overblown rhetoric emanating from the camp of the increasingly desperate incumbent, Larry Krasner, may ultimately come with a price tag.

Carlos Vega, running for the Democratic nomination in the May 18th primary, yesterday filed notice of a libel and slander suit against D.A. Krasner's campaign committee, the Real Justice PAC of San Francisco PAC that is Krasner's biggest campaign contributor, and Shaun King, the PAC's co-founder.

The notice was filed in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court on the day that Krasner and Vega competed in their only televised debate on NBC 10. At the debate, Krasner, looking as jumpy as Rodney Dangerfield, repeatedly called Vega a liar after just about everything the challenger said. And when the cameras went off, Krasner yelled at Vega to "grow up" before storming out of the studio and refusing to talk to reporters.

Maybe it was yesterday's notice of the libel suit that the D.A. was served with that set him off. In a press release, The Beasley Firm, which represents Vega, stated, "In the last week, Shaun King, through his social media platforms, and in coordination with Real Justice PAC and the Krasner campaign, has targeted maliciously false and misleading rhetoric at Mr. Vega to defame him in an effort to dissuade Philadelphians from voting for the change this city needs."

King kicked off his online crusade by calling Vega a "super villain." And that was just the start of it.

"Almost every day Shaun King has published malicious and known falsehoods about me as the gasoline to direct his 4 million online followers to harass our supporters of color, my family, my children, and me," Vega said in the press release. "Shaun King has a history of these tactics."

"I've called on Larry Krasner to stop King’s incendiary lies, but he has not," Vega said. "So I have begun legal action against Larry Krasner's campaign, Shaun King, and Real Justice PAC. Voters deserve to know the truth. While my campaign continues to focus on ending the gun violence epidemic and rooting out the injustice in our system, Larry Krasner and Shaun King have resorted to actionable defamation, which has caused relentless online harassment and bullying."

Shaun King is co-founder of the Real Justice PAC which is Krasner's biggest campaign contributor. At the moment, King, Krasner and the Real Justice PAC are brazenly breaking the city's campaign finance laws. So maybe that's what emboldened them into thinking that in the last two weeks of this campaign, they can also get away with libel.

The city has a limit of $12,600 on annual donations from a PAC. But the Real Justice PAC last year lavished more than $100,000 on Krasner's reelection committee including $75,000 in cash, $29,450 in rent money, and in-kind contributions of $10,375 paid to Krasner’s campaign staffers.

According to its website, the Real Justice PAC was founded to "fix our broken criminal justice system" by electing "reform" D.A.s across the country. The PAC has served as a cash cow for Larry Krasner and his two political campaigns.

Since 2017, the Real Justice PAC has funneled more than $230,000 to Krasner, including $109,000 in cash, and $106,813 paid to Brandon Evans, the national political director at Real Justice who previously served as Jim Kenney's campaign manager, and is also Krasner’s campaign manager.

What complicates a cozy relationship is that when it comes to violating the city’s campaign finance laws, both Krasner and the Real Justice PAC are repeat offenders. Two years ago, the city’s Board of Ethics finalized an agreement that called for both the Real Justice PAC and Krasner's campaign committee to pay a total of $23,000 in fines and forfeitures for breaking city laws back in 2017, when Krasner first got elected D.A., with donations over and above the city's legal limits.

But while the money is rolling in from out of state contributors, Krasner has been feeling the heat for the city's out of control murder rate, which is directly attributable to Krasner's soft-on-crime policies. It's the reason the city's Democratic committee decided not to endorse Krasner for reelection.

Krasner is so radioactive because of the soaring murder rate that even our cowardly mayor, Jim Kenney, declined three times when asked if he was going to endorse Krasner for reelection.

The year Krasner was elected, 2017, the city had 315 murders. Last year, the city had 499 murders, the highest total in 30 years, which amounted to a 58% increase in murders over Krasner’s first three years in office.

And over the first 95 days of 2021, the murder rate as of yesterday is already at 177, a 35% increase over last year. At this rate, the city will set an all-time record of more than 670 murders.

