for BigTrial.net
Robert Listenbee, Larry Krasner's First Assistant District Attorney for the past past five years, is legally required by the City Charter to live in Philadelphia.
But for the past 25 years, Listenbee and his wife, Sabrina, have lived in a single-family, two-bedroom home in Glenside that the couple bought in 1997.
To get around the residency requirement, Listenbee, 74, who, as Krasner's top supervisor, is paid $187,171, has used as his address a one-bedroom apartment that he rents at 7720 Stenton Avenue in East Mount Airy where his daughter lives.
Listenbee is registered to vote in East Mount Airy. So when he voted for Joe Biden for president in November 2020, and for his boss in the election for D.A. last November, as confirmed by the Board of Elections, Listenbee very likely committed voter fraud.
The first district attorney's flouting of the residency requirement is not exactly a big secret. A colleague said that Listenbee openly admitted to him that he doesn't live in Philadelphia. Earlier this month, Listenbee's wife posted photos on Facebook that showed she and her husband biking near their home in Glenside, as well as a photo of a man removing a dead snake from their suburban yard.
Listenbee, however, did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did his boss, Stonewall Larry Krasner, who's been ignoring questions from this blog for the past three years.
Listenbee is the third high-ranking supervisor in the D.A.'s office who earn a total of more than $500,000 annually to be publicly outed by Big Trial in the past five weeks for violating the City Charter's residency requirement.
The first was Nancy Winkelman, who's paid $176,171 as the supervisor of the D.A.'s law division. This self-proclaimed woman of integrity twice claimed on campaign finance reports last year that she lived in a rundown rental property with a coffin in front at 650 S. 51st Street in West Philadelphia. But where she really lives is in a house on a scenic lake in rural Medford Lakes, N.J. where she's also registered to vote.
The third high-ranking carpetbagger in Krasner's office to be outed by Big Trial was the Rev. Gregory Holston, the D.A.'s senior advisor on advocacy and policy who is paid $140,000. Holston, a disbarred lawyer, still lives in Sicklerville, N.J. in the house that he bought back in 2003, where he's also registered to vote.
Of the trio of carpetbaggers in the D.A.'s office, only Listenbee is registered to vote at an address where he doesn't live.
On his Statement of Financial Interests filed with the city and state, Listenbee listed as an address Three South Penn Square, the office of the district attorney.
When he donated $100 to Joe Biden's presidential campaign in November 2020, Listenbee listed on a campaign finance report his Glenside address. And twice in 2021, when he made two donations of $1,000 each to Larry Krasner's reelection campaign, Listenbee again listed on two campaign finance reports his Glenside address.
But during a court deposition last year, Listenbee gave as his address 7720 C Stenton Avenue,
Apt. 304, Philadelphia, PA 19118.
On the weekend of April 24, 2021, a private investigator stopped by Listenbee's apartment on Stenton Avenue, to see who lived there.
Sarah Listenbee, Listenbee’s daughter, answered the door. She said that she and boyfriend lived at the apartment. When asked about her father, she stated that Robert Listenbee did not live there. Then, she changed that story to say that her father did live there, but that he had just gone to the store.
Listenbee was the former administrator of the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. His status as a former Barack Obama appointee is something that his boss, Larry Krasner, likes to brag about.
At a July 25th press conference, Krasner was asked a question about a straw purchaser who had allegedly bought guns for juveniles.
Before he would divulge any information about the juvenile defendants, however, Krasner told reporters that he'd "better make sure I'm not on the wrong side of this." Then, Krasner left the podium to confer privately with Listenbee, who was standing behind the D.A.
The brief conference ended with Listenbee shaking his head.
"I cannot answer that based on the juvenile act at this time," Krasner said when he returned to the podium. "And I'm only talking to the guy who ran juvenile justice for Barack Obama, so he's got a little bit of an idea what it says. You may have seen him shaking his head."
As a federal appointee, however, Listenbee wasn't universally acclaimed.
On Jan. 26, 2015, Marilyn Moses, president of Local 2830 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the union representing the federal employees who worked for Listenbee, openly called for his resignation.
In an interview with a website called the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, Moses said that under Listenbee, the agency had “spiraled out of control” and that staff morale had plummeted.
“I just don’t see how Mr. Listenbee can legitimately lead [the agency] forward through the crisis that his employees are currently facing,” Moses said. Union members had "high hopes" for Listenbee when he took over, Moses said, but she added, “Now they have been bitterly disappointed.”
“There’s a total disconnect in his communications style with employees,” Moses said.
Listenbee came to the federal agency with a reputation as a juvenile justice reformer. In 2011, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation honored him with a Champion for Change award for his leadership in reforming the juvenile justice system in Pennsylvania.
Before taking over the federal juvenile justice agency, Listenbee served for 27 years as a public defender in Philadelphia, including 16 years as chief of the public defender's juvenile unit.
But no matter what job he had, Listenbee and his wife continued to maintain their home in Glenside.
On July 31st, Listenbee's wife posted on Facebook a photo of her and her husband riding their bikes near their Glenside home.
On Aug. 5th, Sabrina Listenbee posted another photo on Facebook of a young man whom she said was kind enough to remove a dead garter snake from her suburban yard, when she was too "chicken" to do it.
Since Listenbee is the third high-ranking supervisor at the top of the office pay scale to be outed for living outside the city, it's reasonable to ask whether the boss gave his supervisors a pass on the residency requirement. But the boss ain't talking.
When asked specifically about that issue, Krasner did not respond to a request for comment.
Since Big Trial outed Winkelman, some young assistant district attorneys have expressed anger and resentment about having to live in Philadelphia while top supervisors in Krasner's office can flout the residency requirement.
It's an obvious double standard, but apparently Krasner the alleged reformer of the criminal justice system just doesn't care about glaring inequalities and rank favoritism in his own office.
And over at City Hall, other progressive elected officials are afraid to criticize the progressive D.A. who doesn't think his staff has to follow the law.
Regarding the flouting of the residency requirement in the D.A.'s office under Krasner, both a spokesperson for the mayor's office and a spokesperson for the city controller did not respond to requests for comment.
Another top Krasner supervisor pictured in the photo above from last year's PBS series Philly D.A. is Patricia Cummings, the former head of Krasner's Conviction Integrity Unit who quietly resigned last August.
According to several sources, during the pandemic, when staffers could work from home, Cummings, who grew up in El Paso, returned to her native Texas to live there for a couple of years while she was still on the payroll of the Philadelphia District Attorney's office. That's how loose the residency requirement is in the D.A.'s office under Larry Krasner.
In an email this past Sunday, Maurice Possley, a spokesperson for the National Registry, wrote back: "Ralph, I got your email. I also see that you emailed through the Registry portal. Everyone at the Registry, including Patricia, sees those emails. So she is aware."
She may be aware, but for five straight days now, Cummings has refused to talk.
Like other high-ranking supervisors in Krasner's office, when it comes to the residency requirement, apparently it's a matter handled with a wink and a nod.
Because when you're a high-paid supervisor working for Larry Krasner, apparently he's too busy leading the revolution to reform the criminal justice system in Philadelphia to worry about what the city charter has to say.
Historically, at City Hall, if you were caught living outside of the city it was a fireable offense.
But over at the D.A.'s office, where Larry Krasner picks and chooses which laws he cares to enforce, Winkleman, Holston and Listenbee continue to get a pass on living outside the city.