"The Krasner campaign cannot defend Larry Krasner’s record over the last four years," Louis Tumolo, Vega's lawyer, wrote in an email.

"In recent weeks DA Krasner has become increasingly uncomfortable as Philadelphians fairly question his ability to reform the criminal justice system and keep our communities safe. Instead of addressing the historic epidemic of violence, DA Krasner and his out-of-town cohorts have resorted to baseless attacks on the character of Carlos Vega" who served for 35 years in the D.A.'s office, including 30 years as a homicide prosecutor.

"The truth is this: Larry Krasner does not care about Philadelphians; he has resorted to shameful tactics in his bid for reelection as he pursues his national political aspirations," Tumolo wrote.

"For example, Shaun King, co-founder of The Real Justice PAC with Krasner’s campaign manager on the payroll, wrote 'They (the police) know that Carlos will NEVER hold them accountable. In his 35 corrupt years in that office, he didn’t hold a single cop accountable.'"

"This is false and Shaun King, DA Krasner’s campaign, and The Real Justice PAC know it," Tumolo wrote. "Why do they ignore Mr. Vega’s successful prosecution of, for example, Officer Ryan Shiver or homicide detective Ronald Dove? Is it because those prosecutions defeat their false narrative?"

At yesterday's debate, Vega set Krasner off by pointing out that he was the only lawyer on the debate stage who had ever successfully prosecuted a police officer. Even though D.A. Krasner has gone after some 50 Philly cops, he's never won a conviction.

"King also claims that Mr. Vega “framed and convicted” Anthony Wright," Tumolo wrote. "Why does Mr. King withhold from his readers that Mr. Vega was never involved in the conviction of Anthony Wright? Even The Innocence Project has acknowledged: (1) Mr. Vega did not convict Anthony Wright at his 1993; and (2) it was the decision of elected District Attorney Seth Williams, not Mr. Vega, in 2016 to retry Anthony Wright for murder."

"These writings are shameful and maliciously false at their core," Tumolo wrote. "We have filed this lawsuit to expose the truth, not hide from it. Philadelphians deserve an honest election. Larry Krasner for DA, Shaun King, and The Real Justice PAC are on notice that the palpably false information they continue to feed voters will not be tolerated."

King, who is also a Black Lives Matter activist, has been dubbed "Talcum X" by critics who questioned his claimed status as supposedly being biracial, because both of King's biological parents are white.

That led the resourceful King to claim that his mother had an affair with a black man who was his real father.

On April 26th, Vega sent out a fundraising email that objected to King's rhetoric.

"Apparently serving victims of crime and securing justice as a steadfast public servant for 35 years means I am a "real life super villain" -- or that's according to out-of-state 'activist' Shaun King, who has spent his career profiting off of the trauma of Black and brown people," Vega wrote.

"Shaun King, co-founder of the California based Real Justice PAC, who is the main financial backer of Krasner, actively targeted, harassed, bullied, and threatened my supporters," Vega wrote. "Clearly, Larry Krasner and Shaun King are two peas in a pod -- two fake progressives who lie with impunity on the backs of marginalized people."

On his part, King went online to return the fire, and ratchet up the rhetoric.

"The most evil man in Philly just pulled a Donald Trump on me and Larry Krasner," King wrote. "He just filed a notice that he plans to sue us."

"It’s garbage," King wrote. "Hot garbage. And it’s coming from a man that is so afraid of his own shadow that when you tell him about himself he panics and sues you because the truth about his evil record is so ugly that he can hardly stand to have it said out loud. I don’t know how this guy lives with himself."

"This is what happens when a monster of a man, Carlos Vega, who worked in the single most corrupt division of the single most corrupt DA’s office in the nation for 35 years, without any accountability, without any media scrutiny, without anybody ever saying out loud how horrible he is, finally has somebody punch back for a change," King wrote.

"So yeah, I’m standing by every single word I said about you, Carlos," King concluded. "You are a monster."

Krasner and Vega are already adversaries in an age discrimination lawsuit Vega filed against Krasner in U.S. District Court, after the D.A. fired Vega in January 2018, during his first day on the job, along with 30 other seasoned prosecutors.

Now those two candidates for the Democratic nomination for D.A., Krasner and Vega, are on opposite sides of a libel suit.

See you in court, Mr. Krasner. Please bring along your little attack dog, Shaun, who may need a muzzle.

And don't forget your checkbook.

By Ralph Cipriano

for BigTrial.net

On Twitter, Councilwoman Helen Gym has been outspoken about how the office of District Attorney Larry Krasner is supposedly "defined by the discretion, judgment, and decency of its occupant."

"We won't go back," Gym tweeted, adding, "Vote @Krasner4DA."

Gym, who has also been outspoken about her opposition to anti-Asian violence, however, has been silent for the past few days as BigTrial has been seeking comment from her about a recent local example of anti-Asian violence that D.A. Krasner's office declined to prosecute.

At 1:38 a.m. on April 28th, police reported that two Asian women, ages 46 and 51, were assaulted, beaten and robbed by a group of juveniles in the vicinity of the 100 block of N. 10th Street. The first victim, age 46, was pushed to the ground and punched in the head. The second victim, age 51, was punched in the left ear.

The robbers took the two women's bags and escaped on foot. They made off with Pennsylvania ID cards, credit cards, a brand new iPhone 10, and a total of $7,000 in cash.

Police called to the scene of 10th and Cherry by reports of a robbery in progress apprehended two black males -- Maurice Pollard, 18, and Zahkeir Norman, 14, both of West Philadelphia.

The cops found Pollard hiding underneath a car in the 700 block of Cherry. They subsequently chased down Norman. After the two suspects were in custody, the two female Asian victims made positive identifications, saying they were sure that Pollard and Norman were among the juveniles who were there when they were beaten and robbed. But the two victims told police they couldn't be sure who hit them.

Police arrested Norman and Polland and charged them with aggravated assault, robbery, criminal conspiracy, two counts of theft, simple assault, and reckless endangerment. But when the cops filed their paperwork with the D.A.'s office, Larry Krasner's charging unit declined to prosecute the case. Both suspects were subsequently released.

The D.A.'s office has a controversial policy of not trusting so-called "cross racial identifications." In other words, the Philly D.A.'s office under Krasner doesn't trust a white person, or an Asian person, to be able to reliably identify a black suspect in a crime.

However, a cop source says that wasn't the problem with this particular decision by the D.A.'s office to decline to prosecute this case. The cop source said that problem No. 1 with the case was that no evidence was recovered, such as any of the stolen property and money.

Problem No. 2 was that the two female Asian victims couldn't positively identify either suspect as the perps who assaulted them. But, the cop source said, the two suspects could have been held on conspiracy charges, and then the cops could have pressed the suspects to give up their accomplices.

The last thing that should have been done, the cop source said, is for the D.A.'s office to turn both suspects loose. But that's exactly what happened.

"It's selective prosecution for certain races," the cop source said. "Obviously, crimes against Asians don't matter."

Of course, as is their usual policy, D.A. Krasner and Jane Roh, his spokesperson who never speaks, did not respond to a request for comment. As they've been doing for the past 21 months.

The first victim was taken to Jefferson Hospital to be treated for a bloody mouth and lips, and scratches to her hands and knees. The second victim complained of head and neck pain.

On Monday, a staff member of Councilwoman Gym's office said she had referred a request for comment to the councilwoman's spokesperson, who never spoke.

This morning, I sent out a couple of tweets in an attempt to get Gym to explain her silence, without success.

"Hey Helen," I wrote, while the councilwoman was busy extolling the virtues of our incumbent D.A., "Larry Krasner's charging unit just turned down for prosecution a case involving two Asian women who were beaten and robbed of $7,00 and an iPhone. Even though the two women positively ID'd two of their attackers."

"Your aides have all the details. Yet you remain silent. Please explain."

When I called the councilwoman's office today, I was referred to Greg Windle, a spokesperson for Gym. But in an automatic email reply, Windle said he was recovering from his second Covid vaccination, so he referred press inquiries to Jennifer Kates, who could not be reached for comment.

Councilwoman Gym, however, has been outspoken on the anti-Asian violence recently perpetrated in Atlanta, when a gunman shot and killed six Asian women.

“This mass shooting targeting Asian women is the latest escalation in the nation’s history of systemic racism and violence against Asian immigrants, fostered by a culture of white supremacy and misogyny that has long devalued the lives of immigrants, black women and women of color," Gym said in a statement released last month.

"I grieve for the victims, for their families, and for countless others who have suffered discrimination and brutality," Gym said. "I stand united with the Asian American Pacific Islander community as we demand justice for the victims, assistance for their families, remembrance for those lost to us long ago, and systemic change to protect women and immigrants for generations to come.”

But when it came time to defend a couple of Asian women who were the victim of a local attack, Gym said nothing.

Maybe Gym's silence is because of her outspoken support for D.A. Krasner, who's seeking reelection at Tuesday's Democratic primary.

Krasner's biggest political problem is the murder rate, which under his watch has jumped from 315 in 2017, the year he was elected, to 499 murders last year, a 58% increase, and the highest death toll in 30 years, since the height of the crack cocaine epidemic.

This year, with 188 murders so far, a 37% increase over last year, the city is on pace to set a record of 683 murders.

But on Twitter, Councilwoman Gym has been outspoken in her praise of Krasner, for exonerating 20 black men whom Krasner said were falsely convicted.

Gym has also stated that Krasner's opponents, Democrat Carlos Vega and Republican Chuck Peruto, "are absolutely unfit for the job of district attorney."

Postscript: While Gym remains silent, a cop source is saying that on Friday, the D.A.'s charging unit, in a cover-your-ass move, issued an arrest warrant for Pollard in connection with the burglary of the two Asian women.

Pollard, the source said, is also a suspect in a second case involving a car stolen from a victim who also happened to be Asian.

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Councilwoman Helen Gym may still be silent. But for the incompetent D.A.'s office under Larry Krasner, it was time to cover your ass.

The robbers made off with Pennsylvania ID cards, credit cards, a brand new iPhone 10, and a total of $7,000 in cash. Police called to the scene of a robbery in progress at 10th and Cherry apprehended two black males -- Maurice Pollard, 18, and Zahkeir Norman, 14, both of West Philadelphia.

The two suspects were arrested by the police after they were positively identified by the victims as among the suspects who were there when they beaten and robbed. But when the incompetent D.A.'s office's charging unit declined to prosecute the case, both suspects were subsequently released.

Today, after the D.A.'s office reversed itself and issued arrest warrants for both Pollard and Norman, the police detective bureau in the 6th District issued a "patrol alert" city wide to more than 6,000 cops, saying that both suspects were wanted for the April 28th robbery, theft and related offenses.

"Use caution," the patrol alert advised. "Subject considered armed and dangerous."

"Law enforcement sensitive," the alert advised. "Not for public distribution. Robbery warrant."

A police source said this is what happens when a cover-up is "brought to the light." He was referring to an earlier Big Trial report that noted that the D.A.'s office had declined to issue an arrest warrant for the two suspects, after they were positively identified by the two victims.

The police source described the D.A.'s reversal as a "100% cover-your-ass move."

"He realized that he fucked up," the cop source said about D.A. Krasner, who on Tuesday is running for reelection in the Democratic primary.

Meanwhile, Councilwoman Helen Gym, a noted crusader against anti-Asian violence when it happens in Atlanta, stayed silent for a third straight day after Big Trial attempted to solicit comment on the D.A.'s decision to free the two suspects accused of local anti-Asian violence

Gym and two different spokespersons in her office did not respond to requests for comment. In her defense, the councilwoman has been busy on Twitter extolling the virtues of Larry Krasner.

Gym tweeted how the office of District Attorney Krasner is supposedly "defined by the discretion, judgment, and decency of its occupant."

Apparently, she cares more about Krasner being reelected than the welfare of her own people.

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